Frozenheim Review (PC)

I lose two axemen to wolves, in part because my archers are not in range before I kill the pack and help myself to the supplies they were guarding. I then push forward into the forest, knowing that my village is secured by other forces, and meet a bear that mauls my entire force. I need to boost steel and clothes production to make sure I can quickly train more warriors, should the need arise.

I also plan to get another small group of houses going, although I do need to make sure that my supply of food is solid before raising my population too high. There’s no more room for fishermen’s huts so I need to put down farms and orchards and deliver the storage space required to keep everyone fed through the winter.

Frozenheim is developed by Paranoid Interactive and published by Hyperstrange. I played on the PC via Steam. The title claims to offer a mix of city-building and real-time strategy elements in a universe inspired by Viking sagas. There are four story-driven campaigns to work through, with more than 20 missions to engage with.

The narrative threads are pretty frail and there’s nothing in the writing to connect the player with the clans he is guiding. The game doles out objectives and generates events that feel disjointed and uninteresting. See if you can remember the name of any character once a mission is over.

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Frozenheim is aiming to deliver a combination of city-building and more classical RTS. A thriving settlement, with content villagers and plenty of resources, is required to sustain the combat units that protect it from raiders and can deliver victory over other groups of Vikings.

It all starts off promising enough, with a longhouse for the jarl already build and the resources to create the first few resources chains. Food, from hunting and fishing, and wood are the priorities. Players will soon be able to upgrade their main hall and gain access to more buildings, including temples, inns, and more. They will also have to find ways to gather ore and stone, process both, and keep solid stockpiles to move through winter and maintain armed forces.

But creating a few supply chains and upgrading buildings does not make this a city builder. Do not expect too much depth or careful optimization. Frozenheim does ask players to choose where to mine resources and to plan before placing some of the buildings. But fans of the genre will be disappointed with the variety of options that they get, which does not come close to any of the classics.

The fact that players can quickly create a militia out of villagers is a clear sign that the game also features plenty of combat. It’s pretty chaotic and features all the core mechanics of an RTS with no innovation, apart from the use of Viking units. Fortifications are available, although most players will probably invest in units rather than static defensive.

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As a village develops a range of more capable units can be trained and sent out to battle enemies. Apart from the campaign players can also engage in three flavors of custom scenarios (skirmish, survival, and pure city building) and in multiplayer matches.

The ideas that Frozenheim claims to mix sound interesting. But the experience of actually engaging with them is disappointing. Creating a solid settlement only feels fun some of the time, before one realizes that the building is mostly a matter of waiting for resources to accumulate or trying to eliminate a shortage. It gets boring even when running the game at maximum speed. Battles do add moments of excitement, but weight of numbers tends to be the only element that really matters for the result.

Frozenheim’s presentation does not impress. If you zoom in to look at the Vikings and their daily work you will find blocky characters with no personality and generic buildings. There’s little of the spectacle offered by classics like Pharaoh or Caesar. I played zoomed-out most of the time, which makes the game easy to read but offers even less in the way of beauty. The game does have a dedicated photo mode. The somewhat melancholic soundtrack is good but does not seem to fit very well with the rest of the experience.

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The Good

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Conclusion