War of the Vikings, from the people who brought you War of the Roses, promises to be the latest and greatest thing in axe-in-the-face gameplay.
I rather enjoyed the time I spent with War of the Roses last year, so it pleases me greatly to say that developer Fatshark is hard at work on a new project that will bring a whole new level of fidelity to the “remorseless multiplayer slaughter” genre: War of the Vikings, which, as you might have guessed, will involve hordes of burly men horrifically mutilating and murdering one another with primitive weaponry.
“War of the Roses was a fantastic experience for us to launch, and as it’s evolved over time, eventually growing into its current Kingmaker edition, we’ve been inspired many times over by the possibilities of the close-combat genre,” War of the Roses Executive Producer Gordon Van Dyke, said. “It’s clear to us that that there are many more experiences we can share with our players, and War of the Vikings is our next step in establishing Paradox and Fatshark as leaders in the art of online war.”
War of the Vikings will pit the raiding forces of the Norse against the stalwart defenses of the Saxons in 9th and 10th century England, in battles of up to 64 players at a time. Like its predecessor, the game will feature a wide range of historically-accurate weapons, armor, and environments, and highly-customizable soldiers with unique perks, taunts and “a variety of beard options.” Seriously.
War of the Vikings won’t be ready to launch until early 2014, but gamers who dig this sort of manly violence can sign up for the alpha now at signup.warofthevikings.com. While you wait for that to pay off, you can also poke at the game a little bit on Facebook.
