Nordhold is a fresh take on tower defense

Tower defense games are hard to make exciting. Sure, different games might have different genres, or one or two towers that feel unique, but mostly they are sitting back and watching the game unfold in predictable ways. Nordhold presents a new twist on the classic, and has kept me engrossed over the past week. If you are looking for a game that combines strategy, tower defense, and roguelite[1] progression, this is a great pickup for $20 CAD.

a screenshot of a Nordhold game

I can afford to make wheat this round… right?

The biggest draw of the game is the constant tension between investing for the future or surviving the present. Each turn, you create four basic resources, wood, stone, wheat and gold. Keeping them all in balance is the challenge, especially as they interact with each other in myriad ways. Wood is a basic building block for almost everything, and is especially important early, but too much of it and you will never progress to the more powerful towers you will need to get past the boss rounds. You could go all-in on stone, but without sufficient production, you will simply be unable to make enough of the stuff, even though you have the right type of resource. Wheat is a requirement to build more in the future, but is absolutely useless in contributing to the present. Gold is incredibly flexible, but comes with a high opportunity cost to ramp up.

This balancing also contributes to the replayability of the game, as you will often have a nagging suspicion that “I could have done that more efficiently”. As the game progresses, your choices snowball, making it unlikely that there will ever be a definitive meta that is the unequivocal best option.

You aren’t supposed to win at first

If you have played a game like Hades, then you will be familiar with the process of dying over and over again with no end in sight. Unlike some tower defense games in which you progress through harder and harder levels, Nordhold presents you with a single chapter with progressively more difficult foes. At first, you will not be able to beat them, in large part due to not even having the full arsenal of tools at your disposal. In addition to unlocking more choices as you play the game, some things just get easier, such as starting the game off with more resources or having higher production out of the gate. This progression makes the game feel exciting to replay, as you will (hopefully) get further than you did the time before. The game keeps track of how much you have discovered, and how much there still is to uncover, which is a nice touch if you are a completionist.

A manageable amount of random chance

Again similar to Hades in which you pick up boons from Gods, which can combine in interesting and unexpected ways, Nordhold has banners, which are upgrades for one of the 6 tower types. Once you collect enough of them, you can have towers combine abilities. This feels exciting to pull off, and also allows for a lot of flexibility with the builds you decide to use. So far, I’ve only unlocked 1 of the combo towers after about 10 hours of playtime, but they will no doubt get easier to unlock after progressing with more honor (the currency that stacks between games).

The luck aspect is never so drastic as to be annoying. Rather than having to constantly restart to roll the banner or relic you are looking for, they are more like cherries on top that add flavour to the game. This also adds replayability, as each game will be slightly different, and force you to react to the choices presented rather than going in with a set build.

Future development and direction

Nordfold is still fresh off the press, being released in March 2025. I’m excited to see what new bells and whistles they decide to add, and for the expansion of levels beyond level 30. Perhaps there will be a new tower type, or a new resource type, or a new map to try out. Even if those are released as DLC packages, as long as they are reasonably priced (maybe under $10) I would consider it worth the cost.

This was my first post about a video game, and I hope you enjoyed it. I don’t have any interest in the game doing well financially, and there are no links here will benefit me in the game. Rather, I wanted to share something small that has brought joy this week, in the hopes that it may do the same for you.

  1. Fun fact I learned while writing this post; a roguelite is a game in which you get to keep resources between randomly generated levels, while in a roguelike you don’t. The only thing helping you over time is experience. https://screenrant.com/roguelike-roguelite-difference-permadeath-hades-rogue-slay-spire/ ↩︎