Remember when every game had zombies in them? With the release of Eitr, it struck me that there has been an awful lot of vikings around lately. Is this a trend, something which, like zombies, are going to reach a saturation point? I'm not totally sure myself. But to get some kind of bigger picture, I took all the viking games I could find on this site and put them in chronological order.

So, what do you think?

2017 - Eitr (great pixelart, this!)
2017 - Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
2017 - Vikings - Wolves of Midgard
2017 - eExpeditions: Viking
2016 - VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action (just the title, though)
2016 - Slain: Back From Hell
2016 - Shadwen
2016 - Banner Saga 2
2016 - Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim
2016 - Star Vikings
2016 - Through the Woods
2015 - Jotun: Valhalla Edition
2015 - Valhalla Hills
2015 - Kyn
2014 - Mount & Blade: Warband - Viking Conquest Reforged Edition
2014 - The Banner Saga
2014 - King's Bounty: Warriors of the North
2013 - Volgarr the Viking
2003 - Cultures: Northland + 8th Wonder of the World
2002 - Celtic Kings: Rage of War
2001 - The Settlers® 4: Gold Edition (one of the four teams are vikings)
2001 - Cultures 1+2
2000 - Konung 1 + 2
2000 - Rune Classic
1999 - King of Dragon Pass
1996 - Pray for Death (you get to play a viking warrior)
1996 - Pinball Gold Pack Got a viking table with a real nice soundtrack!

Bridgewater just can't catch a break.

If they are, it's a definite improvement. Of course, pretty much would have been an improvement, but delving into the history and mythology of the vikings is a especialy striking contrast to the tedium of zombie apocalypse.

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action ! ah fun game

What will be next? Maybe pirates? Cowboys? Vampires?

I'm still waiting for that Corporate Vikings: Deadline Ragnarok game to come out.

Nah, not vampires -- we already went through that "craze" several years back, remember? :) It just happened to have been before the boom in indie games really began

Something has to replace zombies for a while.

What makes (or rather, CAN make) a zompocalypse setting interesting is not the zombies themselves, nor even the "killing" & dismemberment thereof, but the stories of survival that happen within that world. It doesn't even need to specifically be a zombie apocalypse; any "breakdown of society and/or civilization" scenario can serve the same purpose. I'm guessing that people just gravitate toward the "Suddenly, zombies!" thing because walking corpses are a tangible foe that one can fight and potentially win against. A lot of the alternatives might feel a little too possible for most people to find "fun".
Of course, some people just think dismembering people is awesome, and zombies are more acceptable than living people as the targets of video game killing sprees. So that's part of it, too.

Is everything the new everything? WHERE DOES IT END? *crawling in my skin plays*

Also I thought cults were the new zombies.

More like it's much easier to code "braindead" enemies than well-scripted and functioning AI. ;)

I honestly don't remember a time that phrase felt new and fresh. It always felt like it was half a decade past its prime.

Probably, I was just shitposting.

You missed this one. Q.E.D.! :D

I don't remember anything about vikings in Shadwen though, except for the main character sporting a braid. It seemed like regular medieval fantasy to me. Did I miss something?