The last major patch for Expeditions: Viking has been released:

Version 1.0.7: Iron Man Mode, Workshop Integration, New Game Settings

Hello everyone. Today we have released update 1.0.7.1 for Expeditions: Viking. This version contains some major new things, which is why it has been in open beta for almost a month. The most important new feature is the Iron Man mode, but we also have Steam Workshop integration now, as well as a bunch of quality-of-life improvements.

This is going to be the last major update for Expeditions: Viking. We still have a few things we're hoping Unity will get back to us on, so we may release another small patch or two down the line. Same goes if any new major bugs are discovered. The game appears to be in a pretty good shape now though, so we'll be turning our attention towards the next installment.

From the bottom of our hearts, thanks so much for sticking with us so far, and for giving the game another chance despite the rocky launch :)

[...]

Purpleblob sent us a review of Logic Artists' Expeditions: Viking and found some good and some lesser good.

Upon completing Expeditions: Viking, I sighed with the rush of mixed feelings. It was a fun journey, enough to revisit the game for the second time which is something I rarely do. Yet, it didn't provide me with the sense of delight and satisfaction I usually feel upon completing games I love. Certainly, Viking has many interesting qualities that caught my attention during the early game. However, my initial glee was replaced by disappointment the deeper I got in as the game fails to flesh out its implemented features and leaves one with the feeling it could have really benefited from some extra development time to address its flaws.

The game begins at a feast held in honour of your father, the late Thegn of your clan. His rule left the clan in a vulnerable position, and it's left to you to uphold your family's honour by strengthening the clan, and cementing your position as the new Thegn. You set your eyes upon the land across the sea, hoping to bring back whatever is necessary to improve both your clan's military power, and its prosperity.

Whether you decide to achieve this through bloody invasions or by using a diplomatic approach to establish trade and secure an alliance with the Anglo-Saxons or Celts, there is only one year left until the next Althing. Should you fail in your expedition, you will be made an exile by the King and lose everything you hold dear.

PC PowerPlay has reviewed Expeditions: Viking:

Review: Expeditions: Viking

Nordic by nature.

The clue’s in the name. No, not the Viking bit. Though it does accurately describe the amount of beards and longships awaiting you. It’s the other bit, the bit before the colon.
Expeditions is the name of the series which began a few years back with Expeditions: Conquistador. Both games lean heavily into ideas of travel, of trekking to new places and returning home, of time passing. This is the kind of RPG that’s less about quests and more about journeys.

[...]

From the outset your goal isn’t to embark on a quest to save the world; rather you must prove yourself a worthy leader, navigate political instability and earn the respect of your people. This journey takes you all over northern Europe, but you keep returning to your home. Every time you do, you chat to your family and friends and realise how far you’ve come.

Score: 8/10 - A deep tactical - and strategic - RPG.

Expeditions: Vikings has been updated to v1.05. Check out the patch notes here.

Hello, and thanks for checking in with us again. Today we've released update 1.0.5 for Expeditions: Viking. In addition to some bug fixes, this version contains several major changes to game balance that I will outline separately before we get to the change log.

New caps on skill ranks
The most significant change we've made is to introduce caps on all skill ranks based on the total amount of skill points you've spent. Ranks 1 and 2 are freely accessible, but in order to upgrade a skill to rank 3 you must have spent a total of 100 SP. To reach rank 4, you must have spent 175, and to max out a skill at rank 5 you must have spent a total of 250 SP. Recall that you begin the game with 50 SP and that there is a total of just over 300 SP in the campaign. The result is that you'll have no skills above rank 3 when you go to Britain, and you won't be able to level up to rank 5 until quite late in the game.

This update trades away some freedom of choice to enforce a better levelling curve. Previously, we let you max out your weapon skills quite early in the game, with the predictable result that you would outpace the enemies before you even reached Britain, and the enemies wouldn't begin to catch up until near the end of the game. Now, you're forced to distribute your points among the different categories, perhaps buying some Utility and Passive skills for a more well-rounded character. This does have the drawback that characters will be a bit less specialised, but the improvement to the game's difficult curve is profound.

Surprise round on enemy initiative
A new feature is the so-called Surprise Round, which occurs when you trigger an encounter where the enemy acts first. Previously the enemy would get a full turn before you had any chance to position your hirdmen. Since there is no formation system in the game, this felt unfair. From version 1.0.5 and onwards, the player always acts first, but in encounters where the enemy would previously begin, the player will not have any attack action, nor a bonus action in the first turn. In other words you can only move or change your weapons in your first turn because your party was caught by surprise. This has also allowed us to change the initiative back to Enemy-first on all the encounters that were previously set to Player-first to avoid unfairness. The result is a slight but significant increase in difficulty in many encounters throughout the game.

Bear in mind that this update is not the final word on difficulty. These are major changes that will fix our difficulty issues, but they are not intended to increase the upper ends of difficulty on the Hard and Insane settings. The next update will contain more tweaks intended to make the Hard and Insane settings live up to their name, as well as the promised Iron Man mode.

And now for the full change list. As with the 1.0.4 update, I have divided it into two sections: one for changes and additions, and one for fixes. Since this update has a far greater variety of changes than previous patches, I've decided to further subdivide each section into categories based on the type of change or fix.

[...]

Farflame spotted a Expeditions: Viking interview at GamingBolt:

Expeditions Viking Interview: Changing With The World

Logic Artists talks about its latest world conquering strategy RPG.

t’s not easy conquering the world but it’s even tougher getting into world conquering games for many players. Fortunately, there’s a solution – Logic Artists’ Expeditions series which embodies the strategy needed for conquering but throws in several tactical role-playing game elements. The studio’s latest offering Expeditions: Viking is another step towards establishing a conquest-heavy strategy franchise but what should you expect besides Vikings?

GamingBolt spoke to Logic Arts creative director Jonas Waever about the game, what distinguishes it from other recent Vikings titles, improvements made after Expeditions: Conquistador and much more.

Expeditions: Viking comes at an interesting time with games like The Banner Saga and Vikings: Wolves of Midgard having their own Norse leanings. How does Expeditions: Viking handle the age-old setting?

Both Banner Saga and Wolves of Midgard are secondary world fantasy games, meaning they don’t take place in the real world and they use magic and mythology prominently. Expeditions: Viking is, like its predecessor Expeditions: Conquistador, set in the real world during a specific time period. There is no real magic and all supernatural elements have rational explanations.

[...]

Tigranes of the RPGCodex has reviewed Expeditions: Viking:

Expeditions: Viking – A Review

Expeditions: Viking is the third title from Danish indie outfit Logic Artists. The first, Expeditions: Conquistador, was one of those indie games that found payload in the glory days of CRPG Kickstarters – and, by most accounts, had made good on its promises. It took the awfully underutilised premise of colonial expeditions (and, in general, historical settings) and provided an addictive mix of overworld exploration, resource management, little CYOA sequences, and good old turn-based tactical combat. The sequel, then, comes with fairly high expectations. They had a good thing going, these Danes; could they build on it, and provide something bigger and better? The answer is, in fact, quite complicated.

[...]

Verdict

Is Expeditions: Viking a good game? Yes, yes it is. My criticisms are many, but they address the relatively lofty heights to which the game clearly aspires: a turn-based tactical RPG that somehow merges elements of an exploratory, resource-management strategic layer with a quest/story-driven model. The results are ambiguous, and in many ways, I prefer the tightly woven mechanics of Conquistador. But if you were to ask me whether it is worth the money, I would answer, absolutely: it is a game that provides robust turn-based tactical combat, a competently written historical setting, and plenty of entertaining quests. I dearly hope that the Expeditions series continues – and continues to tinker its formula.

Patch 1.04 for Expeditions: Viking fixes a lot of bugs:

Patch 1.0.4 is now Live!

Patch 1.0.4 is now public. The main purpose of this patch was to fix the last of the crashes - a particularly tricky crash that turned out to be caused by Unity's reflection probes when our day/night cycle asks them to re-render. The crash mostly happened on Intel cards and certain AMD cards.

Disabling reflection probes

For now, we've added an option for disabling the reflection probes. If you're still getting the occasional loading screen crash or if the game is crashing during the camping timelapse, try enabling this option - especially if you're running the game on an Intel or AMD card:

1. Open your config file - it's in your Documents folder by default that's C:\Users\Logic Artists\Documents\My Games\Expeditions Viking\Config
2. Locate the [VideoSettings] section, and add the following line at the bottom: ReflectionProbes=False

That's it - that should stop the crashes. Without reflection probes, the lighting in the scene will not look quite as natural as it does with the probes enabled, but it's better than crashes.

Of course we've also managed to make a number of other fixes and improvements while we were at it. We've even managed to add a wee bit more content.

Additional Content and Balancing

• Finished two new Grimnir dream sequences and added them to the random events list
• Gave Aife a new ability that's unique to her: Snaring
• Added colour correction blending to the timelapse in camping
• Made it more likely to get injuries when incapacitated in combat
• Made non-fatal injuries more likely to deteriorate
• Changed the accuracy penalty for Quick Shot from a modifier to a multiplier (ie. from 30 points to 30%)
• Inspire is now limited to 3 charges
• Changed Fatigued, Hungry, and Starving so they complement each other better: Fatigued now reduces Strength, Finesse, and Perception while Hungry and Starving reduces Endurance and Sense
• Increased the duration on Well Fed to take into account the time spent camping
• Added hotkeys for activating abilities in the hotbar
• Made the game heal all injuries and reset fatigue and hunger after Hrodgærda's attack on Skjern
• Tactical Move can no longer be activated if you would have no moves left afterwards, to prevent you from cheating yourself
• Grimulfr will no longer show up in Skjern during summer until you've completed the main objective in Scarborough
• Made it so you get the Gain Power goal instead of the Speak To Skallagrimr goal if you side with Aiblinn in Dun Phris before you've done Lindisfarne
• Characters no longer drop Salvage
• Added a wave of reinforcements to the entrance guards in Jelling and did a general polish pass on the scene
• Added a bunch of deco characters fighting in the background in Jelling, and a few civilians that will flee if you approach them - also made a couple of houses burn
• All Northumbrian and Pict quests will now be failed when you side with Aiblinn in Dun Phris, to avoid narrative inconsistency
• Disabled some of the York entrance one-liners in the event you've invaded Northumbria, and made it so the guards are replaced by either Picts or Vikings depending on your choices

Bug fixes

• Improved stability.
• Fixed Fog of War not being reset correctly when starting a new game
• Fixed a gamebreaking quest logic bug whereby Myrddin would be noninteractive if you fought the villagers without him and Cillian died (because a goal was set as optional when it should have been mandatory)
• Fixed the treasure in the passage grave becoming uninteractive if you lose the fight against the Underground Ones and subsequently choose not to pick up the treasure first time you interact with it
• Fixed an issue where you wouldn't be able to complete Parsley Sage Rosemary Thyme if you let Morcant go after raiding the monastery
• Fixed the Red Wedding quest never being closed if you enter the house during the night without making use of the option to wait outside (it wasn't breaking anything, but it was annoying)
• Fixed the Meet Maucolyn goal not getting correctly closed in Parsley Sage Rosemary Thyme if you decided to attack
• Fixed Wearh in the Woods not being closed properly if you attacked the village after having found the pelts
• Fix an issue in camping that would result in incorrect amount of resources being reserved
• Crafting schematics are now removed while crafting as intended
• Fixed items with special properties that raise HP not raising the actual HP but only the maximums - now you'll actually have the extra HP as you should
• Added new color tags for stat mods in inventory and character stats for the other languages
• Disabled save game inside Passage grave
• Fixed Fog of War issues in some of the camp scenes
• Fixed Seeking Sanctuary not getting closed correctly if you had a change of heart and killed the Persecutors before meeting the Refugees
• Fixed sinking into the ground on the hex map around the bridge in Chester
• Fixed the check whether you had been inside the walls in Chester already not being correctly set
• Fixed the chest in the Chester Sewers being lootable twice
• Changed the color correction in the Chester Sewers
• Fixed being able to take the runaway guard's body in Scoundrel's Flight if you had already gone into the tomb
• Fixed being able to use the runaway guard and his girlfriend's bodies for the sacrifice when they weren't dead
• Fixed Cillian not despawning correctly when Myrddin buries him
• Made sure Cillian's pyre is put out at appropriate times and made Talorc and Dubglas move to better positions when they set Cillian free
• Fixed being able to collect something for the Wisdom of the Ancients quest before you had gotten it
• Fixed not being able to cross the river by York on the campaign map
• Switched the numbers for schematics in armour crafting to be consistent with how the numbers are displayed in the Tinkering menu
• Fixed the tutorial window we added in 1.0.3 not updating step text correctly
• Confirmation boxes originating from conversation can't be dismissed anymore (which means you can no longer avoid travel ambushes by pressing Escape...)
• Fixed the food selection in camping prioritising Rations rather than Meat
• Tyr's Favour can now only be used by Viking enemies as intended - it's a bit of a hack for now, as the AI skill selection will still assign Galder to non-Vikings, but we'll deal with that later
• Cleaned up and polished the ambient audio in Jelling
• Fixed Wreckers in Scarborough not staying gone if you had gotten rid of them peacefully
• Fixed the looters in Donncoirce Homestead coming back if you had convinced them to leave
• Changed the trigger conditions for the intro to the swamp meeting so it's more robust, even though we haven't managed to figure out how some players have entered the scene before they got the quest
• Fixed damage reduction not being clamped correctly so high-level enemies affected by Tyr's Favour could exceed 100%, which made attacks heal them for the duration of the status effect
• Fixed sparing Cailtram at Domnall's farm not being properly closed if you just left after getting the proof
• Fixed the farmer inside Domnall's farmhouse not correctly responding if you hadn't fought the people outside
• Fixed the player gaining String instead of losing it when pulling out a rotten tooth
• Fixed the Armourer and Craftsmen Homestead upgrades giving you the opposite resource of what they should give
• Fixed an issue where crafted armours and helmets might not have the right models
• Fixed being able to repeat geting the reward for rescuing Mani from Sandarr
• Fixed not being able to find the missing wrecker in Scarborough if you had searched his corpse before getting the quest
• Added headlines to the skill rank tooltips in Crafting so it's a bit more clear what they mean
• Fixed a localisation issue on discard prompt
• Fixed CNodeLogicWaitForAIGroupToSpawn node not working properly, which caused problems in the cave fight in the ravine if you were skipping too quickly through the dialogue
• Made the family from the Troll Tree not show up later if either of the parents were killed
• Fixed Æthelred's war camp not disappearing from Yngilwood if you fail the Northumbria questline early, and disabled some of the entrance one-liners related to the camp once it's gone
• Made some control labels a little clearer, fixed two small spelling mistakes in the English tutorials
• Fixed the generic clansmen and Kveldulfr not acknowledging Asleifr's death correctly because the conversations were checking an obsolete variable
• Fixed French localization parsing for the patterns that change a word based on whether the word after it starts with a vowel or a consonant (eg. de or d')
• Fixed a wrong ending of a dynamic gender text token that was causing the unparsed token to show up in the text
• Tweaked the colliders in the roadside camp to make it easier to pick up the stuff in the tent
• Fixed null ref when initializing prop items and fixed the GOG SDK not recognizing the DLC when not connected to Galaxy
• Fixed two one-liners playing over each other in Seahenge, and set up better party spawn positions
• Increased amount of cairns needed to unlock the Wayfarer achievement (it was looking for 7 but there are actually 9) and fixed the cairn in Lindisfarne not being counted towards the 14 cairns for the Pathfinder achievement
• Made the game logic that triggers Osred's conversation with Æthelred after his defeat a bit more robust to ensure that it won't get stuck
• Added a config option for disabling reflection probes to solve the loading screen crashes that happen in certain scenes on certain video cards (thanks Unity)

As always, we'd like to thank you all for your help in identifying these issues. Now that the worst bugs are ironed out, we're going to start digging into the nice-to-have list. The next update will take a bit longer, but it'll also contain a bunch of new stuff. Stay tuned for more information :)

Joshua Smith aka Old Man Mordaith has reviewed Expeditions: Viking:

Expeditions: Viking – A Tale of Time and Blood

Venture to the Unknown

At the end of May in 2013, the company Logic Artists released Expeditions: Conquistador. The title was a well-received tactical RPG with a fantastic take on simulating a journey to the new world. It was with great anticipation that a sequel arrived on our shores here in 2017. Not a direct sequel mind you… This adventure would focus on another group of explorers: The Vikings.

This title sees you taking control over a clan and its holdings not long after the death of your father. Considered a complicated ruler, your father had the respect of his peers in many regards, but angered others with his poor leadership skills. Fate forces you down the same path your father took, with all the detractors and supporters that came with it. It becomes a race against time to assure you can gain and keep the strategic resources necessary to show strength in the face of your clans enemies and maintain your holdings. You will get to explore, battle, suffer grievous wounds, and investigate mysteries – all in a well crafted historically close setting. The fantastic authentic sounding musical score brings everything home.

[...]

There are lots of skills here as well; my count puts them at over sixty divided over five categories. Some of them are non-ranked perks or abilities, while others have ranked levels that increase their effectiveness or add new powers to your character when you increase them. While I struggled with where to spend my starting points, once in the game I never felt like any of them were bad choices. I just needed to lean in hard with my character’s strengths. That said, you will be grateful for every new character you add to your hird, as every skill they offer brings something valuable to the table. Leadership, Witchcraft, and Healing are incredibly useful skills that I found to be game changers in many situations. But I know I’ll be trying the game again with different characters and powers to see how it works out.

The concept of experience and levelling is a bit different, but it moves well with the narrative-driven concept of the game. You do not get experience for killing bad guys and winning fights – not exactly, anyway. Instead, you get awarded skill points when you handle a situation. Did you murder the homeless children (by mistake! I swear) or maybe took the time to find an alternative non-violent approach? Either way you’re getting skill points at the end of it, which are used to increase your character’s abilities. A simple sweet system that allows for growth with out being level or even combat dependant.

[...]

Besides a few minor gripes, this game is well-executed, and I ran in to no major bugs or glitches that stand out. I look forward to seeing more from Logic Artists as they continue to expand on their Expeditions series. Just, maybe no timer next time.

Rating 8/10

Patch version 1.0.3 has been released for Expeditions: Viking. It comes with a huge list of fixes, so instead of copy-pasting that here, check out the link.

Thanks Pladio and Acleacius.

A status update about the upcoming patch 1.03 for Expeditions: Viking is available.

Due to our test process, patch 1.0.3 has been in the works since a few days before 1.0.2 went live. Our main focus has been to iron out the rest of the crashes. The fire crash of course was the most common one people experienced. We finally tracked it down and fixed it yesterday. The second-most common crash now appears to be related to campsites. We've been unable to reproduce this bug on our own machines, but we've been asking those of you who reported experiencing it for your savegames, so hopefully we'll find a way to make it crash for us as well, so we can find it and fix it.

Nova and I have been busy hunting quest logic bugs. The most common bug of that nature is the Play Only Once bug which is an annoyingly common mistake where some conversations were set to only trigger once, but also had the ability to not play if certain conditions weren't met. In these cases, if you triggered the conversation before the conditions were met, for example by clicking on a character who did not yet have a nameplate or walking into a proximity trigger that was not yet active, it would still set the conversation as having played and never trigger it again. It's an extremely easy bug to fix, but finding every occurrence of it has proven tricky. Your reports have been invaluable in that respect.

We also found the cause of the negative status effects that never go away. It was caused by adding combat-status effects outside of combat, which were then never cleaned up. That too will be fixed for 1.0.3.

A major focus area for us has been the end of the game. Since this part of the game wasn't available in the closed betas for fear of spoilers, it wasn't tested nearly as well as the rest of the game. The result has been that you've found some pretty severe bugs there, including broken reinforcements in the Homestead defence fight, and the fact that loading a savegame during that sequence would completely break the game.

The upshot is that those bugs have been fixed for 1.0.3.

Thanks Pladio.

MMORPG likes Expeditions: Viking, too:

The RPG Files: Expeditions: Viking Review

I decided to take down the horse’s head. My party had been traveling for a couple of days, it was the middle of the night, and I was on a hunt. In the darkness, I came upon the stranger lifting the severed head on a post, mounted in the animal’s broken body. It was meant to be a curse on a man who had done him wrong, but we were desperate and needed meat. I told him what he wanted to hear and even helped him raise the head before he faded into the trees. We started cutting as soon as he was out of sight. I’m still hoping that decision doesn’t come back to haunt me.

This is Expeditions: Viking, an indie you definitely won’t want to miss.

[...]

Expeditions: Viking is the rare RPG that eschews the fantastic and is better for it. Despite the small team behind it, there is a level of depth here that AAA studios should take notice of. The only downside is a tendency to spike the difficulty with no warning and a propensity for crashing that abruptly ended my adventure three separate times. Despite these issues, Expeditions: Viking is an RPG you won’t want to miss. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have villages to pillage.

Here are a bunch of reviews (minus the ones we already reported about) for Expeditions: Viking, highlighting a review with the lowest and highest score.

The Low

Cubed3, 5/10

The real issue for Expeditions: Viking is simply whether or not someone is a fan of this older style WRPG experience. This offers very little to stand out from the crowd in this regard and modern gamers may be put off by various UI issues, or the heavy stat dependence. However, for those who liked these kinds of games, it sticks true to the recipe and the different resolution of quests is interesting to see. Trying different builds or dialogue options gives the potential for replay. One of the major things currently weighing it down is the various issues outstanding, matters that seem like more rigorous testing was required or something that comments from players would fix in a future update. The potential for a pretty fun game is present, but at this stage is still at least a patch or two away from being great.

The High

Strategy Gamer, 5/5

Expeditions: Viking is an awesome game and a great addition to our ever-expanding library of Turn-Based Viking RPGs. It breathes authenticity, it offers fast and brutal combat, and the options that you are given are truly fun. It's a game that's hard to save scum or to put down. I can't wait till the creators take us to new places, like the colonization of Africa or China. After all, they have shown that they have the deft touch needed to show what things happen when different worlds meet during expeditions!

The Rest

• A Wargamers Needfull Things, no score
• COGConnected, 7.9/10
• Digital Chumps, 5.5/10
• Digitally Downloaded, 4/5
• Dualshockers, 7.5/10
• Game Rant, 3/5
• Gamespew, 8/10
• God is a Geek, 8/10
• Post Arcade (Financial Post), no score
• Wccftech, 8/10

Sidequesting has reviewed Expeditions: Viking:

Expeditions: Viking review: Norse by Norse West

I am the oncoming storm.

I am the one who arrives in new lands, who brings destruction upon enemies, whom the Gods favor. I am covered in armor, I wield a sword, I bring pain and blood but also mysticism and faith.

I am the first Viking.

At least, that’s how I feel when playing Expeditions: Viking, the new game from developer Logic Artists.
Never mind that my father just died and I have to inherit his lordly title, or that I have friends and relatives ready to stab me in the back, or even that my father’s death was mysterious and the lands are falling apart — I’m still a badass with a big sword, and I love it.

[...]

Because of emphasis on other aspects of the game, it gives the impression that the visuals were sort of a casualty. Environments look good from a distance, but the closer we get the more rough around the edges they become. Though my PC isn’t as powerful as the latest Titan-based products, it’s only a couple of years old and can hold its own, and fit within the recommended specs of the game. A slightly wet wash seems to cover the world, as if the art direction was trying to bring the in-game digitally painted scenes to polygons and missed the target.

There are some minor technical issues that plague the game as well. Even through the multiple pre-release updates, excruciatingly long loading times make me wonder if the game has stopped functioning or not, and the screen scroll can be unpredictable. None of these are game-breaking, and are typically the kind that are worked out in post-release patches, but they do slow me down at times.

Getting past a few of these annoyances leads to the kind of experience that may very well bring me back to PC gaming. The expert mix of mysticism, exploration and authenticity leads to an engaging history lesson, and the combat and game mechanisms provide depth and replayability that I can see lasting an entire Summer. It’s a game worthy of the subject it hopes to teach us about. Expeditions: Viking has me donning the armor and soul of one of antiquity’s greatest human weapons, and I’m ready to do it again.

Time to get my mind sharp and my sword bloody.

Thank you for the info, Farflame!

A new patch is announced in the Expeditions: Viking April Newsletter:

Sound the Horn!

Greetings Vikings!

It's official, our Viking expedition has landed, Expeditions: Viking released last Thursday and we've been busy! Read below for some coverage highlights, a recap of the release weekend, mail list rewards chat, and a talk of things to come.

We know this April Newsletter is showing up a little late, but we did send your rewards out prior to the release last week so you've all got your DLC codes in that previous mail out.

[...]

Coverage Highlights

Have a look at some of the coverage that's already come out for Expeditions: Viking. If you're into written reviews a number of them have popped up already! Here is a link to the Metacritic Page where you can read a number of reviews. Or you can jump to the staff pick, Hooked Gamers.

[...]

Release Weekend Recap

Well the first weekend is over and we're working hard to patch in some fixes and updates for Expeditions: Viking. We were a bit too bold in our patching efforts over the weekend and introduced a few frustrating bugs as a result of rushing a build. It's unfortunate that this happened, but it was with the best of intentions.

If any of you have run into these errors, we've been pulling long days and late nights working to resolve them. We've released a 1.0.1.5 patch that takes care of the majority of high priority issues and we're very close to releasing a 1.0.2 patch (later this week) that should get the rest of them.

Even with these errors, there has been a lot of positive reviews and encouragement from the community. We are grateful for all the support!

[...]

BigBossBattle has reviewed the tactical RPG Expeditions: Viking:

Review | Expeditions: Viking

The CRPG genre has been seeing something of a resurgence lately, with prominent titles such Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, and Torment: Tides of Numenera cropping up like it’s going out of (or, rather, coming back into) style.

[...]

Expeditions: Viking will take you a fair bit of time to complete. Between the main story, side quests and chatting to as many characters as possible, it took me quite a while to even leave Denmark. But it’s a game that never overstayed it welcome, that has a certain charm I didn’t even experience in Pillars of Eternity. Its themes come alive due its roots in real history, making this an experience that’s truly about adventure and discovering (what once was) the unknown. Expeditions: Viking is a game I’ll be coming back to, and has certainly earned its place in Valhalla.

The historical tactical RPG Expeditions: Viking will be released today:

Expeditions: Viking

Get ready for an adventure in history! Logic Artists, the makers of Expeditions: Conquistador, are pleased to bring you Expeditions: Viking.

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Prepare for a grand adventure

As the newly appointed chieftain of a modest Viking clan, you’ll have a village of your very own. But to carve your name into the runestones of history you’ll need great strength, and great wealth to grow your village’s prosperity and renown. There is little left to be gained from the Norse lands and so you must set your sights on the the seas to the West, where tales speak of a great island filled with treasure ready for the taking.

Seek your fortune

Your trusted huscarls will follow you to Valhalla if that be the order of the day, but you’ll need more than loyalty to leave a legacy that will be remembered for a thousand years. Now assemble a worthy band of warriors, build a ship, and seek your wealth and glory across the sea. Britannia awaits in Logic Artists’ Expeditions: Viking.

Main features:

• Create your very own Viking chieftain! Carve out your character from our unique character system, where stats, skills, and abilities define your character’s role.
• Raiding or Trading? Vikings were known not only as violent warriors, but savvy tradesfolk. How will you find wealth, with the carrot or the stick?
• War and Politics: Side with various factions be they Norsemen, Picts, or Angles.
• Reputation: Be mindful of your choices, the stories of your actions may bring others to fear you, but will they trust you?
• Step into the pages of history: In a beautiful and visceral telling of the Nordic history.

Expeditions: Viking has reached its gold status and is on target for a release on the 27th of April. The cost for the game has been set as well.
To celebrate going gold, its predecessor, Expeditions: Conquistador, can be played for free, this coming weekend, on Steam.

Here is the teaser trialer:

Historical RPG 'Expeditions: Viking' Goes Gold, Price Announced

Free Weekend for Conquistador Coming Soon on Steam

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (April 20, 2017) - Logic Artists is pleased to confirm that its much-anticipated release of Expeditions: Viking is on schedule for April 27, 2017. The studio announced this morning that the Gold Version milestone has been reached. 

To celebrate, Logic Artists is running a Free Weekend on Steam for its first title in the Expeditions Series - Expeditions: Conquistador on April 21 at 10 a.m. PDT.

With the game now out in the hands of the media for review access, the path is set and Expeditions: Viking will be available for purchase in stores and online next week. Logic Artists Producer Ali Emek says, "After two years of development, we are on track toward our studio's best release so far. Expeditions: Viking is now feature complete and we'll be spending the last month of development tightening the screws and polishing the release build, improving on our performance capabilities, and (with the assistance of a large community of closed beta testers) squashing the remaining bugs." 

Creative Director Jonas Waever adds, "It's been a real journey, and with the positive feedback from our recent trip to PAX East and from our closed beta, we're excited to get Expeditions: Viking into our players' hands. And to celebrate the coming release of our second game in the Expeditions Series we're giving players a free weekend with Expeditions: Conquistador to get ready for Viking."

Expeditions: Viking releases April 27, 2017 and will cost 29.99 USD/29.99 EUR/24.99 GBP/499 RUB

The Deluxe Edition includes a digital artbook, the original soundtrack by award-winning composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen (Age of Conan, Lords of the Fallen), and the Blood-Ice DLC. The Deluxe Edition will cost 34.99 USD/34.99 EUR/28.99 GBP/650 RUB

More information about the game can be found on the game's Steam page.

The March Expeditions: Viking newsletter is here, with some pictures from PAX East, the closed beta and that shields have their own skill progression tree.

Whether swinging a sword or an axe, the Vikings were renowned, not just for their ferocity with edged weapons, but their defensive tactics as well. The cornerstone of that defense was their ability to protect themselves with shields.

To reflect this in the tactical turn-based combat environment of Expeditions: Viking, shields have their own skill progression. Leveling a character's shield skill will increase a character's shield block chance against enemy attacks (when holding a shield) and unlocks three unique abilities a player can use during combat. 

Brace - at Rank 1, Brace uses an attack action to quick repair a shield to mint condition. While this does forego an attack for the bracing character this round, A fully repaired shield can go a long way toward keeping your front line fighters alive.

Defend - is an Attack Action that applies the Defending status effect to the user making the shield impervious to all damage until the start of the player's next turn. Highly valuable for characters who are being focused by the enemy forces.

Shield Bash - Pushes the target 1 hex away and applies the Knocked Down status effect. Characters that are knocked down are unable to act or block and have a base Damage Reduction of 0% and recovering from this costs 2 moves. Because not everything one does with a shield is defensive.

BigBossBattle has checked out Expeditions: Viking:

Expeditions: Viking – The Old World’s the New New.

I managed, at the recent PC Gamer Weekender, to get some time with Logic Artists’ Expeditions: Viking, the second outing in the series, following on from 2013’s Expeditions: Conquistador.

Expeditions: Conquistador was a strange title, combining a hex-based, turn-based combat system built around small skirmishes with a resource system that tied into an over-world map. Players pushed deeper into the tribal reaches of the pre-conquest new world, trading and making alliances to advance the story, support their travelling party,  and, well, get rich or die trying.

The game featured over thirty companions; named, skilled, and placed on a moral compass that could see you coming to blows with them if your behaviours really irked them. There was also a danger of mutiny, should you fail at the semi luck-based camping sections as you travelled the winding paths of Mexico (following an extended tutorial on the island of Hispaniola). Conversation with your allies felt, somewhat incidental, and although the characters each had their own traits -racists despise natives, religious folk unsure why you’re letting off sinners, etc- the conversation with them felt over-written and disconnected from the game world; taking place in it’s own, heavy interface.

Conquistador’s combat scale, six of your units vs the enemy, was wonderful, a return to halcyon days of tactical games like Jagged Alliance & Fallout: Tactics, albeit trapped on a hex-based grid – very similar to Might and Magic. At the time, actually, M&M was the only major title/series that dabbled with that scale of combat, so Conquistador’s rather simple class system was entirely bearable, even if it did feel a little unfinished and shallow as the game went on. Of course, many more games of the sort came along in the years to follow -Banner Saga, Blackguards, Battle Brothers, and a few that didn’t start with B- and pushed focus moreso onto unique feeling heroes, and have really pushed the subgenre along further while the game was experiencing it’s Autumn years.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

This months newsletter has information on the PC Gamer weekender, the beta that start March 15, combat using spears and the release in two months.

We thought that this month we'd showcase for you, the skill highlights of another two-handed weapon available in Expeditions: Viking, the Spear.

Enjoy the benefits of poking people with a sharp object without all the hassle of having to stand close enough for them to poke you back. As with most weapons, investing skill points to level the Spear will reward players with a total of 3 unique combat abilities:

Extend - at Rank 1, Extend is an attack action which allows battlefield tacticians to go where no melee weapon has gone before, granting players melee attacks with a three hex reach, though at 75% or regular damage.

Smack - Sometimes despite your best efforts enemies will get inconsiderately close to your charaters. When that happen's those with Spear Rank 3 will be able to gracefully swat an adjacent target up side their head with the blunt end of the spear. This will count as an attack at 50% regular damage and will make the target Concussed (Endurance -3). The player's unit will then take a step one hex back without provoking Attack of Opportunity.

Distract - at Spear Rank 5 the Distract ability allows a character to draw the attention of an enemy and neutralizes the Attack of Opportunity of that Enemy. It will only work on targets that are exactly two hexes away.

The soundtrack for Expeditions: Viking, will be created by award winning Danish composer Knut Avenstroup, who also worked on Age of Conan and Lords of the Fallen.

Danish indie studio Logic Artists is proud to announce that Expeditions: Viking, the highly anticipated sequel to Expeditions: Conquistador, will feature an authentic Nordic soundtrack composed by acclaimed composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen. The developers will present the game as well as its stunning soundtrack at PAX East in Boston on March 10th-12th.

After announcing the release date for Expeditions: Viking as April 27th, Logic Artists - the team behind the Expeditions series - strikes again with another big announcement: The studio is proud to reveal to the public their collaboration with composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen in bringing the world of Expeditions: Viking to life. With his multi-award winning score for the Age of Conan series and acclaimed soundtrack for Lords of the Fallen, Logic Artists is delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with such a talented composer.

Take a sneak peek behind the scenes of the Expeditions: Viking soundtrack! Watch the Music Dev Diary, which presents footage from the soundtrack's recording sessions.

Knut had this to say about scoring Expeditions: Viking: "When I was first approached to work on this project I thought it was very interesting that it was about Vikings. Scandinavians have a very rich heritage, both historical and literary, and I thought it was good to be part of a project that could show some of this heritage to the rest of the world."

Expeditions: Viking features an intimate score with highlights from the ancient Norwegian instrument the bukkehorn (goat horn) over a string orchestra, as well as a variety of other brilliant solo performances on contemporary instruments.

Sound Designer and Programmer Nils Iver Holtar: "The truly memorable audio experiences in games are the ones which have hooks in them that you want to hear over and over again, and that is very easy to get wrong. You need to make sure that what players hear is interesting enough and has enough layers that they will never really get tired of it. We wanted a kind of intimate score and we were extremely lucky that Knut Avenstroup Haugen was interested in doing the project."

The results of the collaboration bring a unique approach to sound design in games, where the music and soundscape work together to immerse players in a bold and interesting experience that features a blend of hostile environments and beautiful music. Logic Artists invites everyone to visit their booth #10037 at PAX East in Boston on March 10th-12th to play the game and listen to its captivating soundtrack while traversing the world of Expeditions: Viking.

Expeditions: Viking will be released on April 27:

Expeditions: Viking Release Announcement! Save the Date: April 27th, 2017

Danish indie studio Logic Artists along with distribution partners EuroVideo and IMGN.PRO are announcing that Expeditions: Viking, the highly anticipated sequel to Expeditions: Conquistador, is scheduled for release on April 27th, 2017.

After the warm welcome of Expeditions: Conquistador - Logic Artists’ PC debut title, the developers are finally ready to do it again four years later with a long awaited sequel. Logic Artists is pleased to announce April 27th as the release date of Expeditions: Viking.

Expeditions: Viking features a branching dialogue system that allows the game to manage and react to player choices. We initially estimated a word count of 200,000, but we’ve decided to increase it by an additional 80,000 words to provide players with more content and give them more options and choices on how they progress through the story. Said Ali Emek, Expeditions: Viking Producer.

With that amount of content, managing localization takes more time. We think it’s worth it to make the game accessible to international audience. That’s why we’ve arranged a number of language localizations, so from day one players will be able to enjoy Expeditions: Viking in English, French, German, Polish, and Russian. Emek added.

In addition to this, Logic Artists stated that additional development time will allow them to tweak and balance combat gameplay, implementing new special abilities to the most interesting villains and will also include added flavor and improvements to Expeditions: Viking’s animations.

We received great feedback from the testers after our last closed beta session, and rescheduling the release a bit is allowing us to spend our final weeks of development on improving usability and addressing the bugs reported during the beta test. - Emek adds.

More information about the game can be found on the official website www.expeditionsseries.com where folks can sign up to the official newsletter where they can learn more about the game every month, gain access to the the final closed Beta test, and receive special release week rewards!

Here's the January newsletter for Expeditions: Viking:

Sound the Horn!

Welcome back friends of the North! This month’s newsletter arrives with all sorts of things to talk about, from a summary of our most recent closed Beta to a highlight of a few skills that are new to the game, to how YOU can help us to raise awareness about Expeditions: Viking, and what’s in store for the Expeditions: Viking crew in the near future. Let’s get into it!

Rally the Hird!

First off, a warm thanks to you good people! One of the wonderful questions we get from the kind folk of the internet is:

“How do I show support for Expeditions: Viking?”

To answer that for you-- there are lots of ways, and we’d appreciate every bit of your support!

Spread the News

The first thing you can do is recommend us to people you think would enjoy playing Expeditions: Viking. You can suggest that they sign up to the newsletter (www.expeditionsseries.com), or visit the Steam store page and add the game to your (or their) wishlist.

Talk About Your Experiences

We appreciate all of you who participated in the Beta Test being so wonderfully active with your reporting and suggestions and for keeping those reports and discussions in the closed sections of the steam forum. We thank you for your candor and confidentiality. But now is the time for you to get out there and share! Do you have a player experience or screenshot that you’d like to share in an online community. We encourage you to do so! Whether it’s on a social media site (like Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest) or an online forum (like Reddit, 4Chan, Steam groups, RPG sites, or Youtube comments sections), get on out there and tell people all the things you’ve enjoyed in your experiences so far with Expeditions: Viking.

On that note, take a look at this shiny new video series that Youtuber Many A True Nerd released just last week. The comment section is abuzz, so here’s a great place to get out there and talk more about Expeditions: Viking from a player’s perspective. Go on then, let's give Many A True Nerd some love!

Closed Beta Report

To start this off, if you’re new to the newsletter and were too late to join the previous Beta, fret not! We plan to host one more closed Beta before launch so stay tuned to the newsletter to find out more when the time comes!

A huge thanks for all of you Beta Testers who participated in the last Beta session. It was really exciting to get your comments, questions, and feedback, and we want to especially thank you for all the lovely bug reports.

There were nearly 200 bugs and issues that made it through initial reporting and into our system. More than 120 of these were resolved during the Beta, and we published 6 updated builds over the duration of the Beta with improvements abound.

This was such a great opportunity for us to hear back from you with feedback on user experiences and your comments and suggestions were paramount. Thank you again so much!

The Great Dane Axe

It’s finally here! Now you can crowd control and cleave your way to bloody victory using the devastating two-handed Dane Axe. But “what will I do in the shield wall without my shield?” you ask. Well, disrupt and destroy the enemy, my sword-and-boarding friend! As with most weapon types, investing skill points to level the Dane Axe skill will reward players with a total of 3 unique combat abilities:

Reckless Strike - at Rank 1 Reckless Strike is an attack action that currently gives the axe wielder a 25% bonus to damage on their attack but applies the status effect “Unbalanced” (we could have called it “Overpowered” *giggle*) which prevents the character from moving until the end of the next turn. Big Mess, No Fuss.

Pull - at Rank 3 players will unlock Pull. Pull is a crowd control ability that allows players to hook an enemy who is two hexes away by the neck and pull them into melee range. This is great for dragging enemies into unpleasant situations you’ve set up for them (like the ice patch in the gif), and while it won’t trigger attacks of opportunity, it’s great for forcing enemies into traps and the like.

Swipe - at Rank 5, Swipe is an attack action where the player will strike an enemy and any characters standing on either side of the target. Swipe cannot damage shields if blocked, however, and deals no armor-piercing damage. We were thinking of calling it Cleavey McCleaversen but it was too many characters.

Coming Up

We’re very excited to announce that we will be attending a number of trade shows and conferences in the coming months. You can find us at:

GDC San Francisco from February 27 - March 3 in San Francisco, USA for business development meetings and media presentations for Expeditions: Viking. If you’re in the Bay area and are interested in arranging an appointment contact us at info@logicartists.com

For a public demo of Expeditions: Viking you will find us at:

PC Gamer Weekender the 18/19 of February in London, England http://weekender.pcgamer.com/201-programme

PAX East the 10 -12 of March in Boston, USA
http://east.paxsite.com/

We will be taking media appointments at both PAX and the Weekender, if you’d like to reserve a time you can contact us at info@logicartists.com to arrange an appoinment or swing by the booth to say hello.

Stay tuned to the newsletter for information about the upcoming beta and release date info, not to mention a special release week gift for all newsletter subscribers!

Forgottenlor returns from scouting out Expeditions: Viking and delivers an early report of what we can expect when it reaches our shores.

Anyone who has played Expeditions: Conquistador will feel at home with Expeditions: Viking. The combat isn't easy; you move across hex-based grids, can use various obstacles to take cover or block enemies, and have to use your combat skills to your advantage while avoiding being flanked. Fallen comrades can also gain wounds, which hinder their performance until they have healed. The game advertised early on that losing a battle is not the end, but can open up new opportunities. I lost the game's third battle on my first try, which pushed me back to camp, wounded. When I returned to the location of the battle, I got to try again to win the same battle with a significantly weaker group. I had no chance with them, so I just reloaded. However, if you want to play sort of an iron man mode, see if you can't rest up and try again. The number of different weapon styles in the game feel different enough to make combat really interesting and give the player a lot of different tactical options. For example, you can jab with a spear one hex away, and the spear has a specific skill which lets you retreat a hex without drawing an opportunity attack. This can let you squeeze in a tough shield fighter or a deadly two-handed fighter to protect your spear fighter, if need be. That makes combat challenging and fun. Most of the battles are against human opponents who have the same skills as your characters, but occasionally you get to fight animals. I even ran into two fights which end in your group wondering whether they've just experienced a paranormal event. In the end, your main character is left to interpet whether this event was a meeting with supernatural creatures or whether there is a more logical explanation.

Expeditions: Viking has been previewed by Complete Nonsense Reviews.

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If you’re anything like me, love serious RPGs with turn-based tactical combat, enjoy an interactive narrative with branching storylines and like the viking theme, then do not hesitate, add Expeditions: Viking to your Steam wishlist and stand-by for its full release sometime in the first quarter of 2017, I know I will.

Here's the December newsletter for Expeditions: Viking:

Well Met Traveler!

Greetings and salutations readers!
It's been an interesting time for us here at the office, what with keeping on top of beta feedback and player experiences. But that hasn't prevented us from continuing our work in other areas as well!

The Sound... Of Music!

Sound is an oft overlooked aspect of game design, rarely getting the credit it truly deserves for immersing the player in the world. Some titles truly stand out for their score alone, and while no small feat, we knew we wanted the music and mood in Expeditions: Viking to be memorable not just for its story, but for its sound and atmosphere.

For this reason, we were pretty psyched when multi-award winning composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen showed interest in our game.

Among his best known works are the acclaimed scores for the Age of Conan series of video games - spanning over a period of nearly a decade - the stop motion animated feature film The Christmas of Solan and Ludvig, which has become one of the most seen films of all time in Norway, and Lords of The Fallen.

Nils, the resident audiophile.

Now, I could talk on and on about why getting a composer on board who understands deep thematic sound is good for our game, but then Nils would have nothing to talk about, and we'd have made this wonderful dev diary in vain... So instead, we'll let Nils talk about it!

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That's not all though!

Our designers have been hard at work to to bring about depth in more ways than just the audio. Your hirdsmen obviously have different levels of armour, depending on what you equip them with, so a lot of work goes into making sure each is properly fitted, while retaining their individual looks and personality.

Here is some rough work of armour tiers, and what they look like once implimented.

The Beta is moving along

While the sound has kept us nice and busy, there's no denying that the main bulk of our attention this month has been on preparing and maintaining the beta. If you've not had a chance to jump in yet, here's a quick way to hear from people who have!

MMORPG not only wrote about the game, they even took out the time to chat up Jonas Wæver, our lead designer and writer.

Now, MMORPG have written about Expeditions: Viking before, but this interview is both lengthier and more indepth, so it's definitely worth a read.

Wrapping Things Up

A little less then last month, but most our work this time around has been fixing bugs, implimenting dialogue and quests and testing. In order to get everything ready for the beta, we've spent most our time working on things that make for terrible screenshots. Like lines and lines of code.

While it's all very essential, it's hard to make a gif out of, for your viewing pleasure, so we hope you'll bear with us!

With that, we're go for this month, but we'll be back before you know it, with all things Expeditions: Viking.

Fair wind friend, and safe travels!

Farflame had the opportunity to talk to Jonas Wæver, Creative director of Logic Artists, about Expeditions: Viking.

RPGWatch: Now to Expeditions: Viking... My initial impression was that the game will be about numerous raids into Britain + other isles. But from previews it looks like its mainly about one raid when you explore the whole of Britain. So I wonder - do you do more raids in Britain? And can you raid also other countries like small islands around Britain or seaside of Frisia? (there were wars between Danes and Franks over Frisia at the time)

Jonas: The war with the Frankish Empire is sort of the backdrop of the game. Just like in history, it motivates several of the things the player will be asked to do throughout. But yes, Viking focuses purely on Britannia. It's not so much one raid as a campaign, and you don't actually have to do any raiding. Your goal is to improve the prosperity and power of your clan in Denmark, and the main way you can do that is by acquiring riches or creating alliances. Gaining allies will require taking sides in the simmering war between Northumbria and Pictavia, essentially through mercenary work (which is also something the Vikings were greatly known for). Acquiring wealth can be done in a variety of ways, including raids on in-land churches and monasteries or coastal villages.

Abu Antar from the Codex has previewed Expeditions: Viking, which goes beta tomorrow:

Preview: Expeditions: Viking

In August 2012, the Kickstarter campaign for Expeditions: Conquistador was launched by Danish studio Logic Artists, a studio unknown to me at the time. I discovered the project and followed the campaign, but never actually backed it, as I was hesitant to give money to something that sounded good but might not turn into a good end product. Closer to launch, I read some impressions of this turn-based, tactical RPG with CYOA and survival elements, and decided to take a gamble. The game turned out to be a huge surprise for me. Not only was its gameplay great but so was the writing, with an interesting setting in Mexico and Hispaniola during the Age of Discovery. Naturally, when I saw that the Codex was trying to find someone to preview its sequel, Expeditions: Viking, I immediately pounced on the opportunity.

[...]

Final Thoughts

My overall impression of Expeditions: Viking's preview is positive. The writing is solid, but needs to be supported by slightly more interesting quests. I think one reason why I would rate Conquistador a bit higher in this area is that I never got to see any CYOA sequences. As stated, the developers have confirmed they'll be in for the final game.

Another thing that I preferred in the first game is the exploration. It just doesn't feel the same now that they've tossed away the 3D world map for a 2D map with the locations being separate instances.

The game's combat mechanics are solid and the story battles are fun, though I suspect that the feeling of repetition will eventually set in just like it did in the first game. I like the character progression system, even though many skills and abilities were unavailable in this version. It seems to me that Viking is going to have a little bit more in the way of character customization than its predecessor. I also like that you gain skill points for finishing quests.

I can't really offer any further thoughts about the village upgrade system, but I do know that it will play a more important role as you progress further into the game.

I encountered many technical issues and bugs during my playthrough. My characters would become invisible or unable to move. NPCs would become invisible as well. I had a couple of freezes. Unintentionally sequence breaking a particular quest broke it, making it impossible to complete. Another quest I completed and was then offered it again. I'm not too worried about this though, as the preview build appears to be an alpha version. I had no problems with the first game when I played it, and I expect all of these issues to be ironed out for the final release.

IndieGames takes a closer look at Expeditions Vikings and likes the game but finds it combat heavy.

Vikings is divided into two campaigns, the first of which has you consolidating your power in your northern home. Questing about in isometric view, leveling up a formidable array of different skills, and slowly getting ready to depart for Britain's shores, ripe for raiding and plundering - or so you've heard. While you're following a fixed storyline, it doesn't really feel like you're traversing a set path. There are numerous optional quests and enough decisions to give you the illusion of freedom. It's worth noting that you're not bound to a good or evil path - you can be the nasty brute, the wise ruler, and everything inbetween.

You're starting out with a fixed cast of characters, and a few hours in you can also recruit fully customizable mercenaries. Build a boat, get some men, and travel the high seas towards Britain. This is where the game's second campaign, which has you raiding along the British coast and even venturing further inland, starts. Travelling the northern roads is no walk in the park, and you often have to make camp, which involves guarding, hunting, fixing wounds, and generally trying to get a good night's sleep before the marching continues. All of this makes secondary, non-combat skills feel like more than an afterthought. In fact, you're going to run into trouble keeping your warband alive if you don't take care of these things and delegate the nightly tasks to suit your characters' abilities.

SplatterCatGaming has previewed Expeditions: Viking:

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Expeditions Vikings drops early in 2017 offering players another chance to take part in an epic adventure across the Viking ages!

Thanks Pladio!

The November newsletter for Expeditions: Viking:

Well Met Traveler!

If you're reading this then guess what? You've made it! Welcome to the elite group of people with access to the upcoming Expeditions: Viking Beta in December. The Beta will be running for the majority of the month starting around the 15th of December and ending in the new year. We've got loads of new stuff for all of you to test and we're eager to get your feedback.

"So where's my Beta info!?" You ask? Well for very secret reasons, they're not in this mail, but Beta Access codes for Steam and additional information and instructions will be sent to you in an email closer to the launch of the Beta. That's not all though! With the launch of Expeditions: Viking coming in Q1 of next year, we're going to be giving Newsletter subscribers unique pre-launch and launch bonuses as a big thanks from all of us over here, so stay tuned to the Newsletter friends!

Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth

Raiding villages and hamlets is hard work if you're just one Viking. Loot and thralls are heavy, not to mention the trouble with trying to row a long boat on your own. That's why you get to bring friends!

Looting a village is good wholesome fun for the whole clan!

But... And there's always a but, isn't there? A number of you keen eyed folks have noticed that when it comes to party management and combat, we've been showing a lot of the same characters. This has led some to believe that your motley hird (that's a joke, right there) wont be as... Motley, as it could.

Well, fear not! We haven't showed you other crew members yet, because YOU haven't made them yet!
Look! We're bringing identical twins on our adventure!
"Wait... What did they just say?" We imagine you saying. Well you heard us! Once you start recruiting mercenaries for your pillaging adventures, you get to create them yourselves!

The story characters will still be there for all the lovely chattiness and banter, but by allowing you to make your own crew members, we're hoping to allow you to create exactly the party that's right for your pillaging needs!

The tool should be good to go for the Beta, and we can't wait to hear what you think of it.

Shiny Things to Look at!

Speaking of adding a bit of character, our Game Designer, Daniel chips in on the importance choice, and how it affects not just your character, but those around you too. We'd go on and on about it, but honestly, it's easier if you just let him do the talking, so click the video below!
Dev Blog video! Clicky clicky!
A special thanks to all of you that watched and commented on last month's Devs Play, we'll make another next month!

Dungeon Quest

So how do we go about planning all those choices? Well, we've included a dialogue tree for a never before shown area from the Britain Campaign: the dungeon of Eoforwic (modern day York). Essentially, all dialogue looks like this, with multiple choices that can lead to many different outcomes.

In this case it also doubles as a nice way to show off a small teaser from the new dungeon tiles. We'll be showing you more of that at a later time.
We spend a lot of time making sure that blindly attacking isn't the only option for an encounter, and while you might not always be able to avoid a fight, we try to make sure that you can at least mitigate it-- if your character is clever enough.

Pyromancy...

"Because if it can burn, it should be on fire"
                                              - Some clever bloke

We've been working a lot on skills these past weeks. We showed you some of them last month, and we're currently busy sorting out the animations for them, from our mo-cap trip to Warsaw. We'll be talking a lot more about that in the December issue, where we dig into the new skills, their synergy and so on, but for now, a small teaser for at least one of the skills, and what it does.
While setting people on fire may not be the easiest way to make friends, it sure can warm their heart!
Speaking of fires, and player choice, we've also begun adding the places where players leave more of a visible fingerprint on the world.

As stated, we want your actions to matter. Now, you wont be destroying every building you come into contact with, but there will be several turning points in the game, where you decide what manner of Viking you are, and how that affects the world around you.

Wrapping Things Up

That's it for this month, but we'll be back before you know it, with all things Expeditions: Viking. Now remember to keep your eyes open for the Beta key email which will be sent out en mass before the Beta begins.

Fair wind friend, and safe travels!

GamePressure gets hands on with Expeditions: Vikings and finds it an interesting game.

The first installment in the Expeditions series focused on conquistadors, and their conquest of the New World. In the second game by the Danish studio - Viking - the developers invite us to their homeland by setting the game in early medieval Denmark, where players become Viking clan chiefs. As the new boss, the player will have to fight for power, trade with others and organize looting expeditions. I've had an opportunity to try the game myself and spend over seven hours in its world, and although I wasn't too impressed initially, it grew on me with every hour. Expeditions: Viking will not be a game for everybody, but the fans of hardcore RPGs should keep it on their radars - especially those who don't think graphics are the most important element of a game.

You Can't Plot Without a Head

Let's start with the plot, because it's clearly going to be the game's highlight. In Expeditions: Viking, the players are taken to 8th-century Denmark, and assume the role of a young Viking who becomes the chief of their clan after his father's death. The deceased man wasn't the greatest leader in the clan's history, so his death leaves the player in dire straits - many of the local chiefs want to use this situation to their own advantage by trying to lessen our Viking's influence.

The adventure begins during the wake - friendly small talk soon turns into an argument followed by an outbreak of violence, provoked by one of the neighbors. As soon as we manage to contain the situation (the wayward Erlingr can be spared, exiled or... decapitated), another threat has to be faced head-on: an invasion of oak-tough warriors from Scandinavia. Not to spoil too much: during the first couple of hours the plot revolves around preparations for a looting (or trading - your choice) expedition to the British Isles. As soon as I managed to rally ten warriors, obtain some valuable goods to trade and find proper wood so that a ship builder could fetch me a nice drakkar, the demo ended.

The October Newsletter for Expeditions: Viking:

Well Met Traveler!

Right off the bat, there's something we need to do before we even start.
We got our Steam wishlist up and running. You should probably sign up for it.
Hit this link: ---> Steam Wishlist <--- every time you wishlist, a stupid helmet looses its horns.

Now that that's out of the way, we betta move on with-... What? Beta? No we didn't say beta, we said betta. Why would we talk about the beta? We're not even allowed to talk about that yet. But, you know, you might want to keep an eye out for next months newsletter... We're just saying. For reasons we can't possibly disclose at this point.

You should even tell your friends to sign up. Now, we're not saying that anyone who's on this newsletter list before our next newsletter hits, are probably gonna get a beta invite, because we're not allowed to talk about it. But if we were... Then that sounds like the sort of thing we might consider saying.

What's in a Name?

Moving on, we've been looking at item properties. From the get go it was very important to us that supernatural elements, while important to the era, remain ambiguous. Given the right character stats you can seek more plausible explanations for the supernatural encounters in game.

But how does this tie into crafting? We obviously want crafting to be personal and special, but we can't really justify crafting magical weapons while insisting on adhering to historical authenticity either. So we turn to superstition.

An item may gain special properties either through careful attention during crafting (if the crafter has the Artisan skill), or through seeing a lot of use - these properties represent the nostalgic attachment one can develop to weapons tried and tested in battle.

A character's superstition can causes them to act as if the item is indeed special, encouraging feats of strength, reckless aggression, or even lucky saves that they might not have allowed themselves with a "mundane" item.

For example: If a player has a series of critical hits in a row with a weapon, this character might be lead to believe that the weapon itself is thirsty for blood. Thus naming the weapon for it's apparent lust for battle.

Special properties can in some cases be tied to a particular character - though you can equip the item on another character, the property will only take effect when the item is used by the character who has an attachment to it. For example, Eydis (one of our recruitable characters and residen raid mother) starts with her dead husband's helmet and as long as she's wearing it, the helmet gives her a bonus to mental resistance because she feels that her husband is watching over her in battle. Give it to anyone else however, and it's just an old helmet.

Shiny Things to Look at!

We talk a lot about the various elements of the game, but we figured that for once, we'd like to show you some of it too. So buckle up as Jonas takes the wheel and take a ride with us into the Viking Age. Oh, and if you'd like to see more dev play videos, leave a comment in the comment section on Youtube!

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And that's not all! RockPaperShotgun have dropped an arcitle about their hands-on time with the game. Author Alec Meer walks us through many of the features of the game, and drops a little reference at the end that made us laugh.

You should absolutely get the full read below.
Unfortunately the good Alec Meer misspelled his boat name. Being the kind, helpful people that we are, we fixed that for him!

What a "Bloody Mess" Indeed.

The Vikings are coming!
Our artists have been working on our character models. Chopping them up and adding decapitation elements to their arms, legs and head. As well as adding extra neck and head pieces for chopping off heads. Combat and mutilations thus far have been PG-rated, with dead foes merely lying down on the ground, and those who are still alive, writhing back and forth.

To capture the brutality of the combat however, we've taken a cue from everybody's favourite Fallout perk, and have added dismemberment points.
We've obviously not transformed all our characters and NPC's into helium filled meat balloons, but while we're still setting it up and having some fun with it, we figured we'd share with you all!

Enjoy!

Wrapping Things Up

That's it for this month, but we'll be back before you know it, with all things Expeditions: Viking.

Fair wind friend, and safe travels!

At RockPaperShotgun they describe Expeditions: Vikings as a choice heavy RPG that is looking very promising.

...
Expeditions is a remarkably responsive RPG, starting from the kind of character you choose to be and then rolling onward with it. It's a game about behaviour as much as it is about twatting people with swords, this ongoing choice to (try and) be a benign ruler, a savage one, simply a blunt one or an ever-changing mix of all of the above.

Characters can be recruited to your ‘hind', essentially a party but which also has a role to play in the management of your village, if you manage to impress them in conversation or in battle, or they can be lost forever - potentially even become a sworn enemy. Potentially even seizing your throne from you.

This is only a preview build of a full game not due until a few months into 2017, so I can't say for certain that its choice and consequences will be as knotty and far-reaching as it seems to imply, but certainly its first major chapter leans heavy on that stuff. It's more of a ruling sim with quests'n'combat thrown in than it is yer traditional hero's journey. Grant mercy to these guys, but piss off those other guys because you look weak as a result - that sort of thing. Also, inept wolf-hunting, honor duels and finding lost brothers. RPG norms but parsed through a slight history filter.

There's probably nothing new under the sun, sure, but it's put together with a certain density that makes this stuff feel convincing and foundational to who your beleaguered character is, rather than a series of transitory kerfuffle.

In order to embrace this role, you've got to shrug off a certain crudity in presentation, both on a graphical front and in terms of the rather functional dialogue. Any or all of this might improve along the march to release (and it needs a technical spit and polish too), but even so I reckon Expeditions is achieving what it set out to do.

It is about time to turn back to our coverage of what I've seen at Gamescom and Expeditions: Viking is the game we continue with. We had this article ready to go just before we became unreachable. Together with the help of Aubrielle, it has been restored into what you can find here.

One of the significant differences between Viking and Conquistador is that you don't draft your crew at the start of the game. A major part of the first campaign is gathering the crew for your ship. As long as you don't have a crew or a ship, your village is under constant attack since it is seen as weak. You can collect crew members from the starting village and from your travels through Denmark. The first two people that join you are your two best friends, which you have known for a long time. One of them is a spear-wielding shield maiden, and the other is a hunter with a bow. The advantage of a spear in the game is that you have a longer reach and you can pass one hex, so you hit someone at a two hex distance. You can even go over the head of standing before you, or over defensive formations. In addition, you don't have any issues with attack of opportunity as that works only for adjacent hexes. You can't dismiss any of your party members during the first campaign, as they are essential to the narrative.

The September Newsletter for Expeditions: Viking:

Heil og sæl - Happy & Healthy

Greetings and well met Huscarls! Ah yes. Another month lies behind us, another newsletter ahead. We're back from Gamesom and hard at work filtering all the feedback. Lot's of exciting things going on!

Gamescom 2016

It's always interesting being at live events. Especially Gamescom. We don't quite think people realize just how damn big the thing is, but it can be overwhelming at times. From people queuing outside to get in, or walking one of the 10 halls or the corridor that connects them, all in all the Messe packs in 350.000 people during the whole event.

In the midst of all this, was our booth. Our community manager Teemo took to the public area, where he talked to the many people trying out Expeditions: Viking on the show floor, and put on some Viking Games on the accompanying stage.

Before that though, Alex and Teemo found the time for a little virtual climb amidst all the people, before heading back to the Viking Area for the stage show.

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The last part of the video you just saw? That was from our stage show.
The idea behind the show was simple enough, as you know, we're making a role playing game. Role playing games are interesting, not because of what others do, but because of the choices you get to make yourself. We therefore didn't want to have people sit and watch us play when they could sit and play themselves. So instead, we decided to have some Viking themed fun with them instead. THQNordic/Eurovideo were even nice enough to sponsor a 30" curved widescreen monitor as a prize for our games.

Enter: Viking Limbo. The general idea of Viking Limbo is simple enough. A stick is placed on the ground, and holding on to it with both hands, you now have to go under, not the stick, but yourself while only your feet and the stick, touch the ground.
For every person who does this, the next one in line has to put their hands below them.

Sounds simple, right? Heh, well that's what these people thought!

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[...]

Expeditions: Viking has been delayed, but has picked up some new features in the process.

Logic Artists' Expeditions: Viking title is being delayed into next year, but fans of the historical RPG will also get something for their trouble.

The PC title now has a tentative launch window of February 2017, changed from this fall.

However, the studio says it's adding environmental hazards into the game. These are objects in the environment (placed before or during combat) that players will have to considering when resolving their tactics on the battle field. The developer says it also wants to support English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and Polish when the game comes out, as well as add more random encounters and side quests.

For more on the game, check out these hands-on impressions as well as a dev diary talking about the game's combat and character creation.

 

Our Take
Given how it sounds like there are plenty of choices already in the game, the choice to spend more time on development – as well as add more tactical options and quests – seems like a great move.

The June newsletter for Expeditions: Viking:

Heil og sæl - Happy & Healthy

Greetings and well met fellow Viking. We're pleased that you've joined us once more (or for the first time) for this Expeditions: Viking saga.

As the fairer weather sets in, we toil away to bring you more news on your favourite Viking themed RPG. This week sees us not only looking back at RPC Germany and a nice article from The Daily Crate, but also looking ahead to what July might bring (you should probably pay attention at this point).

Tíðendi - News

We're entering the "quiet" period in the gaming industry, with summer coming up, but that doesn't mean we're taking it easy.

With less big events to attend, we set our attention to some smaller gigs with kindred spirits, and have been busy planning our own little thing. We'll get to the latter in just a minute but first, being fans of viking garb and kit, we set sail to Germany, to bring them much Viking goodness at the RPC (Role Play Convention), with a little sneak peek at the game for all the fine folk there.

Right from the first newsletter, we've brought you articles of those fortunate enough to get some hands on time with our game. This month will be no different. The wonderful people over at The Daily Crate gave us a lovely little writeup after dipping their feet in our world, and you should absolutely give it a read.

In Development

For us character design is an important part of bringing the historical world of Expeditions: Viking to life, so to speak. In this developer diary, featured in Gameinformer, August Hansen breaks down the art team's motivations and research discoveries when tackling character design.

Click here to watch the video

Freyja’s Viking Facts

In today's day and age, it's often hard to distinguish fact from fiction. The pre-recorded era is hard to keep track of at the best of times, and the ability for people to make up their own, more colourful facts, doesn't help matters along.

But fret not. Stuck at a party talking about historically accurate viking facts, but don't know what sources to believe? Well your friendly neighbourhood Logic Artists have your back!

Each and every Friday at @expeditionsgame we’ll post some true facts about Vikings that are either exaggerated or missed entirely. We’ve named each one of these “oh so scholarly” posts Freyja’s Friday Fun Facts after the goddess Freyja, who’s known for her wisdom and whom Friday is said to be named after. Clever, huh?

Yet, there’s only so much truth you can drop in 140 characters, and we want to drop it hard. So, with that in mind, we’re going to bring you some cool tidbits that we think will be to your Viking, erh, liking.

Not everything you've heard about vikings is true and some of what you might not have heard, is.

While the exact year is unknown, it is estimated that around year 1000, the Viking Leif Erikson discovered what would later be known as America. It was given the name "Vinland" (pronounced "Winland").

Now, there are two theories as to why, with the most popular pointing to the nordic word "vin" (wine) and the pressence of natural grapevines in the area they're believed to have landed in.

The other theory suggests that the pronounciation is actually "vinland" with a hard vowel. This would imply the use was that of the proto-norse "vinju" which means meadow or pasture.

Regardless of whether the vikings named the land for the landscape or the drink, one thing remains:

The Vikings, as would prove to be a theme amongst Europeans coming to the Americas for the first time, got on terribly with the locals.

If you're curious as to why this tends to be the result, why not check out Expeditions: Conquistador on steam. Odds are you'll fare better than the Vikings did. You see, archaeologists found a slew of arrow heads in the ruins of the first settlement, so it's not a stretch the assume that the Vikings were "persuaded" to leave whence they came and never return.

Tala - Communicate

And now, the reveal we've been teasing at. Some of you might have heard about Chris Avellone. If the name doesn't ring a bell, some of the games he's worked on most surely will: Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, KOTOR2, Neverwinter Nights 2. Those seem more familiar? Heh, we thought so. Well, it's our absolute pleasure to reveal that he's dropping by our office to do a little workshop with us. See if some of that RPG-God magic can't sprinkle over our viking world.

Which is cool for us, and obvioiusly you when the game comes out. But there has to be more to this, right? I'm glad you asked!

We'd love to take some questions and the like from you guys, so if there's anything you'd like to ask Lord Chris, about game design, RPG's or anything else you can think of, we'd love for you to throw the questions up on Twitter or Facebook, and we'll pick a few for him to answer.

Till next time
Be your friend's
true friend.
Return gift for gift.
Repay laughter
with laughter again
but betrayal with treachery.

- The Havamal -

In a developer diary video for Expeditions: Viking, art director August Hanssen provides more information on character design.

The Daily Crate has previewed Expeditions: Viking:

Preview: Expeditions: Viking

Logic Artists’ historical RPG, Expeditions: Viking, has been on my radar since I met two members of the team at PAX Prime last year. Expeditions: Viking has come a long way since that initial demo over coffee at the Sheraton. If I was excited back then about the possibilities, I am over the moon about what I saw at PAX East.

Alex Mint, who took me through the original demo in 2015, reprised his role as my guide and led me through the new content. Right from the first screen, there was a distinct difference in experience. While the original demo focused on a showcasing the robust camping system, party mechanics, and an introduction to combat, the PAX East build started me at the beginning: character creation.

If you know anything about me, Looters, you’d know that I measure an RPG’s worth by how enjoyable character creation is. Not enough options (seriously, why can’t I have pretty hair?!) and I’ll get irritated. Too many options and I’ll sit there forever. Put me in the middle with more than a few options… and pretty hair, naturally. (Don’t judge me.) Thankfully, Expeditions: Viking didn’t disappoint. I put together a shield-maiden with blonde braids and a warrior’s tunic before realizing that, wait a second, there aren’t any classes to choose from.

[...]

The May-newsletter from the Expeditions: Viking devs:

Happy & Healthy

Greetings fellow Vikings, another month has passed and we welcome you back (or for the first time) to the Expeditions: Viking Saga.

Our travels continued with a trip to the harbor of Boston, showing off Expeditions: Viking to the good people of eastern North America at PAX East! Event-goers got a chance to play “The Passage Grave”, and the response was exciting and extremely valuable to our team as we head forward with development. If you’re a recent a subscriber from PAX East; welcome aboard!

PAX East

PAX is always an exciting time, and Boston provided a lively spirit in many many ways. We’re extremely excited to preview Expeditions: Viking to a whole new set of travelers, and along the way we met some fellow vikings too!

A few lucky attendees even walked away with their very own mead horns to celebrate the occasion. Of course, we had to test them out first with a little mead of our own. Cheers to everyone who came by and visited us during the show!

Previews

PAX East was a fantastic opportunity for us to show off what’s new to media, YouTubers, Twitch broadcasters, but most of all, to players just like you. Here are some of the takeaways from previews at the show.

“The way the story tones, historical accuracy, and gameplay come together is not often seen in strategy games. Moreover, the dialogue is wonderful, and the branching paths and actions make the non-fighting elements as rewarding as anything else.” — Patrick Hancock, Destructoid

“As a big fan of Viking culture this game really appealed to me on a personal level, firmly grounded in historical accuracy and dripping with Viking trappings.” —
Terry O’Brien, MMORPG

In Development

This month, we wanted to show you our evolution in the animating process for Expeditions: Viking using motion capture. In this new developer diary, one of our animators, Katrine Poulsen, walked us through the process of utilizing motion capture and applying it in-game.

Expeditions: Viking Developer Diary — Motion Capture

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What’s Next!

As we head into the warm days of summer, Expeditions: Viking will continue its voyage to release with new development blogs highlighting character design and player choice. We’ll also have plenty more to share about our expeditions abroad, as we continue to share more information about the game!

Freyja’s Viking Fact

Source: Wikipedia

We’ll leave on a high note with this gruesome depiction of an act known as the “Blood Eagle”. Viking poetry alludes to this form of torture, where the ribs were severed from the backbone and the lungs carved out and presented on the victim’s shoulders in a manner to which the lungs were likened to the folded wings of an eagle.

GameReactorTV had a talk with Alex Mintsioulis about Expeditions: Viking and were shown some parts of the game.

Thanks Couch.

From the Expeditions: Viking April newsletter:

Happy & Healthy

Greetings fellow Vikings, and welcome yet again to the Expeditions: Viking Saga. We hope that your voyages were peaceful, your drinks were strong and your celebrations were mighty!

Spring is in full swing and we’re hot on the march spreading the good word about Expeditions: Viking!

The Logic Artists team recently invaded the UK and set up camp at EGX Rezzed. Overall, the event was a great success with many visitors enjoying what they played from our newest build. If you just signed up for this newsletter at Rezzed, thank you for subscribing and reading — we really appreciate it.

Sound the horn, we’re here.

[...]

Wisdom (from GDC)

In addition to meeting with media and YouTubers, Jonas and Ali gained their own version of Viking wisdom at the many GDC seminars over the course of the week. One in particular was the talk from Obsidian’s Game Director, Josh Sawyer, about the tuning of attributes in Pillars of Eternity.

“Sawyer's talk was probably the most narrow and in-depth design talk of the week, focusing purely on the considerations Obsidian made while designing and tuning the character stats in Pillars of Eternity. Of course this was particularly important to us as we're working on a game in the same genre as Pillars, but it was just fundamentally refreshing to attend such an in-depth design talk.

Sawyer went into the historical context of the game's stat system, shared a lot of lessons he'd picked up during development, and finished off with a very honest and balanced discussion on the pros of cons of the system they'd ended up with. We were particularly pleased when Sawyer recommended never mixing stats and character classes, which is well in line with the class-less character system in Expeditions: Viking.

Overall, great talk with lots of food for thought.”

— Ali Emek, Producer at Logic Artists

Upcoming Journeys

Next week, we travel back to the United States for a special visit to PAX East. We’re excited to show a brand new piece of the game to everyone visiting the Boston area, and we’d also like to extend a special thank you Alienware for the complimentary PCs that will be running Expeditions: Viking on-site. 

And now, we leave you with this...

Be your friend's
true friend.
Return gift for gift.
Repay laughter
with laughter again
but betrayal with treachery.

—The Havamal

Gamereactor recently sat down for a chat with Logic Artists. During this chat they saw 20 minutes of gameplay from this game. Apart from character creation and the start of the game, they also saw this:

We're also treated to an interesting situation later on in the game where you're challenged for the leadership of the clan through a duel of three shields, the outcome of the duel and the choices you make have major impact on the story and this is one of several such branching events in the game.

To access the gameplay video, please click on the link above, and please klick on the video 
in the middle of the screen. 

Gameinformer checked out Expeditions: Viking:

Expeditions: Viking

Hands-On With The Norse RPG

Expeditions: Viking is the successor to Expeditions: Conquistador. As the name suggests, this time it's all about hairy, axe-wielding vikings. Developer Logic Artists invited me to play through the opening segment of the game.

Expeditions starts mournfully. After creating your avatar in a solid character creator that lets you choose your gender, name, hairstyle, and skill sets, a brief intro cinematic plays. Your father, a chieftain, has died. Your clan and the clans under you are in turmoil. You're in charge now. Uh oh.

The game proper starts at the feast following your father's death. Your mother, Astridr, takes you aside and encourages you to speak with the other chieftains who are attending the feast and measure them up to see who is with you and who is planning to betray you for the throne. Speaking with all of them reveals that they all have complicated feelings about the whole matter. Some of them respected your father as chieftain, but doubt your ability to lead because you're unproven. Others are outright venomous toward both you and dear old dad but claim to be respectful of the traditions that form the hierarchy.

After speaking with everyone (and a few guests who later become party members), several drunkards raid the party, spitting on you and your father's name. Expeditions lets you choose how to handle the situation. I played it as calmly as I could, marching outside and asking them to break it up. The partycrashers wouldn't have it and refused any other outcome than a fight.

[...]

Thanks Eye!

Tech Raptor has talked to Jonas Wæver, the creative director of Logic Artists, about this game. Here's a quote about honour -among other things:

TechRaptor: Can we have an example or two of some new traits or opinions party members can hold in Expeditions: Viking? The way they intermingled in Conquistador was really cool.  

Jonas: The most important trait is each character's attitude towards the concept of honour. Honour was a huge underpinning in Norse society, and whether a character is considered to be honourable or shifty (a nithing!) very often governs how they respond to your decisions. Another very important set of traits is whether the character is superstitious or skeptical, which determines how they perceive religion, folklore, and magic. A skeptical character may be less affected by seemingly supernatural occurrences, while a superstitious character would buy into that sort of thing much more.

GameInformer has talked to Jonas Wæver, the creative director of Logic Artists about this game. Here's a bit about the inspiration:

Wæver says there are benefits and challenges to working in this time period. "The Viking age is both really easy and really challenging to deal with historically because written accounts are so sparse and so biased - the Norse didn't really write a whole lot, since brevity is of the essence when you have to chisel your words into stones!" he says. "This gives us a lot of freedom to choose our own approach to the historical elements, but it also makes it difficult to find trustworthy sources to rely on for shaping our game world. Fortunately there are tons and tons of archaeological sources about the Viking age, so we've been relying on a lot of that to get the clothing, the architecture, the tools and weapons, and the ships just right."

In addition, the Danish main television station, DR, also has talked to Jonas Wæver.
It is in Danish, so here's the link to a google english transition of the Danish interview.
Here's a bit about how the company has reacted to the criticism of the first game, Expeditions: Conquistador:

The game was at home criticized for bringing a traditionally colonialist worldview of the Spanish conquerors, and in Latin America came the criticism that the game was racist in its depiction of the native Indians. For Jonas Wæver is what some were interpreted as being politically incorrect, the price of the game could be historically accurate. - But we listen very carefully to the criticism, because we would not want to be guilty of distortion of history, emphasizing Wæver who are curious to see if the 'Viking', who also slaves, they cause just as much criticism and indignation when it is released later in the year.

Remember, though, that is a google translation of the original interview in Danish which
can be found here.

Logic Artists mentioned to us that you can now subscribe to their newsletter to learn directly from them about Expeditions: Viking.

And yes, this is the only news we have about the game at the moment....

Logic Artists have struck a publishing deal for Expeditions: Viking, especially for physical distribution and in some cases digital distribution, in order to reach a bigger part of the world.

IMGN.PRO is pleased to announce publishing partnership with Logic Artists - creators of the upcoming historical RPG Expeditions: Viking.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - December 9^th, Copenhagen, Denmark

The partnership includes the physical distribution of the new Expeditions title as well as a promotional partnership, opening opportunities to bring Expeditions: Viking to audiences around the world. IMGN.PRO will be responsible for retail distribution across world markets (with the exception of the GSA region) and will bring Expeditions: Viking to a limited number of digital platforms with which Logic Artists has no existing collaborative ties.

Ali Emek, Logic Artists Managing Director - We are very excited to have established partnership with IMGN.PRO team. We believe that by teaming up with another strong partner, Expeditions: Viking will reach new global markets and receive the attention it deserves. We have no doubt that Expeditions: Viking will do well in the IMGN.PRO team's talented hands.

Bartosz Moskała, IMGN.PRO co-owner - Expeditions: Viking is a breath of fresh air in the RPG/strategy genre and I'm truly glad we can partner up with its developer. The first installment of the Expeditions brand received very warm welcome among both players and critics. The sequel exploring the popular Viking theme is therefore even more expected - the Danish studio surely has what it takes to do their ancestors justice.

Thomas Faust (True PC Gaming) has written a preview for Logic Artists' upcoming game: Expeditions: Viking

Expeditions: Conquistador, released in 2013, was a fairly unique strategy game that had you traveling the South-American jungle and managing a small group of people, hunting, fighting, and having adventures against a historical backdrop. It felt a bit like the King’s Bounty games with a smaller scope and slightly shifted gameplay priorities, and I feel that it didn’t quite get the attention it deserved. Late next year, Danish developers, Logic Artists, will follow up with another game in the Expeditions series, this one obviously Viking-themed. You start out, having inherited the leadership of a small clan.

In the game’s first campaign, you gather your most trusted allies and work towards consolidating your power in your home region. The second campaign will have you and your merry band of plundering Northmen travel to Britain and begin raiding. All of this will follow a branching, but generally fixed story line. Considering that the narrative design of Expeditions: Conquistador was one of its standout features, I have high hopes for Viking.

It won’t be an easy feat, however. The problem with Viking lore and mythology is that most of the information available to us today was written by their enemies, while most records of Viking origin have been lost due to having been carved into wood or embroidered on fabric. Logic Artists still hope to convey a decent level of historical accuracy, but considering its origin, it cannot be spot on and will possibly be filigreed with a good deal of Nordic mythology from the Viking sagas.

[...]

I really liked Expeditions: Conquistador. It was by no means a perfect game, and a few gameplay flaws like the aforementioned camping spreadsheets and a rather unforgiving difficulty kept it from ever reaching the fame and fortune it deserved.

However, it seems that Logic Artists are well aware of these issues and intend to not make the same mistakes again with Expeditions: Viking. Furthermore, the attention to detail, from trying to incorporate Viking lore as well as possible to little things like the hand-woven look of the map screen, is already pretty impressive. Considering that I saw an early alpha build of the game and it won’t be out until late 2016, I have high hopes that Expeditions: Viking will be a memorable, interesting, and awfully pretty strategy game, so keep an eye out for this one.

Thanks Eye!

GameReactor interviewed Alex Mintsioulis about Expeditions: Viking.

"It's an RPG game that's set in a historical theme," explains Mintsioulis. "So the idea is that you as a player inherit this viking village from your father who has died. You become the new leader of it and at the time that you gain control or power it's a very weak village, very modest and it's under threat from enemies, both foreign and domestic."

Hit the link to check out the video with the interview.

Thanks Eye.

With the success of Expeditions Conquistador, Logic Artists decided to make a successor and listen to the feedback they have received, leading to Expeditions: Viking, taking place in the homelands of Logic Artists and in England. During Gamescom, I had the opportunity to check the game out.

Expeditions: Viking is the sequel to Expeditions: Conquistador and as the title states, this time it is about Vikings. You are a Viking who just inherited a village from your father, making you the leader of that village. It is a modest village and relatively weak in the eyes of your neighbors. In the game you have to try to elevate the status of the village and its people and make it stronger and more powerful. This is achieved by politics, violence, trading and raiding, both inside the Viking homeland and abroad.

Alex Mint of Logic Artists shows some gameplay of Expeditions: Viking on Twitch TV at GC 2015.

A while ago the Nordic Game Convention in Malmö took place and Aries100 went there to check out the, at that time, recently announced Expeditions: Viking. Here are his findings from that meeting.

I asked Alex the questions from Watchers Pladio and Archangel about magic weapons, mythological elements, bears, Nordic gods and skills in the game, as well as choice and consequence and here a summary of his answers: "There will be no magical weapons in this game.  However, since this was a time where people believed in magic you might find a weapon that’ll boost your characters’ morale. These weapons can either be a spear of Odin or a weapon which has bone runes inserted. As such, it will be the characters perception of the weapons that will boost their morale."

In line with this, the Nordic Gods will not have a direct influence on the gameplay in any way. However, Alex gave an example from Conquistador in which a character went into cave and was exposed to some hallucinogenic fumes and experienced a meeting with a south American god. They might do the same for Viking, but they haven’t yet decided how to represent them [the Nordic Gods] in the game.

Logic Artists announced today that Expeditions: Viking will be the sequel to Expeditions: Conquistador.

Expeditions: Viking Announced - Sequel to Historical RPG Expeditions: Conquistador

Copenhagen, Denmark -- May 20th, 2015 -- Danish indie developer Logic Artists today announced they have begun development on the second installment in their historical RPG Expeditions series, Expeditions: Viking. Set in the late 700’s A.D., Expeditions: Viking is a tactical RPG where players inherit the leadership of their clan and are charged with elevating their clan’s status by adventuring in far away lands and defending their home from their enemies both foreign and domestic. 

With the announcement, Logic Artists has also revealed some details about the game. Building from the original designs of their first game Expeditions: Conquistador the Logic Artists team have also taken player suggestions to heart.  Announcing that the Expeditions Sequel will have an upgradable player village which they must return to between expeditionary raids to build and protect.  Over-land travel and combat will now exist as part of the same layer.  Transitioning from unrestricted exploratory movement to turn-based combat smoothly.  Additionally players will see their player character manifested in the game world not just as a Role-playing character for conversations and decision making (As was in the first of the Expeditions Series), but also visibly represented in travel and combat as a custom character.  

“We are very excited to return to our roots in the RPG genre, and as developers from the Nordic region, to make a game in a setting that is a lot closer to home than anything we've done before”, said Jonas Wæver, Creative Director for Logic Artists.“We're improving on the Conquistador formula with deeper and more dynamic systems for character progression, combat abilities, role-playing, choice and consequence, and expanding on our favorite part of Conquistador: camping and wilderness survival”.

Expeditions: Viking is a Historically-themed RPG set in the Viking Age.  As the new leader of a humble clan of farmers and fighters players must adventure into the unknown lands to the west to raid and/or trade their way to wealth, fame and glory.  Will you rewrite history as a peaceful and benevolent trader? Or pave your road to Valhalla with the treasures and bones of your fallen enemies?  Experience choice and consequence as never before in the much awaited addition to the Expeditions Series, Expeditions: Viking.

We have some artwork of the game in our gallery.

And the announcement trailer: