Steam’s new Games Made in Sweden sale is out here reminding me just how many great titles we owe to our Scandinavian cousins. Vermintide, Darktide, Payday, Valheim, Amnesia, Satisfactory—the list goes on and on. Currently, a lot of these games have decent discounts, such as Vermintide 2 (one of our games of the year for 2018) for only $3 / £2.34. For my money, it’s still the best Warhammer Fantasy action game around, even eight years on.
But what really caught my eye in the sale was three of my favorite microstrategy games, each an absolute banger in its own right: Bad North, Kingdom Two Crowns, and Battle of Polytopia. You can grab all three for under £10 or just over $10. Here are the deals plus a bit about each game:
Wonderfully simple yet surprisingly tough, Bad North is all about defending beautiful diorama-esque islands from a huge viking invasion nipping at your heels. Each turn you hop to a new island defence, gathering soldiers, upgrading units, and unlocking abilities in an ever-escalating game of tag.
It’s such an elegant formula I was certain it was inspired by hnefatafl (or viking chess) since it contains a similar concept of fending off encircling enemies, but when I interviewed Oskar Stålberg, he assured me it isn’t. Stålberg’s equally brilliant island-building game, Townscaper, is also on sale, should you prefer something a little more chill.
Kingdom Two Crowns is a vibe. Not just one of my favorite microstrategy games, but one of my favorite games, period. Buoyed by a brilliantly chill soundtrack from Amos Roddy and some of the most gorgeous pixel art you will see in a game, the Kingdom series, for me, is the best iteration of the “build a town, get attacked at night” formula.
You ride across your sidescrolling kingdom on a menagerie of steeds, upgrading your defences, uplifting your population, and uncovering each island’s mysteries through trial and error. It also has split-screen or online co-op. Perhaps my favorite mechanic is the coin purse—you can tap to drop coins to pay for upgrades, but you can only hold so many and they’ll spill out when it overflows.
The game also lets you pick a number of different settings, including vikings, ancient Greece and feudal Japan.
Last, but not least, The Battle of Polytopia is a no-nonsense 4x done fast. It’s honestly quite cathartic if, like me, you’re the kind of player who rarely gets time to finish his 4x campaigns, or peters out before the end. In Polytopia, you can face off against other players in a quick 30ish minute game instead of pouring days into your standard 4x playthrough.
It’s got a surprising amount of depth, too, with 16 different civilizations, three game modes, and even diplomacy mechanics. Definitely one to grab if you’re growing tired of endless playthrough bloat.
There are tons of other great games available in the Games Made in Sweden sale (though sadly not Arc Raiders), but still, thanks for all the good times Sweden!
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