Super Play Top 100: #94 - The Lost Vikings (84%, Issue 8)

The Super Play Top 100 was the 1990’s SNES culture magazine’s final ranking of the platform’s catalogue, mere months before the publication ended. This regular monthly feature takes a look back at each title, how it fared back then and how it fares now. This month, it’s time (travel) for something completely different.

Game Title: The Lost Vikings

Developer: Silicon & Synapse

Release dates:

Back in the early 1990s — when shoulder pads were large, game cartridges were larger, and the concept of “save points” was still experimental — a tiny studio called Silicon & Synapse (later known as Blizzard Entertainment, i.e., the “We made World of Warcraft and ruined your productivity” people) released a strange little game called The Lost Vikings. It was a platformer, but not the kind where you just jump on turtles until someone hands you a princess. Oh no. This one required thinking. Real, honest-to-Odin, spatial reasoning.

You controlled three Vikings who had apparently wandered so far off course they ended up in a sci-fi alien zoo. Their names? Erik the Swift – runs fast, jumps high, occasionally bashes things with his head (which explains a lot), Baleog the Fierce – uses a sword and a bow, making him the only Viking who understands “range”. And finally, Olaf the Stout – carries a shield big enough to double as a Wi-Fi blocker and a hang-glider.

The twist was that you could only control one Viking at a time. To progress, you had to switch between them like some sort of ancient Scandinavian time-share agreement. It was teamwork before co-op mode existed — the original “group project where one guy does all the work” simulator.

If you showed The Lost Vikings to a modern gamer, they’d call it “a narrative-driven cooperative spatial reasoning experience.” Back then, it was just a game where you got mad because Baleog fell into a lava pit again.

Every level was a series of puzzles requiring the trio’s combined talents. You’d use Erik to reach high platforms, Olaf to block lasers, and Baleog to stab whatever unfortunate alien was guarding the exit. It wasn’t about speed — it was about careful planning and the occasional involuntary Viking sacrifice.

At the time, Silicon & Synapse was a small, plucky studio more known for Rock N’ Roll Racing and RPM Racing — the kind of games you rented because Super Metroid was already taken at Blockbuster. But with The Lost Vikings, they proved something important: They could make games with character and polish. They could make you swear at your TV without any multiplayer involved.

This was the DNA that would later evolve into Blizzard’s big hits. You can actually see the company’s future hiding in this game’s code — bright personality, tight mechanics, and a sense of humor that never takes itself too seriously. Blizzard even resurrected the Vikings later as cameos in StarCraft II and Heroes of the Storm, like three drunk uncles wandering into the family Christmas photo every decade or so. But what did Super Play have to say, to ensure its inclusion in the top 100 games of the Super Nintendo?

“Heaven knows where Interplay found the inspiration for this, a platformy puzzle-type thing starring three rough-hewn bearded geezers, but here the game is, and a compelling little thing it turns out to be, too. You tackle each level in a sort of back-and-forth fashion, switching between the Vikings in turn as you reach bits which require their individual skills to overcome. Yes, it probably sounds a bit cruddy, and admittedly the whole thing has something of a Commodore 64 game feel to it, but it’s original.”

Contemporary reviewers adored it. They praised its humour, clever puzzles, and unique mechanics. Players, meanwhile, discovered that coordinating three Vikings was harder than assembling IKEA furniture with an Allen key forged by Satan.

But when you finally beat a level after thirty minutes of tactical Viking choreography, it felt incredible. The game made you smarter — or at least convinced you that you were, right up until you ran Olaf into a pit again.

The Lost Vikings didn’t sell like Mario, but it did something better — it influenced how puzzle-platformers were built for decades. The idea of switching between characters with complementary abilities can be seen everywhere from Trine to The Cave to every indie game that wants to sound deep by having “multiple perspectives.”

And Blizzard, bless their Norse hearts, never forgot them. The Vikings pop up in cameos across their universe, reminding everyone that before the epic raids of World of Warcraft, there were three idiots trying to find the exit in a spaceship.

The Lost Vikings is the best group project you’ll ever fail your first time through. It’s charming, funny, smarter than it looks, and impossible not to love — even when you’ve accidentally impaled Baleog on a laser for the fifth time. The Lost Vikings is best played with patience, caffeine, and a deep respect for Norse incompetence. Just never forget: Even geniuses get lost sometimes — but if you bash enough walls with your head, you’ll eventually find the exit.