This delightful new Viking board game steers you across stormy seas with magnets

I love board games that strive to be more than the sum of their parts. I love ocean-deep strategies, innovative mechanics, and complex subtexts that rival the most meaningful ‘high art’. I want to see the board game medium elevated, but I also want the industry to remember its roots. These are, at the end of the day, toys – and that’s something to be celebrated.

Viking Route revels in its toy status. It’s one of the things that first drew me to it, despite not having much space in my life for family board games. Half of the game is played on a little 3D longboat. The rest of the play space is occupied by vibrant Vikings, illustrated in a rather cozy style. It’s delightful to interact with, and that’s before we even talk about the magnets.

We’ve seen magnets in board games before. Several family games (Polarity, Bermuda Triangle, and so on) got experimental with them in the ’70s and ’80s. These days, I mainly associate them with dexterity-based party games like Kluster or Klask.

Viking Route isn’t far from the first to make mechanics of magnets. In fact, it’s not even the first to use them in this specific way. The game’s co-designer. Guido Albini, used a very similar mechanic in a previous game, The Faceless. Viking Route looks to be a streamlined iteration of similar ideas. Still, in a world of largely magnet-less board games, Viking Route does stand out.

Viking Route is a co-op adventure game where 1-4 players ferry a Viking crew across turbulent waters. Each Viking takes up to three actions, moving about their Drakkar and adjusting its steering, sails, storage, and so on. Then, Fate intervenes.

Fate is usually interested in moving your longship or activating nearby monsters. It’s that first one that’s determined by the game’s signature magnets. Your Vikings have a cardboard ship to move about, but its position on the map is represented by a tiny compass.

When your ship moves, it follows the red needle. Its direction is all down to the wind, plus some interference from Odin’s three helpful ravens. Each of these influences has its own grey, magnetic miniature. You can freely take actions to move the ravens around the outside of the map, and this is your main way to influence the direction you sail in. The wind, however, can only be changed by fate – or some divine intervention.

Lucky for you, the Norse gods are on your side. You can spend actions to draw or use cards from a Help of the Gods deck, which provide potent one-off powers. You can also generate Clan Spirit tokens to spend on your Viking’s personal, more mortal special ability. Combine this with a need to juggle food, weapons, and materials collected on your voyage, and there’s a surprising amount of strategy in this simple adventure game.

You might be wondering why the gods are so willing to provide aid. It’s a fair question; they’re famously fickle. In Viking Route, your goal is to stop Loki from bringing about Ragnarok. In campaign mode (which publisher Ares Games recommends starting with before any standalone sessions), you’ll also have to defeat his monstrous allies first.

Each of the five campaign sessions presents a fresh boss to face. Thwart the Kraken and its many tentacle standees, and you move onto Hela, who constantly puts you to sleep while you’re searching her domain for Balder. Fenrir charges at your boat while you struggle to manage the tide, and Jormungandr’s sheer size causes problems as he closes in. Loki employs similar tactics to his friends in the final fight, but Viking Route’s climax feels no less engaging for it.

These battles are made more unique by a changing map, with new in-game effects to puzzle your way around. You can also increase the difficulty by removing certain cards from the Fate deck, if you’re a real glutton for punishment. The simple co-op gameplay makes this fair game for young-ish players, but even adults will find navigating these waters surprisingly tough.

You lose if your Drakkar or its crew take too much damage, or the fate deck depletes too many times. Expect to take several stabs at some of these scenarios, especially as the campaign’s complexity ramps over time.

Generally, Viking Route is enough of a smooth ride that these repeated attempts feel exciting rather than exasperating. Frustration does occasionally rear its ugly head, however, thanks to the imprecise nature of magnets.

The four working in tandem often produces unexpected compass results – and that usually means crashing your boat into landmarks, taking damage. Viking Route is emotionally choppy at times, with tremendous highs when your careful planning pays off and bitter lows when it feels you’ve failed through no fault of your own.

If you’re comfortable with fate occasionally taking the wheel, this is a flaw that can be forgiven. Lovers of precision, however, might want to sail away. Personally, I’m willing to engage with a game that sometimes chooses theme over fairness. I still love games like Betrayal at House on the Hill when they screw me over, because the experience remains entertaining.

Viking Route sits among such titles, even if its gameplay loop isn’t quite so addictive. Beyond the magnets, the design is simple and not too ambitious, which limits how many times I’m likely to replay the campaign. I still applaud it, however, for trying to do something a little different – and having fun while doing it.

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Source: Wargamer