ASKA Review: Viking Colony Sim With Big Promise, Real Quirks (This is NOT Valheim 2.0)

ASKA drops you on a stormy shore as a tribe leader with a hammer, a couple of half-frozen villagers, and a to-do list that never stops. You build a settlement from nothing, assign jobs, stockpile for winter, and hold the line when monsters test your walls. It is Early Access, still growing, and it plays like survival crafting stitched to a small-scale city builder you control from ground level. You are not hovering and clicking. You are in the mud placing beams, cooking stew, yelling at Bjorn to stop eating the logs.

Underline this if anything_ It is not Valheim_. If you boot it expecting roaming boss hunts and constant exploration, you will hate it. ASKA is a colony sim first, survival action second. As one player put it, “this is primarily a colony sim.” steam review.

How it actually plays

The loop starts simple. Gather sticks, craft rope, bring the first hut online. Assign a villager to cut wood, another to haul, a third to cook. Suddenly you are planning roads and storage yards, thinking about wind direction for your smelter, shuffling jobs so the field gets planted before the first frost. The game keeps handing you spinning plates. “At any particular moment you will be juggling 3 or 4 different tasks and planning for the next ones. It is very easy to lose a couple hours when you sit down to play this.” steam review.

Combat exists, but it is seasoning, not the entree. Nights get loud. Raids escalate. Winters bite. The tension works because the things you built can be lost. “The fact that you can lose everything at any moment makes the game exciting.” steam review.

The promise

When ASKA clicks, it feels like carving a village out of nothing. The building tools are deliberate and satisfying. Progression is slow in a way that flatters planners. “Slow, but very enjoyable.” steam review. Houses, workshops, palisades, farms, paths, watchtowers, all lock together into a place that looks lived in. Visuals sell the fantasy too, with several players calling the graphics excellent for an early build.

Then there is co-op. With three or four players the vibe changes from overworked foreman to small crew running a frontier town. One chops, one builds, one cooks, one scouts ore, everyone panics together when the horn sounds. Co-op turns the grind into a shared joke and the wins into little parties.

The quirks

The same systems that make ASKA sing can also sand your patience.

• Grind and micromanagement
If you play solo, the workload is heavy. Some nights it feels like wrestling a spreadsheet in fur. “Right now it was just work, not fun… structures take so many resources to build and so long to make… always a pressing need (…) 800 sticks and 200 more rope.” steam review. Even happy players admit stretches can feel like a chore machine.

• Villager AI
This is the big one. For a game that sells itself on managing a village, your settlers need to be sharper. They chop then forget to haul, they idle when they should build, they beg for babysitting. “For a game about managing villagers, you end up doing the bulk of the work to get things done.” steam review. Another sums up the loop too well: “Most of my time is turning bark into rope and gathering 10000 sticks.” steam review.

• UX friction
Inventory limits, fussy stacking, too many panels for basic actions, not enough streamlining. One player’s vibe: too many clunky menus, not enough flow. That learning curve you feel is not just the systems, it is the tools to interact with them.

• Combat and early survival
Fights work, but they are stiff, and villagers in battle are brave in the wrong ways. Early survival can be punishing with weak healing, light armor, and a health economy that makes every mistake sting. “The combat is stiff and awkward.” steam review.

• Content runway
It is Early Access. Map size, biome and enemy variety, and late-game goals are growing, not final. You can absolutely build a proud little settlement, survive a bunch of seasons, and run the tech ladder. You can also hit the edge of the sandbox and want more reasons to keep going.

Pros at a glance

• Immersive settlement loop that eats hours in a good way
• Satisfying, purposeful building that makes real places
• Hybrid gameplay where you build and fight as the leader, not a cursor
• Survival beats with real stakes in winter and raid cycles
• Co-op turns the grind into teamwork and keeps the village humming

Cons at a glance

• Heavy grind and micromanagement, especially solo
• Villager AI needs clearer priorities and less babysitting
• Clunky inventory and menus slow simple tasks
• Combat is serviceable, not slick, with punishing early balance
• Content and world variety are still catching up

Player quotes that capture the vibe

“this is primarily a colony sim.” – steam review
“At any particular moment you will be juggling 3 or 4 different tasks… very easy to lose a couple hours.” – steam review
“Right now it was just work, not fun… 800 sticks and 200 more rope.” – steam review
“Most of my time… is turning bark into rope and gathering 10000 sticks.” – steam review
“The combat is stiff and awkward.” – steam review

Should you jump in now

If you love planning towns, enjoy survival pressure, and do not mind sharpening rough edges, ASKA is already a compelling timesink. With friends, it shines brighter. If you are here for fluid combat and freeform exploration, or if babysitting AI makes your eye twitch, consider wishlisting and checking back as patches land.

Final word

ASKA tells a simple story well. A few tents in the wind. A palisade. A longhouse with smoke curling out. People with names who bring wood, burn bread, and occasionally save the day. It is promising, messy, improving. Go in expecting a hands-on colony sim with survival spice, not a Valheim rerun, and you will find plenty to love while it cooks.