Expeditions: Viking makes choice matter through failure

After spending my life playing games where failure is never an option, it is difficult to adjust to a game where it is a viable way of progressing.

Expeditions: Viking is that game, and it’s available now for $30 on Steam from the Logic Artists studio. It’s a new tactical turn-based role-playing adventure set in a world of thralls (slaves) and thegns (the king’s chosen governors) without any fantasy creatures or magic spells. If you’ve played Fire Emblem or XCOM — it more closely resembles the latter during combat — then you should know what to expect when you get into a fight in Expeditions. But the game has a lot more going on than its battles, and the way it handles failure is central to ensuring you will care about what happens beyond the confines of the the turn-based skirmishes.