Repelling The Vikings In Bad North’s Jotunn Update

Bad North is an FTL-inspired micro-tactics roguelite game developed by Plausible Concept. The player’s objective is to outrun an unstoppable and infinite wave of vikings until reaching the final island where the player will make their last stand. On each island, players must do their best to defend buildings from viking pillaging to receive gold with which to upgrade their squads.

As the player hops from island to island they must recruit new squads, giving them items that increase their combat effectiveness in order to survive the viking onslaught. Bad North initially launched on August 20th, 2018 and has seen several minor balancing and technical updates, but on July 24th, the developers have released the first free major content expansion to Bad North, the Jotunn Update.

 

What Does The Jotunn Update Bring?

The Jotunn Update adds a slew of new features, mechanical reworks, and balancing, but there are two major reworks added in the Jotunn Update. At launch, after every successful island engagement with the Vikings the player had to distribute gold individually to each squad. Now the gold deposits into a shared pool, giving players greater flexibility in deciding on how to upgrade their squads. Gold ranges have been generally increased, as there are now islands with up to 17 gold, though these islands are typically the most difficult. The three player unit types – pikes, archers, and infantry, remain the same.

Along with the gold changes, the second major rework in Bad North is the introduction of a new enemy type. Previously when transitioning into the late-game, players would have to face an enemy type dubbed the “Ninja” viking. The Ninja had jet black armor, distinct round red shields, and were deadly to any close quarters unit the player would send against them. In essence, this enemy type was a more damage-oriented version of the sword and shield viking unit that appears in the early game.

The Ninja viking has given way to the dual-wielding sword Berserkers. They are more vulnerable to arrow fire than their predecessors as they lack shields and struggle against elite sword and shield infantry. However, they’re even more deadly in close quarters to pikes and low level infantry than the Ninjas have ever been because of their jumping attack. These new vikings are arguably deadlier than the towering Brutes if they’re not dealt with using items, abilities, or arrow fire.

 

New Loot and Plunder

With regards to new content the developers have added 4 new items for players to use to expand their tactical capabilities and strategic progression. They are the Philosopher’s Stone, which gives extra gold per island the squad visits, the Mines, placeable bombs that trigger when enemies move near, the Jabena which allows a squad to deploy twice in a turn rather than only once, and finally the Holy Grail, a single-use strategic map only consumable that can resurrect a previously killed commander and their squad.

Along with new items the Jotunn Update adds passive bonus traits to commander squads that adds some minor effects, such as adding an extra squad member, increasing weapon damage, or reducing the cost of upgrading an item. Once traits are unlocked by playing through the campaign, some of them are even available to use at the start of new campaigns. It’s worth noting that not all squads that a player recruits will have traits. An easy way to tell if a squad has a trait is to look at the squad flag and see whether it has an illustration, denoting its trait.

Bad North is notorious for its difficulty, especially on the higher settings. For those players who seek a new challenge, the developers have added a new unlockable Very Hard mode, which only becomes available once a player has completed a campaign on Hard. Very Hard escalates the number of enemies per wave and the player will face higher level enemies earlier than normal. This adds even more challenge and longevity to this humble yet addictive game. To add to the difficulty, AI unit behavior has changed to where vikings will start arriving in battle quicker than they have in the past.

To balance out the increased difficulty, the developers have given players the option to choose powerful starting items and commander traits to get a head start in squad optimization in the early stages of the game. In addition, to reduce the tedium of constantly restarting a campaign upon a failure the update introduces a new building – the Church. This building does not provide gold but instead acts as a checkpoint island, to which players can reload to if they fail in the campaign further in.

Aside from major additions and reworks the Jotunn Update also brings small quality of life improvements and aesthetic changes. Now players can see the kill stats of their squads in detail, allowing players to study how effectively they have been using their squads and how to improve. The player’s sword and shield infantry, especially the Elite variants, are easier to distinguish as they made their shields larger, more prominent, and easier to spot. The developers even included a Codex where a player can read up on everything they have unlocked and prepare themselves for future campaigns.

 

Prepare to Fight Back

To help newcomers and returning players ease themselves into the more hostile environment of Bad North, here’s some tips and suggestions for upgrade orders and what traits to look out for and how to synergize them with your squads. Ideally, once the player has enough gold the first and second squads should upgrade into infantry and pikemen, not necessarily in that order. The goal is to have a core of squads that will do most of the manoeuvring and holding. The infantry fights off archers and other opponents, whereas the pikes hold island choke points.

The third squad upgrades into an archer. Once the three core squads are established, the goal is to spend all your gold to upgrade archers to Veteran level, then Elite. Archers at Elite level deal most of the damage to the vikings while they are still on their ships and it’s not uncommon for an archer unit to clear a large longship before it reaches the island. Archer squads also benefit most from the Ring of Command item, which increases the squad size, as more arrows means an easier time clearing longships.

Regarding traits, infantry and archers benefit most from the majority of defensive and logistic traits, respectively. For example Ironskin is a good trait to look for infantry as it reduces any damage. The defensive traits are best for infantry as they will most likely find themselves in lethal close-range engagements.

Archers benefit most from logistics traits like Popular or Collector. Popular increases the squad size by one, which is like a mini-Ring of Command effect, and Collector cuts the price of item upgrades in two. This synergizes well with archers using the Ring of Command as item upgrades are expensive and the Collector trait helps mitigate the expense.

Overall, the objective of the Jotunn Update is to breathe new life into an already addictive game and to give the player more options and control over their squads and commanders. Furthermore, with the new additions of traits and items the developers intend to make mid-game double island fighting more viable and attractive to the player. It is risky, though with fighting on multiple islands per turn yields twice the amount of gold, and thus a greater chance of survival in the future.

The Jotunn Update accomplishes its main goal of revitalising Bad North for both newcomers and experienced players. The introduction of a new difficulty setting adds yet a new level of challenge for die-hard fans, with the changes to gold and addition of new items and traits makes the introductory experience to newcomers more forgiving. Even if this Update were a separate paid DLC I would still recommend it, and since it is free I highly encourage anyone who already owns Bad North to play the game to at least unlock the Very Hard difficulty. For those who are on the fence or considering getting Bad North, this update itself justifies a purchase.