In Valhalla Hills, the God Odin has closed the doors to the mighty hall of Valhalla and is no longer accepting new… guests. But being the brave, stubborn viking that you are, are you going to let something as trivial as a malevolent deity stand between you and the afterlife? Of course not!

In order to gain entry for yourself and your fellow vikings, you must work your way through the different levels of hell, fighting your way through portal after portal on your way to eventually reaching Valhalla.

So, just what is Valhalla Hills and how does it play? Well, it’s a level-based, Real Time Strategy game based around the collection of resources and the construction of various buildings and units, all of which can be used to gain entry into each level’s “portal”, thus allowing your progression to the next level.

The resources you’ll be gathering are varied, from wood and stones, fishing and hunting, to growing wheat and brewing beer… for the warriors of course. Collecting these resources is as simple as constructing the associated building. So, to start quarrying stone for example, all you need to do is construct a stonemason’s hut and, once completed, a random viking in your group will take up employment there without so much as an interview or health and safety assessment.

So what’s the point in collecting all these resources you ask? Well, simply put, all these things can be used to build bigger and more advanced buildings which in turn will allow the collection of other resources and the building of yet more buildings or the production of equipment for your vikings. The ultimate goal is to use all of these materials to either recruit and arm soldiers, or to use as sacrificial offerings to the Gods.

Ah yes, for you see there are two ways in which your Vikings can ascend from their level of hell. The first is equip them with the best weapons you can produce and then attempt to storm the “portal” by force. Of course, the portal is defended by guardians, so it is wise to build up your soldiers and fortify them with beer before the battle commences.

The other option is to construct an altar and offer up the resources you gather to placate the gods. Once enough fruits of your labour have been sacrificed, you will be able to enter the portal without all that messy need to smash rocks into an Ice Golem’s head. Of course as you progress through the game, the amount you need to offer the gods increases enormously. That sharp stick might start looking like a good option again.

The combination of building, gathering and then attacking is fun and focused if fairly brief. Each level should only take you a short while to complete. I do like how streamlined everything is. If I construct some farm land, a helpful viking with automatically take up employment there and start producing wheat. If I then build a bakery, another viking with take on the job of collecting wheat from the farm, taking to the bakery and baking bread. All without any additional input from me. It’s pretty slick, when it works. 

As fun as Valhalla Hills can be, it is not without it’s problems. Since it’s an early access game, I’m conscious about not being overly critical on the game’s faults. It controls well, the processes are slick and streamlined and it looks simply gorgeous. That said, bugs do exist. For instance you might build a woodcutters hut and then find that the viking working there is stubbornly punching trees down with his bare hands, while complaining about not having an axe, all while the toolmaker has a surplus of axes. Since you cannot allocate resources as you see fit, you have to wait until the AI decides to go to the toolmakers and collect the axe for themselves, which can sometimes be never.

Building up your army is as simple as constructing and army camp and then having the toolmaker makes weapons. You then open the army camp menu and select which weapons you want utilised and a viking will go fetch said weapon and report to the army camp. But that really is about as complex as the combat side of things get. When you finally do decide to attack the portal, the battles are a little simplistic and involves moving your army camp close to the portal and letting your vikings duke it out with the portal guardians. Theres nothing much in the way of tactics and again, you cannot directly issue commands. The most tactical you can get is to call off an attack by re-locating your army camp far away from the portal, allowing the vikings to beat a hasty retreat.

Ultimately, the one thing that really prevents Valhalla Hills from truly shining is that it eventually becomes far too repetitive. In the early game, each time you ascend to the next level, and new buildings become unlocked, it is quite exciting and drives the gameplay forwards. However, later on, as the trickle slows, each time you complete a level and realise that you must start again, from scratch on a new map, it’s a little disheartening.

What the game would truly benefit from would be a Command & Conquer style “Skirmish” mode. A non level-based, free-form map with your vikings and 1-3 A.I. viking clans, all duking it out over the limited resources. I remember playing about 2 hours of C&C’s campaigns and pouring 100’s of hours into the Skirmishes. Simply passing through portal after portal in Valhalla Hills isn’t going to be enough to keep most players engaged long term.

In conclusion then, Valhalla Hills is a beautiful, if flawed game which I can’t write off completely given that it’s still in early access. I hope that the developers can fix the bugs and also do something to make the gameplay less repetitive and more rewarding. If they can do that, they will have a real winner on their hands.

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