Magic viking townbuilder Roots Of Yggdrasil is out in early access
ManaVoid Entertainment hoping to reach 1.0 in six months
Roots Of Yggdrasil - an inkwashed, roguelikey, card-playing, turn-based citybuilder, inspired by Norse myth - shot to the top of my wishlist after I read Katharine's preview last week. And look, here it is in Early Access. Roots isn't one of your traditional, SimCity-derived town sims in which you steadily colonise a single map (at least, until you lose patience with your glittering urban creation and press the Godzilla or Hurricane button). As per the roguelike element, it's a game about being on the run.
In Roots, you take charge of a band of warriors fleeing an expanding purple smog, the Ginnungagap, in a flying longship. To escape its coils, you must land on floating islands, play cards to raise settlements, and harvest energy for your vessel from the titular roots of the World Tree. Succumb to the advancing mists, and you'll time-rewind back to your Holt to unlock new mechanics and upgrades. There are also various big-league mythological celebrities to meet and recruit, and a variety of randomised encounters and events to shake up each run. Here's the launch trailer.
Developers ManaVoid Entertainment are aiming to release a 1.0 version in "a maximum of six months", but they'll extend the early access period depending on player feedback. The early access build at launch gives you the full roguelike progression loop above with several maps. You can complete it, but it doesn't feature the main story, certain character relationships and the entirety of the game's buildings, action cards, artifacts and encounters.
In her preview, Katharine was a little thrown off by the game's procedural generation elements, but enjoyed its emphasis on drawing cards and placing terrain tiles in the right order, which she compared to Dorfromantik. Myself, I'm always interested in city-builders that render their cities a bit precarious - games like Airborne Kingdom, where your town is also an airship that has to be kept level, or the recent Against The Storm, in which you carve out firelit nooks in apocalyptic forests at the behest of a very unpleasant queen.
Roots is one of our 75 most anticipated games of 2024. If you like your city-building with a dollop of Total War, you may prefer Manor Lords. If you like your Norse myths dingy and depressing, I can only usher you toward Hellblade 2.