Welcome to a brand-new Blacksmith Feature. Today I will be kicking AOKH into the 21st century by taking a look at a brand-new scenario released for the Definitive Edition. Yep, we’re finally going to feature a scenario made for DE, only took us two years.

The scenario in question is a by one of the game’s leading scenario designers, who has also worked on the game in an official capacity as the designer of the official Portuguese, Burmese, Bulgarian, Italian, Indian, and Sicilian campaigns - Filthydelphia (also known as Al_Kharn the Great or PhillySouljah).

The scenario we will be looking at today is called Ragnar’s Saga. It is a massive sandbox style scenario which began life as an update of the author previous work known as Ragnar’s Raids. Just like in that scenario, in Ragnar’s Saga you will take control of Ragnar’s Lothbrok and you must sail the Northern Seas to pillage plunder and conquer Britain, Scandinavia and Northern Europe.



Ragnar’s Saga improves on Filthydelphia’s signature raiding game mechanic that he has used in a number of epic scenario’s and also dials everything up to 11 with the addition of multiple bonus objectives and the expansion onto a ludicrous sized map! The gameplay works similarly to Ragnar’s Raids but allows for much more exploration, raiding and tougher micromanagement of your Mead Halls. The scenario is virtually a sandbox game, with no set objectives but to raid and pillage to your hearts content. As Filthydelphia put it:


While there’s no defined structure to the scenario there is a list of 50 saga objectives to complete in whichever order you chose. As you explore the large map new objectives are discovered to complete and new heroes from the Viking era can be collected to join your warband. This is not a scenario where you follow a story, this is a scenario where you write your own story. A Filthydelphia put it himself whilst responding to a review of this scenario - "Sometimes people wonder why I don't do explicit story-telling in most of my scenarios but your post shows why I believe that's the best narrative design approach for Age of Empires and many games. You wrote your own story that is uniquely yours and a better, more immersive tale than any I could have written!"


Now it’s time for you to follow the call of a Viking and start your own adventure, raid and pillage to your hearts content as you download and play Ragnar’s Saga - RIGHT NOW!