Rimworld meets Game of Thrones in Norland, Hooded Horse’s latest signing

Another promising title joins the strategy publisher

Marco Wutz | Jan 30, 2024

Rimworld meets Game of Thrones in Norland, Hooded Horse’s latest signing /

Hooded Horse announced that it has signed on to indie developer Long Jaunt’s Norland as its publisher, adding another promising title to its ever-growing library of represented games. For strategy game fans, the label has become a reliable curator of fantastic indies, publishing the likes of Against the Storm and the upcoming Manor Lords.

Norland is heavily inspired by Rimworld, the colony simulator with a tendency to include some old-fashioned war crimes. However, Long Jaunt’s take on the colony sim genre introduces the additional challenge and opportunity offered by a strategic layer. While Rimworld does have a world map, where players can take different kinds of actions, this is a little underdeveloped in vanilla. Norland involves players in the diplomacy, trade, intrigues, and politics between many neighboring medieval kingdoms, allowing them to carve out their own empires by military force and other means.

Norland artwork showing a king and queen in front of a medieval settlement. — Norland takes Rimworld and implants some Game of Thrones genes into it :: Long Jaunt / Hooded Horse

On the micro level, Norland very much looks like Rimworld – the visuals are really close – and generally seems to follow suit in terms of mechanics. However, the scale seems to be different with players commanding larger settlements that contain lots of characters outside of their direct control. Instead, players personally direct only the members of the ruling family, trying to keep them from assassinating each other or foment rebellion.

"Partnering with Hooded Horse will allow us to focus on development by relieving us of various non-development tasks such as marketing, localization, trailer creation, and other responsibilities," commented Dimitry Glaznev, Norland's designer and head of Long Jaunt in a press release. "With this support, we aim to deliver a more polished and content-rich game to players in May."

Norland is planned to arrive in Early Access on Steam in May 2024. At the moment, players can sign up to a closed playtest there as well.

Upcoming strategy games in 2024

Published Jan 30, 2024

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg