Northgard teases new clan and a multiplayer ranking system

If you like RTSs then Northgard should be on your radar. As Fraser said in his review, its campaign isn't the best but its Skirmish mode shows just how elegant its systems are, creating unpredictable matches that pull you all over its Viking maps. In its latest patch, Shiro Games has fixed a long list of bugs that users have reported since the game came out last month, improved certain features, and teased what to expect in future updates.

Namely, the next update will add a multiplayer ranking system that should give you more reason to play against friends or online randoms. An improved map generator—which Fraser already thought was solid—will provide further incentive to jump in, and should throw up more balanced games. "Shortly after" that's done, Shiro Games will release another clan of fighters (think factions or races in other RTS games). At the moment, the campaign serves as an introduction to the game by giving you control of all the different clans in turn, so I wonder if the new clan also means a new story chapter. We'll have to wait and see.

In the latest patch, the team improved signposting in the campaign to give players a better idea of what to do at certain points. It also fixed a bug that meant, when entering an area, players couldn't kill a neutral unit before first defeating any enemy units, which was being "abusively used by some players". Lastly, it nerfed the Clan of the Raven by increasing the resources players needs to spend to colonise a territory.

The bug fixes are many, and issues with health bars, the camera and population numbers have been ironed out. You can read the full list in the patch notes.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.