I’ve known the game Mount & Blade: Warband since my childhood. I remember watching my brother playing the game, taking part in the construction of vast empires, and fighting large battles with lots of screaming warriors. When I first played, I found the game incredibly difficult, and simply resorted to cheating. I often triggered a bug through my excessive trickery, where I’d reach an absurdly high level, and have to fight an insane amount of bandits due to the number of opponents scaling with the player’s level. This would ultimately crash the game, as our poor, aging Windows XP computer could only do so much.
As I got a bit older, I learned to play properly, and started enjoying it in a way I have not done before. It was clean, honest, sometimes a little bit frustrating but very fun. Eventually however the native game, while still amazing in its own right, became a little too stale. I explored the Steam Workshop, and found quite a few mods, but neither really stuck with me. I essentially kept playing native with an addon which helped reduce the annoyances I’ve had with the game.
Recently my graphics card has encountered some issues, and for the foreseeable future, is out of service. This naturally meant that I could only really play games which aren’t that graphically intensive, which paved the way for launching Mount & Blade again.
Out of curiosity, I looked through the DLC that the game had, and found Viking Conquest: Reforged. The Steam reviews were mixed, but it was already on my account, so I booted it up quickly. I thought that I would just quickly check it out, while knowing nothing about what was to come.
As the main menu hit me with the track Viking Raid, I already felt like I was embarking on a large adventure. I took a while to take in all that I saw, and then I navigated through character creation, and an arguably clunky, but functional character creation screen. I noticed that there was a story mode, something I always kind of wanted in Mount & Blade, yet never had before. Do not get me wrong, I love the sandbox aspect of the game, but I also really would have enjoyed it if there was a story.
I found myself aboard a ship, talking to a lot of characters. And this is where I will stop talking about my playthrough. I do not want to spoil the plot for anyone. Sure, it isn’t exactly the deepest story, and Viking Conquest has been out since 2014, but I do not wish to rob any soul of the vast riches that this hidden gem offers.
Viking Conquest is set in the 9th century, and spans the British Isles, Denmark, and a bit of Norway and Frisia. The United Kingdom, and Ireland, the modern states which inhabit these islands have yet been far from being formed, and in their place are a dozen factions vying for power. Their largest threat however, are the constant attacks of the Norse warriors.
This is the setting that the player is thrust into. Points of interest dot the land. Roman ruins, and several unique locations to explore. There seem to be a fair lot of story, and related quests. The plot also branches depending on the choices that you take, which combines the narrative with sandbox. I sometimes found myself morally challenged by the questions of the game, which were uncomfortable at those moments, but I found them to be actually very interesting. There were a few jarring occasions, where the game makes a choice for you. For example, in one quest, you can choose between stealing an item of high value, or paying a price for it. I would have wanted to collect money for it, but as I did not have enough gold, the game only left me the choice to accept the quest to steal that item. Maybe I was being short-sighted, but I took it as granted then that I’m going to have to go against my morals.
The game features religion, and asks the player to pick one. Christianity and Paganism are the main options. Personally, while I am agnostic, I chose Christianity because it aligns with my background more than the alternative. There are monasteries and hofs across the map, which the player can recruit from, depending on their religion. It is also possible to convert, and change your religion inside throughout a playthrough.
The artwork was really nice. I found myself looking at the various parchments and books that make up the menus. These use warm colours, while the world itself is mostly cold, and grayish compared to the original Warband. I really liked this contrast between the menus, and the game. I think the graphics are really solid all round.
I really enjoyed the music in the game. Personally to me, the audible experience might even matter more than the visual aesthetics being presented. I listen to a lot of music from my favourite games, and I sometimes wonder if they are among my most liked precisely because of the music itself. Viking Conquest’s only issue in this is the length of the soundtrack. It is just shy of being about 30 minutes long, with some of the tracks being limited to specific scenarios, such as combat, or locations like the monasteries. What is there is great, it just unfortunately quite short. If you have music enabled, prepare to hear it repeat often.
Sea navigation and naval combat are the mechanics which significantly distinguish the game in my opinion. It was awesome to watch the sea wave moving, in what I believed to be a fairly static game. When approaching close by, the boats interlock in a way that makes it easy to cross from one to another. This is when melee combat starts. It is a little rough around the edges, but rather impressive considering the source material.
The game offers a lot of customizability, just in the settings, you can toggle a lot of various different things, such as certain additions and changes provided by the mod. Furthermore, in the game files you can also create additional sails, which will show up in the game to customize your ships with. It is also worth noting that the story mode I’ve played is one of many choices. You can play this game as a sandbox just like native. It is also possible to start from a position of power.
The experience features rather stark jumps in difficulty, such as fighting a well armed viking raid with only a handful of untrained peasants. This was incredibly hard for me, but it felt really rewarding and meaningful when I did eventually overcome this obstacle.
The negative Steam reviews mentioned technical issues, mainly crashing. I did encounter a few crashes, here and there. but with frequent enough saving, I never actually lost any progress. I played on Windows 11 with integrated graphics.
I think I will be enjoying this game for a while longer, if my upcoming exams and assignments allow for it.
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