Anyone who has read my reviews will already know that I love games with medieval settings, and with the recent arrival of Fjordar on Kickstarter, I can’t help but show my excitement. Fjordar is a game that immediately stands out to me – not because it’s loud or flashy like a lot of the most popular board tabletop crowdfunding campaigns, but because it looks fantastic in a traditional kind of way (a bit like Rise & Fall) and because it has some incredible sounding mechanical features.
Set in medieval Norway, Fjordar casts players as rival jarls expanding influence across a rugged network of fjords, mountains, and settlements. It’s a setting that lends itself to strategic maneuvering and suggests that the terrain itself will pose a constant challenge. Fjordar leans into its geographical underpinnings with a multi‑level movement system that makes elevation, choke points, and waterways key to each decision. Armies can march through forests, traverse treacherous mountains and sail from shore to shore as they seek to expand their influence.
What makes Fjordar particularly interesting to me is how comfortably it sits alongside other games I’ve covered that blend historical flavour with spatial strategy. In Rise & Fall, the modular landscape and card driven actions create a sense of organic expansion that made it one of my favourite games of 2025. Fjordar seems to share a similar focus on the landscape itself, as much as the actions and I can’t wait to see what the design team at Go To Pieces has done with this idea. Another similar game (at least thematically) is Era of Tribes, which shares the idea of a civilization spreading through careful planning and resource management, although to my untrained eye it looks like Fjordar might be dealing with expansion on a more local scale.
The Kickstarter page highlights several systems that reinforce Fjordar’s strategic depth:
- Action selection and Hand Management that forces players to think ahead and plan accordingly
- A dynamic combat system where positioning and timing matter
- Political influence and shifting alliances, adding a layer of negotiation and opportunism.
- Scenario‑driven objectives that shape each game’s arc and encourage varied strategies.
- Scenario‑driven objectives that shape each game’s arc and encourage varied strategies.
Visually, Fjordar has a grounded, austere beauty. The terrain is clear and striking, with specific terrain to represent the Norwegian setting. Atop the hexagonal pieces will sit plastic components representing armies, beacons and other features, and even as things get hectic, differentiaation looks to remain quite straightforward. Fjordar looks like the kind of game that should benefit from a simple, relatively accessible ruleset but with a lot of potential for mastery — especially once you have the experience to read the map intuitively.
For players who enjoy the blend of macro‑strategy and micro‑tactics found in games like Rise & Fall, Fjordar looks like a natural fit. It promises the same rising tension and satisfaction of securing a key region at just the right moment, and the same emergent storytelling that comes from games that take place on these tight but extremely evocative maps.
Fjordar is live on Kickstarter now, and early backers can secure the core game along with campaign‑exclusive extras. If you’re drawn to historically grounded strategy games with strong spatial identity and evolving tactical depth, this is absolutely worth a look. We haven’t had chance to play the game yet, but we’re hoping to get our hands on a preview copy as soon as possible, and in the fullness of time we’ll aim to bring you a full and comprehensive review.
Please note that credit for the image above (taken from Spiel 2025) goes to Elvina Vladi Kvisle, with our thanks.
