When Vikings first came out, some people may have thought it was just a Game of Thrones imitation, but after four exceptional seasons, it has proved to be in a league of its own. The somewhat historically accurate adventures of the great Viking warrior Ragnar Lothbrok have attracted an average of 4.3 million viewers and merited an impressive score of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. Developers are starting to realise the popularity and as such, a mobile game has been announced for release next year.
Hugo Games and MGN Interactive have partnered up to release a mobile Vikings game, which will be available on Android, iOS, and Steam. The developers have yet to release many details pertaining to the game other than that it will be a player-versus-player strategy app and will feature all the main characters including Ragnar, Lagertha, Floki, and Rollo. Hugo Games has been responsible for cartoony games like Axe in Face and Hugo Troll Wars in the past, and hardcore fans of Vikings may be worried that they will make a mockery of the serious nature of the show.
There is already a mobile app based on the great raiders of old, but unrelated to the TV series. Vikings: War of Clans is an MMO strategy game which attempts to capture the brutal nature of the warriors, but misses out on engaging storylines. The game has been successful, though, with a score of 4.4/5 stars on the Google Play Store, and shows how other Viking games could flourish. The Vikings slot at Bitcasino has also been well received, and features symbols including iconic Viking shields, ships and warriors. According to this bitcoin blog, there are plenty of advantages to playing with the e-currency, such as no processing fees when withdrawing or depositing. In fact, bitcoin may soon be the way to pay for things in mobile apps like those mentioned above.
Despite the Vikings clearly being well represented in the gaming world, the Vikings TV show would be a great adventure to play as an open world format on a console. While Game of Thrones would be difficult to make as a single player roleplaying game because of the vast number of central protagonists, Vikings would be simple because it mainly focuses on the adventures of Ragnar. The game could follow a somewhat open world format in the style of other titles like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It could begin at the same stage as the TV series and follow the Vikings on their first raid of England, tracking them as they later become more ambitious and invade France.
There is clearly an audience for a game like this with the other Vikings-themed products on the market. And in early 2018 there will be another historical game called Kingdom Come: Deliverance which will be set during the times of the Roman Empire. If this offering from Warhorse Studios is successful it could trigger developers to look to creating more games based on historical time periods. Vikings would then be an obvious choice.
