It's a Viking battle royale in Valhall

Valhall is Viking battle royale. It takes the now-familiar battle royale formula—100 players, everybody vs. everybody, basically—and applies it to everyone's favorite Norsemen. Valhall is the first outing from indie newcomer Blackrose Arts. It'll enter early access on Steam soon, while its Indiegogo campaign is scooping up crowdfunds. 

I have to admit, I was hoping for a single-player role-playing game on par with Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Gaming Nexus score 9 out of 10). The realistic arms, armor, environments, and architecture was leading me in that direction. Not to mention the more realistic first- and third-person combat. But no, we're fully in battle royale land with Valhall. But everything is looking great. The outdoors border on photorealism. The interiors are spacious and ugly, though. The indoors aren't trying to impede the flow of combat in any way, it appears, a little furniture here and there would be nice to see.

Players will duke it out, presumably, to be the last man standing. I'm not certain if it's purely everyone against everyone, or if there will be any teaming up. Instead of "Where we droppin'?" it's more like "Where we sailin'?" With the left mouse button you'll commit to dynamic multi-directional attacks, parrying, dodging, and sliding. No cross hairs on your longbow. And no "third-person peeking" around corners with the camera. You know the trick I'm talking about. The devs are working against that.

There aren't any pay-to-win loot chests. In-game loot consist of only cosmetic rewards. Pre-beta testers got the developers to remove horns from the Viking helmets because, of course, that seems to be a sticking point the Internet feels obligated to prove over and over. But I did see one cosmetic item give a player a flaming sword. So, you know, pick and choose your battles when it comes to the fight for realism in video games. I mean, the entire game takes place in Viking heaven where everybody fights to be the Winner Winner Chicken Dinner, plus the encroaching circle in this battle royale has everything outside of the circle being swept up in a Langoliers-like reality-eating death tornado. But yes, the devs hear you: no horns on Viking helmets!

Again, Valhall is coming soon to Steam early access.