Nords: Heroes of the North

Nords: Heroes of the North Review

Nords: Heroes of the North is a free-to-play browser strategy MMO from Plarium, a studio known for building long-running, timer-driven war games like Stormfall: Age of War and Pirates: Tides of Fortune. The core structure will feel familiar if you have played the genre before: you establish a base, expand your economy, unlock better troops through progression systems, and then compete for resources through raids and clan activities. What helps Nords stand out is its lighter fantasy tone, its strong presentation, and its champion layer that adds a small but meaningful RPG-style progression track on top of the usual city management.

You begin by selecting a champion, which places you into one of three factions that primarily influence the aesthetics of your stronghold: Northmen, Elves, or Orcs. Early hours are focused on placing key buildings, learning the interface, and stabilizing resource production. As you level, the game introduces more aggressive loops, raids, scouting, and eventually broader PvP and clan objectives, pushing you toward social play and coordinated conflict.

Getting Through the Opening Hours

The first stretch leans heavily on the game’s voiced tutorial duo. King Björn the Awesome, voiced by Patrick Warburton, sets the tone with a loud, comedic presence and frequent interruptions that explain military topics like recruitment, equipment, and other combat-facing mechanics. Skald the Bard plays the more straightforward guide, walking you through building placement, upgrades, menus, and the practical steps needed to keep your settlement running.

Along the way you are introduced to the basics of PvE and safety systems: fighting monsters, tucking troops and valuables away in the Catacombs, and learning how premium currency and the cash shop fit into the overall economy. Before long, the tutorial also prepares you for the reality of the game’s competitive side by showing you scouting and raiding, since resource theft and retaliation are central to how Nords creates tension between neighbors.

Building the Stronghold Loop

Your stronghold is the hub for nearly everything. It is where you generate resources, train units, unlock new systems, and set up defenses that determine whether a raid is a minor nuisance or a catastrophic loss. Most play sessions revolve around checking timers, planning upgrades, and making sure your production and storage can support whatever you are aiming to do next, whether that is unlocking a building requirement, preparing an army, or meeting clan expectations.

Structures are generally split across familiar categories: production, storage, administrative, and military. The interesting part is how tightly they interlock, since a single bottleneck can slow your whole account. As you climb levels, build times increase significantly, so your planning matters, especially if you are trying to stay competitive without paying for extra builders or speed-ups. Unlocks are tied to the Blood Pacts system, which functions as a progression tree that gates new buildings, troops, and features behind prerequisites and resource costs.

Resources and the Cost of Growth

Like most browser war games, Nords lives and dies by its economy. Your day-to-day actions are funded by three primary resources: Mushrooms, Fish, and Fire Ale. These come from Mushroom Patches, Fisherman’s Huts, and Fire Ale Breweries, and they are spent on the major pillars of progression, training units, signing Blood Pacts, and constructing or upgrading structures.

Storage matters as much as production. Mushrooms and Fish are kept in Storehouses, while Fire Ale is stored in Alehouses, and both can be hidden in the Catacombs to reduce the sting of enemy raids. Fire Ale has an extra layer of pressure because it is tied to unit upkeep. If your consumption outpaces production, the game will automatically dismiss units, effectively punishing uncontrolled expansion and forcing you to pay attention to the balance between army size and economy.

Beyond the core trio, the game also uses secondary currencies to drive events and competition. Emeralds serve as the premium currency and can be earned through quests, though they are clearly designed to be supplemented with real money if you want consistent access to boosts, shields, and higher-end conveniences. Elixir is tied to clan-driven occupy-and-capture content around Obelisks, and it can be used to infuse units, lowering Fire Ale upkeep while improving their combat performance. Battle Marks come from Battleground participation in Saga Quests and from results in Global Tournaments, and they function as a reward track that encourages both PvE and PvP activity.

Progression: Blood Pacts and Champion Growth

Progression is split between what your settlement can build and what your champion can enhance. Blood Pacts, accessed through the Hall of Records, unlock new buildings and troop types, often requiring substantial resources and specific prerequisites. Compared to some other Plarium strategy MMOs, this system is less cumbersome because it does not hinge on a daily item to unlock each step, which makes long-term planning more straightforward and reduces some of the “wait to progress” friction.

Your champion, meanwhile, advances through a skill tree fueled by Skill Points earned on level-ups. These talents apply buffs to units and can significantly change how effective specific troop lines feel, particularly when paired with champion equipment. Gear generally improves attack or defense for certain unit types and is commonly obtained from victories and quest rewards, adding a light RPG chase that complements the otherwise timer-driven backbone.

Army Variety and Battlefield Jobs

Nords offers a wide roster drawn from the different peoples of Shingård, including troops associated with Elves, Orcs, Northmen, and Dragons, giving you options to lean into a theme or mix for efficiency. Units also have clear roles: offense, defense, and scouting. This matters because sending the wrong unit type into the wrong situation can be costly, and losses can set your economy back due to training time and upkeep.

Scouting is its own critical layer. Rather than functioning as a frontline force, scouting units help you assess an opponent’s defenses and troop composition, which is essential in a game where outcomes are calculated and resources are always at stake. Good scouting lets you commit the right amount of force, avoid wasteful attacks, and pick targets that are profitable rather than risky.

Clans and Shared Objectives

Clans act as Nords’ guild system and become available at level 5, with the option to create a clan at level 10 for premium currency. In practice, joining a clan is one of the best ways to experience the game’s larger-scale systems, since many of the meaningful objectives are designed for coordinated play. Clanmates can rally around shared targets, support one another against hostile neighbors, and pursue long-term goals that are hard to achieve alone.

The signature clan activity involves Obelisks, large strategic structures that require significant effort to take and even more effort to hold. The process typically involves clearing the current occupiers, then maintaining defenses while the clan benefits from ranking progress and earns Elixir. Clan achievements also provide another layer of group progression, offering individual rewards while strengthening the clan’s position and giving members tangible reasons to stay active.

PvP Pressure and Neighbor Warfare

Outside of clan conflicts, local PvP forms the everyday threat and opportunity. The game encourages you to scout nearby players, raid for resources, and either keep relations hostile or attempt diplomacy through reinforcements and truces. Because raiding can provide much faster gains than passive production, aggressive play is often rewarded, especially for players who are active and selective about targets.

Protection systems exist, but they are not permanent. After a few days, or if you pick fights above your weight class, you can quickly find yourself exposed. The Catacombs become essential here, letting you shelter troops and resources so that an unexpected raid does not wipe out your momentum. That said, if a much stronger player targets you, losses can still be severe, which is a common reality of the genre.

Monetization and Competitive Balance

Emeralds are the premium currency, and while you can obtain some through normal play, the game clearly places paying users at an advantage. Spending can speed up build timers, ease resource pressure, and open access to strong defensive and utility options that reduce risk and accelerate growth. The optional elite account status, Fireborn, also contributes to that gap by providing ongoing benefits that free players do not have.

In other words, Nords fits the pay-to-win label typical for many browser strategy MMOs, particularly in competitive contexts where speed and protection matter. Still, it is not unplayable without spending, it simply demands patience and careful planning as timers become very long at higher levels. The cash shop presence is noticeable, but it is not presented in the most intrusive way the genre has to offer.

Final Verdict – Great

Nords: Heroes of the North follows Plarium’s established browser war game template, but it adds enough personality and quality-of-life improvements to feel like more than a simple reskin. The brighter, cartoony fantasy presentation, the streamlined Blood Pacts progression, and the champion system combine to make the long grind easier to enjoy, especially if you like building up an account over weeks and months.

The biggest drawback is the power that can be bought through the cash shop, which impacts competitive fairness, and the fact that battles are something you watch rather than actively control. If you enjoy base-building strategy MMOs with strong visuals and a steady progression treadmill, Nords is a solid pick, particularly for players who appreciate a fantasy theme and do not mind the genre’s monetization norms.

Nords: Heroes of the North Links

Nords: Heroes of the North (Official Site)
Nords: Heroes of the North Facebook

Nords: Heroes of the North Requirements

Operating System: XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Equivalent
Video Card: Any Graphics Card (Integrated works well too)
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 100 MB (Cache)

Soldiers Inc is a browser based MMO and will run smoothly on practically any PC. The game was tested and works well on Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox and Chrome. Any modern web-browser should run the game smoothly. Nords: Heroes of the North is available on Facebook.

Nords: Heroes of the North Additional Info

Developer: Plarium Games
Publisher: Plarium Games

Platforms: Web (browser) and Facebook
Release Date: May 19, 2015

Nords: Heroes of the North was developed and published by Plarium Games, an Israeli studio behind several other browser-based strategy MMOs, including Total Domination, Pirates: Tides of Fortune, and Stormfall: Age of War. The game supports multiple languages, and the voice acting is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, and German. It launched worldwide on Facebook on May 19, 2015 and reports more than 100 thousand monthly users.