Bite-sized Review:
Asgard's Fall - Viking Survivors

By Chris Picone, 17 April, 2025

Another survivors-like? Yup. I don't know why - any game that involves idling in any way is not normally my cup of tea - but for some reason I just can't get enough of them.  And while I didn't finish it, Asgard's Fall - Viking Survivors had me hooked for a dozen solid hours. 

Aesthetics

Asgard's Fall looks like most other survivors-likes, with good-looking but very minimalistic landscapes, a range of different biomes that feature a handful of key objects but mostly rely on colour schemes to differentiate, and very simple creatures with very simple animations so the game can throw thousands of them at you without making your computer explode.  Except for the bosses; they are often huge and detailed and look amazing. Thematically, Asgard's Fall leans heavily into the Viking/Norse flavour, with lots of hammers and axes and snakes for special effects.

Gameplay

Once again, Asgard's Fall's gameplay is much the same as any other survivors-like.  You single-handedly face off against huge swarms of monsters, gradually gaining new weapons and constantly levelling up and becoming more powerful. There's a bit of enemy variety, particularly across levels, with the majority walking toward you, some a bit tougher than others, while others shoot at you, leap at you, or throw grenades everywhere. Weapon aim can be manual or automatic - your choice - and you'll do a fair amount of dashing to avoid being hit. Asgard's Fall really doesn't stray far from the familiar survivors pattern, with the exception of the levelling & meta-progression. You only upgrade your weapons every second level; ever other level, you gain a "knot" which you add to the "web of wyrd." The web lets you add statistical bonuses through a combination of "power" knots, which add bonuses directly, booster knots which add multipliers (but also take up precious space), and "fate" knots, which do nothing until you connect enough power knots to them, and then they usually give you some cool new ability or major boon. It's an interesting system.  There are only three characters, which is a shame because I love the unlocking system, which requires you to beat a very specific challenge (such as raise your attack speed to 500% to unlock the huntress). Thankfully, you get tons of reroll to try to maximise your synergy. Another thing I really liked was that each character levels up separately by gaining experience through play, which does slow your overall progression somewhat, but definitely adds to replayability. Thankfully, you can speed this up a little because there's additional meta-progression through collection of pigments and warpaint. 

Verdict

If you're into survivors-likes, Asgard's Fall is a very safe play.  It stays very close to that familiar, winning pattern seen elsewhere in the genre, but it has nice flavour, very addictive, seratonin-inducing progression, and some genuinely fun boss fights.  There are a few minor balance issues at the moment and there's definitely room for some more characters or a bit more variety but the game has only just released in Early Access and is still a year away from full release, so in that context it's actually incredibly polished already and can only get better. 

Links: 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2780710/Asgards_Fall__Viking_Survivors/