A tactical roleplaying game with a norse mythology theme created by Stoic (which I believe is just three men who used to work for BioWare). The story has tonnes of Lore if you look around the map, but if you want the basics of the story then the return or a warlike race that despises humanity - The Dredge - led by an invincible leader called Bellower has sent the world into chaos.

The gameplay is a strategical, turn-based sing-player combat against the Dredge or other survivors and each character in your caravan has certain skills and unique abilities that can help you develop solid stratedgies for taking down opponents. It has the novel idea of your health also representing strength, so the more health you lose the less powerful your character's attacks will be. You have a whole array of units such as archers, shieldbangers, warhawks, etc.

Inbetween battles there are chapters, in each chapter you will play as one of three POV characters leading a caravan across this hostile world in a way similar to "Oregon Trail". Here you will make conversation choices with other characters and sometimes the wrong ones will result in your characters dying or leaving for good, which results in you having less units to fight with in the tactical combat - a lot of people have a problem with this but it actually works as good incentive to level up everyone rather than just focus on one character and make them the best; you could lose them at any point. One character in particular, Egil, who has a special ability that let's him block almost any attack (so pretty useful when utilised correctly) can be killed about 8 times during these conversation choices and you actually get an achievement for keeping him alive! The choices also offer a bit of replayability in terms of characters but there is little in the way of overall change.

The game isn't perfect; in the "Oregon Trail" part you have fighters, clansmen and varl (Varl are part of the mythology and are giants with horns) that you are charged with keeping alive, managing supplies to do so, but many players point out you can let them all starve to death and still complete the game without consequences, however it seems this will remedied in the sequel which will make your caravan more important.

Another issue is that there is little difference in terms of combat scenarios with everyone with the terrain remaining basically the same and the enemies changing only slightly over the course of the game, due to the different number of units you have to experiment with the game rarely gets boring or too repetitive but given it's estimated run time of about 8 hours you're unlikely to get tired of it in that time.

A lot of people take issue with the game opening with a cinematic scene and not having any more in the game and their is little voice-acting. But if you judge this game by that then you are missing out. The artwork is beautiful and it is well written if a few of the in-universe words (such as the insult "Skal") can take a while to understand.

Ultimatley, the game has its little imperfections, but they don't take away from this being a spectacular and original game that is definitley worth playing. A fun experience that is excellently presented and executed with a diverse cast of characters, intricate and compelling story and a solid combat system.