Humble Monthly offers Fighting, Sneaking and Viking for cheap
Absolved of Norse sins against talking animals
Another impressive month of deals in the Humble Monthly - I'm impressed at how consistently good Humble's subscribe-o-bundle has been this past year, and the next set headlines with a trio of gems. Northgard, Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden and Absolver cover a wide spread of genres, but all three games are united by one common thread; they all got free expansions recently. You can snag all three together for a mere $12 (roughly £9), and you'll get an extra sack-full of mystery games at the end of the month. See some trailers and thoughts on the three games below.
Northgard
A viking-themed old-school RTS slightly reminiscent of Warcraft 3, but wrapped up in a more sandbox structure. Matt Cox had some lovely things to say in his review, including that it's a "a superb RTS that’s easy to pick up but difficult to master", and things have only gotten better since. There's a pair of new playable clans available as DLC, but the biggest chunk of new stuff came free. The Ragnarok expansion strips away the lush (if sometimes snow-covered) greenery in favour of volcanoes, magma golems, shambling undead and dark elves in randomly generated hell-maps. Spicy.
Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden
A cosy post-apocalyptic tactics gem. Hand-crafted scenarios (no proc-gen) blending real-time sneaking and turn-based combat, a maximum squad-size of three and a focused story give this a wildly different feel to XCOM despite similarities. A talking duck and boar search for a missing friend, and recruit a couple more mutant pals along the way in retro-futuristic irradiated Sweden. There's a humanity and cheerfulness to it all, with the lead duo of Dux and Bormin quietly baffled by many 'old world' artifacts. Alec Meer gave it our Bestest Best regards in his review here, and it just got a free challenge mode and a demo.
Absolver
Arguably the weak point of this trio, but I'm still recommending it. Imagine if Dark Souls got into a Goldblumian teleporter mishap with God Hand, and was also an MMO. While more of a success on consoles (which led to more players so the MMO part worked better) the PC version always felt a little empty. Hopefully this monthly will bring in some fresh blood. Explore punchworld (plus an endless random dungeon in the free Downfall expansion), learn new fighting styles (now with Bruce Lee-style Jeet Kune Do), collect cool togs and show off your custom move-set in PvP matches.
This Humble Monthly is live now and available here for $12. It’s a subscription, but there’s no penalty for not letting it renew after just one month besides losing access to the DRM-free Humble Monthly Trove games, so remember if you're just here for this set, get your fill early.