Vikings Dynasty aims to continue the well-known game series, this time in cold Scandinavia. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus is a huge fan of Vikings and checked out the upcoming survival game at the gamescom 2025. He was very surprised: The creators apparently place great value on authenticity.
There’s hardly anything better than living out the completely exaggerated idea of Vikings in video games. Wild warriors from the North, charging into battle with bare chests and mowing down everything like the berserkers they are. Excellent!
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla immersed me in a fantasy that I still consider one of the best in video games: two two-handed swords, loud war cries, and go for it! Easily one of the best Viking games I have ever played.
However, these games often do not truly reflect what Vikings really are. I am interested not only in the myths surrounding the Norsemen but also in the culture, history, the legacy – everything that relates to history. And there is much more than just the raiding warriors.
Vikings Dynasty showcases precisely this world of Vikings that many who are not in the know remain unaware of: agriculture, fishing, shipbuilding, family. What I saw at gamescom about this game absolutely thrilled me.
“Family as a status is enormously important for the Vikings”
In Vikings Dynasty, you play as a Norse man or woman and found your own dynasty. Starting with being stranded after a storm, you receive some land from the Jarl of a nearby location and can settle there.
With the inhabitants you can recruit, you build your village, grow larger, find partners, and start families. Of course, they all need to be provided for: agriculture, fishing, and hunting provide food, seers, völvas, and temples offer divine assistance. Eventually, you will even become a Jarl yourself.
That already sounds quite different from what you typically know from Viking games – and that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. Mathias Oertel, Senior Marketing & PR Manager at Toplitz Productions, the publishers of Vikings Dynasty, showed me the game and explained:
The combat is not our focus. For us, the classic, pure dynasty remains at the forefront, especially since it is surprisingly more ingrained in the culture, contrary to what is propagated in pop culture and through TV series and so on… Sure, they fight to reach Valhalla, but family values, family as a status, is enormously important for the Vikings.
And that fits wonderfully with this dynasty franchise. That is something we want to convey. We want to show Viking culture not just as warriors but also as civilians, as ordinary people. And still, it is all story-driven. Especially about the main character you create, who, as you’ve seen, can also be female.
Especially the story designer is one of the absolute Viking freaks. We cannot avoid referencing the well-known sagas and gods and so on. As we had in the intro, Odin Allfather, of course, you recognize Thor, Loki, and all their names.
Mathias Oertel
Fights will nonetheless play an important role: bandits will frequently attack, and you must defend your settlement. Unlike in Sengoku Dynasty, these raids cannot be eliminated, as the path to Valhalla is an important part of the story.
“You will have to honor the gods”
What impressed me the most was the authentic integration of religion. I haven’t seen much, but Mathias explains to me:
You will have to honor the gods. We also have seers, we have rune magic. In other words, you can also use runes in your weapons. It may help, before you go on any expeditions, to team up with your völva and take a look into the future to see what might happen. […]
The story designer and the world designer, he is the one who really… in another time, he would be a Viking. He is very focused on authenticity. And when we did the character presentation for Tarja, the völva, I wrote a few things. Because I had assumed that magic in the world is just “there” and he then corrected me very strongly. Therefore, I now assume that the magic derives from the knowledge of the time as they saw it, and is integrated.
Mathias Oertel
There will be temples in the game and seers who will imbue weapons – which you can forge yourself – with runes. However, I don’t know what effects these runes really have yet. Regarding the temples, I was particularly pleased with one detail: “The story we tell revolves around gods, figures, beings that may not be so well-known.” Maybe I’ll learn something new!
Like a real Viking: Out to sea with your own ship!
Shipbuilding will also play a major role in Vikings Dynasty. There will be several types of ships with which you can travel more or less far across the sea and explore new islands to find resources.
If you’re not up for that, you can let your NPCs do it – or fellow players, as Vikings Dynasty supports co-op for up to 4 players. Of course, you can also steer your ships yourself. There just won’t be any ship battles.
Currently, Vikings Dynasty is still in development, and many ideas are still being implemented or, if they are not feasible, discarded. The release is planned for later in 2025 in early access on PC.
I am definitely very much looking forward to building a settlement with longhouses, many temples, and a shipyard, from which I can sail out to sea and fish! Things a Viking does when he’s not plundering Lindisfarne. Until the release, I hope to engage with a surprising highlight: My biggest surprise at gamescom was a game I’ve been waiting for 24 years – and I didn’t even know it before
