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War of the Vikings

War of the Vikings after "the best combat experience possible"

We talk to Gordon Van Dyke about killing archers and Early Access.

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We caught a word (or two) with Fatshark's Gordon Van Dyke at a recent event, and the War of the Vikings executive producer was, as always, happy to discuss the game and the development process.

During the extensive interview, Gordon explained to us the state of the game, how the Early Access is working, and why they decided to go that route: "We basically were looking at some type of pre-order or pre-purchase campaign, and then we also wanted to do a long running beta and try and get a lot of user feedback; to try and ensure that the game was as well balanced so that it's the best combat experience possible at release. And those two things fit together and it made sense, and Steam's goals that they have for Early Access, which is to really involve the community, so they had set up basically a structure to support that. So it made it easier for us than creating that infrastructure ourselves. So that's why we really went with that. All the pieces fit together."

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Later Van Dyke explained how his team are taking their commitment to early adopters seriously, and why their feedback is so important for the game: "I think the big thing is just really... communication. I think that that's the biggest thing, and you have to be super, super aware of and understand that these people are putting their trust in you early on, and so you need to reciprocate that. That loyalty, that commitment, that belief in us and posting and keeping them super updated and being very transparent and being very honest with them, and also really actually taking their feedback into consideration. I mean if you're just doing, you know, if you're just putting it out there just because you want to gain attention or you just want quick access to some funds then that's probably the wrong reason to do it."

"And for us it's actually added additional work," he continued, "now we need to branch off the game every two weeks - around every two weeks - and then start fixing all the bugs after we've introduced a lot of new code because that always makes it unstable."

It's not all development talk, van Dyke also revealed that he regularly logs on and plays with the Early Access crowd. He confessed that when he sees archers on the opposing team there's certain tactics that he uses to take out his opponents ("whenever there's a bunch of archers I just pick that guy [the Juggernaut] and I just go through and I start going on a killing spree, so to speak, a ‘virtual killing spree'"). We also discussed how it's moments like that, when players adapt to the different scenarios and utilise tactics to best take advantage of situations, when the game really comes alive.

"You'll see an archer on your team and he'll start trying to take out that guy, that archer, and he'll start focussing on him as a ranged opponent, and I think that's when the game really starts to come to life. When people are using the targeting specifically, and using it for tactics-wise, and trying to use that to encourage their team to attack a certain opponent if they're causing an issue. You kind of group together, and that feeds back into the vikings and how they fought. They fought as a group, so we've tried to do these things so that it's a choice and it happens naturally, and when it happens naturally and people just play it that way because it's what is fun and it makes sense, and when it flows together naturally is when the game comes to life," he concludes.

Watch the rest of the interview for more insight into how the studio balances hard stats and player perception, how the team are improving maps and game modes, and how you'll be able to customise your Viking warrior (or Saxon, if you prefer).

War of the Vikings

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War of the VikingsScore

War of the Vikings

REVIEW. Written by Mike Holmes

"It's still an utterly punishing game, and while it is certainly easier to pick up, it's still very tricky to master."



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