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Tribes of Midgard is almost here, and with the dawn of 10-player co-op "surthrival" nearly at hand, we can exclusively reveal the full selection of giants that will soon be at your gates.
While you'll have many persistent threats to contend with as you play Tribes of Midgard, none will be as dramatic as the Jötunn invasions. The single-minded titans descend upon your realm at semi-regular intervals and immediately begin stomping toward the life-sustaining Seed of Yggdrasil at the heart of your village. Fortunately, Tribes of Midgard's procedurally generated maps are quite large so you'll have some time to prepare before they arrive.
Your village can be fortified with defensive structures, friendly NPCs can be upgraded, and you can craft weapons that exploit each giant's elemental weakness, as just a few examples. Granted, you'll need to do some scouting to find out which giant is on the way before you know what it's weak to. It's worth going out of your way to make that happen, creative director Julian Maroda argues: being prepared is your best bet for taking down a giant.
"Tribes is a game all about time, time is of the essence when you play Tribes," Maroda says. "So instead of chipping away at [a giant] with a common or uncommon sword, sometimes you're just better off taking half a day in the game to gather the required materials, go back to your village, craft a weapon that is of the opposite element of that giant, and kill that giant."
So who are you up against, and what favors should you bring to the giant-slaying party? For the first time, here are all four giants that will be part of Tribes of Midgard at launch.
Geirröðr, Ice Giant
Geirröðr is roughly a lake's worth of water frozen into one very big, angry man (he still has some unlucky Viking clan's longboat stuck in his shoulder). As you might expect from the force of winter incarnate, he won't arrive at your village quickly. But what he lacks in speed he makes up for with stopping power.
Geirröðr's main attacks are ground pounds, which send damaging icicles shooting up through the ground around him. Fortunately, his attacks have a long enough telegraph that you should be able to dodge out of their area in time as long as you don't overcommit. Geirröðr can also lob snowballs for ranged damage (though snowballs to him are more like snowboulders to your relatively puny viking hero). Fire-element weapons will help you melt his HP bar much faster than chipping away at him with mundane swords and axes.
Angrboða, Dark Giant
"She who offers sorrow" has something to offer your village, and it's… well, it's sorrow. Wherever Angrboða treads, night follows: the area around her is always shrouded in darkness, and she uses this fact to summon a horde of the same helthings that siege your village almost every night. On the other hand, you can also make the most of her aura to harvest rare materials that only appear at night, as long as you keep a lookout for the damaging dark pools she summons.
Maroda offers a word of warning from when the developers were testing out Angrboða's mechanics: her aura doesn't only protect her helthings from the banishing rays of the sun. "And so you thought you were done, and all these helthings, maybe 30 of them, are still around your village," Maroda says. The developers didn't anticipate that kind of cool systemic synergy going in, but would you patch it out? Me neither. Bust out the Lightning-element weapons to exploit Angrboða's weakness before that worst-case scenario can come to pass.
Hálogi, Fire Giant
Hálogi is a simple giant of simple pleasures: he swings a massive (even for a giant) sword made of fire, he spits gouts of flame, molten droplets from his massive frame burn those foolish enough to stand nearby, and his sword doubles as a fiery area-of-effect attack when he plunges it into the ground. He likes long walks on the beach and kicking down village gates to flame-roast your Seed of Yggdrasil.
You'll want to bring Ice-element weapons to cool off that hot head of his, and just as important, you'll want to pack heat cold with a bow or some other means of ranged offense. Hálogi's attacks are largely focused on the area around him, so you'll spend less time corpse-running and more time fighting if you can keep peppering him from a distance.
Járnsaxa, Thunder Giant
The final giant (at least for now) isn't always a giant in the literal sense of the word. In her human form, Járnsaxa carries a spear which sends out a line of lightning, and she can also emit balls of electricity to keep you on the back foot. She assumes her second form - a living thunderstorm - when she hits half HP or arrives at your village, whichever comes first. Facing down her storm form can be an even more dangerous proposition than fighting the other Jötnar.
Maroda offers another hint: "If you know it's Járnsaxa, it's much better to actually try to bring her down to half her health bar [out in the world]. That portion of the fight is going to be much easier than if she arrives at the village and she has full health and is in her thunderstorm form." Járnsaxa's also one of the fastest-moving giants in the game, so you may have less time to intercept her than you'd expect; get to work on crafting Dark equipment to snuff out her lightning as soon as possible.
More to come?
Tribes of Midgard is built to be a living game, with free updates for players in the weeks, months, and years to come after it hits PC, PS4, and PS5 on July 27. "Everything is on the table" for these updates, Maroda teases. While he's hesitant to confirm more giants specifically are on the way, he does have at least one idea for another one that he's very excited about sending down the trail toward your humble village.
"There is one that I can't wait to do, we have some great ideas if we ever go the route of adding more giants," Maroda says. "We'll keep on trying to explore different archetypes, just like Jarnsaxar has two different forms or Angrboda has the ability to turn day into night, and that has huge consequences. We'll keep on adding to that."
Find more worlds to explore and new ways to die in our guide to the best survival games.
