ASKA Review: A Viking Village Sim That's More Work Than a Real Job

I was promised a Viking adventure. I got a full-time job as a project manager for a tribe of uncooperative contractors, and I have never been so stressed, frustrated, and utterly captivated in my life.

Let's get one thing straight right out of the gate: this is not Valheim. Anyone walking into ASKA expecting a chill, exploration-focused survival game where you build a cool longhouse and sail the seas on your own terms is going to have a very, very bad time. This game is a hardcore management sim, first and foremost. It’s a stressful, demanding, and often infuriating experience that feels less like living out a Viking fantasy and more like being a perpetually panicked middle manager with a beard and an axe.

A Breathtaking Grind

The world of ASKA is genuinely beautiful. The graphics are solid, the atmosphere is thick enough to cut with a bearded axe, and the dynamic weather and changing seasons have a real, tangible impact on survival. My first few hours were spent in a state of awe, marveling at the gorgeous world while frantically trying not to freeze to death.

Then the reality set in. The grind. My god, the grind. Forget exploring ancient ruins or fighting mythical beasts. I was too busy chopping down my thousandth tree because the walls needed to be built before the first Blood Moon, and my villagers were apparently too busy contemplating the philosophical nature of a rock to help. Everything takes a monumental amount of resources. Building a single, basic hut feels like a monumental undertaking. You need wood, you need sticks, you need rope made from bark that you have to strip from trees you've already chopped. It's a constant, desperate scramble, and there is never a moment to just breathe.

The Management Hellscape

The core promise of ASKA is that you can build a thriving settlement and command your villagers to do your bidding, freeing you up for grander adventures. This is technically true, but the game makes you work for it. The villager AI isn't stupid; it's just incredibly, painfully literal. It does exactly what you tell it to do, and nothing more. The problem is that telling it what to do is a nightmare.

The UI for managing your tribe is a clunky, confusing mess of buried menus and unexplained systems. You can't just tell a guy to be a woodcutter. You have to build a woodcutter's hut, set the production priorities, build the right storage containers, set the whitelists for who can access what, and pray you didn't forget a single step. If you do, your woodcutter will just stand there, staring into the void, while your village freezes to death. I spent more time fighting the menus than I did fighting monsters.

The Moment It All Clicks

But then, after my third failed village and a whole lot of swearing, something clicked. I finally figured out the bizarre, counter-intuitive logic of the logistics system. I set up my stockpiles just so. I painstakingly configured whitelists for every damn worker. I laid out my village not for aesthetics, but for pure, brutal efficiency.

And suddenly, it worked. I put down a blueprint for a Great Hall, turned around, and went on an expedition. When I came back, it was just... done. My villagers, my former nemeses, had gathered the resources and built it without any further input from me. Seeing the automation finally function as intended is a moment of triumph that few games can match. When it works, it’s magic.

Everything Else

The combat is... fine. It's a skill-based system that feels weighty but also stiff and a bit janky. Dodging is unreliable, and you'll often get stun-locked by a pack of basic enemies. Fending off a horde during a Blood Moon with your village militia is a genuine thrill, but it's clearly not the focus of the game.

The building system is robust, allowing for some truly impressive creations, but it's hampered by the terrain. You can't easily build on slopes, forcing you to either spend hours flattening huge swathes of land or build your village in a series of ugly, terraced steps. It’s a frustrating limitation in a game that is otherwise so focused on creative construction.

The Verdict

ASKA is an unpolished gem, a game with a brilliant concept that is currently at war with its own execution. It's been incorrectly advertised as a Valheim-like adventure, leading to a lot of frustration from players who weren't prepared for the punishing management sim at its core. The villager AI is powerful but locked behind a terrible UI, and the initial grind is enough to make you want to log off and go do your actual chores instead.

But beneath all that jank and frustration, there is a deeply engaging and rewarding experience waiting to be unearthed. If you have the patience of a saint and a love for complex logistical puzzles, there’s a lot to love here. The feeling of finally taming the chaos and building a self-sufficient, thriving settlement is a high that few games can match. For everyone else, I’d wait. This one needs a lot more time in the forge before it's ready for Valhalla.

Score: 7.8/10 A game that will make you miss your day job, and then make you love your new, even more stressful one.

We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.