City-builders seem to keep appearing on my doorstep every few months, and each time I take them in, give ’em a warm bowl of soup and a place to stay for the night. As a big fan of this genre, I’m always eager to find the next game that’ll knock my socks off – most recently, that was the masterpiece Against the Storm. Now, another rogue-lite city-builder has appeared, this time themed around Norse mythology, but presented in an entirely new way. A few hours with the Early Access release of Roots of Yggdrasil has piqued my interest, and I hope to see it grow out into something great by the time it hits full release.
Roots of Yggdrasil is a fun combination of a few things I’ve seen before; while it doesn’t present anything totally new new, it brings together the rogue-lite deck building of Slay the Spire with the structure of Inscryption and the looped city-building of Against the Storm into a very neat little package. All the systems work together quite well, and if you’re looking for something to play while listening to a podcast or watching TV on the other monitor, Roots of Yggdrasil might just be what you’re looking for.
Roots of Yggdrasil is very simple and easy to jump into, and I actually think for this reason it’s going to appeal to fans of rogue-lite deckbuilders like Slay the Spire rather than fans of city-builders. You’ll begin by joining a crew of zoomer vikings that are embarking on a new voyage to escape a dark ethereal storm that is slowly creeping up on them. After some story stuff, you’ll find yourself on a small island with nothing but a few resources. Use cards with all kinds of buildings on them to harness those resources. Draw a hand of cards each turn, place them, and end your turn. You’ll use supplies to build houses to gain Population, add military stuff around houses to create Might, place altars to gain Eitr (magic), and that’s about the gist of it.
Each time you land on a new island, your goal is to collect resources while finding three seeds from Eitr trees scattered around the map as you build. This hex-based world is procedurally generated as you play, so you’ll never get the same landscape twice, and there are a few different biome themes so things don’t get too samey. You’ll build up Might to explore new lands and generate new hex tiles, and complete mini-quests around the Eitr trees to unlock their magic seeds that power your ship. For instance, an Eitr tree may require you to reach 30 might near it – I’ll build a few houses, some military barracks, and a training ground and voila: a new seed! It’s very simple, but layered enough to not be boring.
After finishing an island, you’ll zoom forward and be faced with some other dialogue and story stuff, which at this point is super boring. I tried getting into the narrative but I think I recommend just skipping through all the dialogue; it’s tedious and best and outright bad at worst. Luckily, Roots of Yggdrasil functions perfectly fine without a story and you’ll enjoy it more that way. You’ll advance between islands, grab random new cards as you go, and reach a final challenge. As you hit the end of the loop, you’ll get to keep a few of your resources like blueprints and crates, and head back to the hub world.
The hub world is situated down at the base of the titular Yggdrasil, and here you can build a small town while unlocking permanent upgrades and new cards. I like this setup, because it’s not something that I’ve seen before, and it allows you to both feel the satisfaction of cobbling together a town that functions well enough to survive while also building up a more permanent settlement. You can unlock a lot of new abilities here, reorganize your deck, and interact with the characters if you want. Once you’ve locked in your loadout, simply hit the skies and do it again.
In order to make sure you’re not lounging around, after a few turns in each island the storm rolls in, destroying everything in its path. Rain clouds can also appear to hamper you, and will prevent you from building to add a layer of challenge. To that point, I want to point out that Roots of Yggdrasil is probably the easiest city-builder game I’ve ever played. I am hoping there are difficulty modes coming, or something new that adds actual difficulty to the loop. I haven’t come even close to the storm catching me over my playtime, and I manage to get in and out pretty quick each time. There also is no control over aesthetics of what you’re building, so everything just looks as it is. There’s no control of pathways and no visible people in your settlement. As I said, this is a game for deckbuilding enthusiasts, not city-builder fans.
Roots of Yggdrasil shows some promise, and I can see this blowing up over time among people looking for more games to scratch their Slay the Spire itch. As a veteran hardcore city-builder fan, I think this missed a bit for me, but also it’s clear after just a few hours I’m not the target audience. I would also like to request the addition of remapping controls, especially allowing us to rotate the map by holding down the mouse wheel instead of right click. Roots of Yggdrasil ran extremely well on my PC at 1440p 144 FPS, and I did not experience a single bug or glitch. This game is well made, there is no doubt about that – it’s just missing some zing, some spice, some X factor. Regardless, I had a good time, and I look forward to checking in again at the full release to see where the cards have fallen.
Nirav played Roots of Yggdrasil on PC in Early Access with a review code.
