The fantasy RTS seems to manage a balancing act: Fans of the brand will love it for a quirk, and everyone else will just get a good real-time strategy game
War hammers pound on orc skulls, swords buzz through shadowy figures, whereupon the spirits shriek bloodcurdlingly and pounce on the Disciples of Tzeentch’s giants by the ridge. Our holy men hurl lances of light after them, while the Kruleboyz menacingly scrape shard-like blades by the dozen against armor.
Welcome to Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin.
A paradise for Warhammer connoisseurs
What kind of game is Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin?
This is a classic real-time strategy game in which you fight for control points without building bases. These can be equipped differently by the four factions in order to influence the gameplay.
The easiest comparison is a Company of Heroes in fantasy guise without base building and with more distinct factions. Iron Harvest, also minus building construction, is also a viable gameplay mirror image.
What is this game idea based on?
We participated in an online event where we were able to try out various features and two modes of the game for just under three hours. These included the Army Creator for painting using color slots of all troops.
In terms of gameplay, the Conquest mode and 2vs2 Skirmish games were on the agenda most of the time. In addition, we tested separately and independently of the date the campaign demo, which was also available to the general public during the Steam-Next-Fest.
What modes will be in the finished game?
Single player campaign
Conquest
Multiplayer Skirmish
The Factions
What’s coming up playfully
Nothing really new at the core, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin hardly does anything wrong with what we’ve played so far, but it doesn’t stand out as the new genre primer either.
The campaign is smartly staged and the missions seen so far are creatively designed, even attempting to take unfamiliar narrative paths.
The single battles are what everyone expects from such a RTS game . The focus is on clever distribution of troops, exploiting weaknesses in the enemy through skills of your own men, women and monsters, and skillful selection of upgrades. If you’ve ever played and liked a tactical checkpoint RTS, you’ll feel right at home.
The Conquest mode basically just strings together classic skirmishes against AI opponents, which you can select on an overview map and thus level your way to the final boss fight. Mutators, meanwhile, add variety by, for example, drastically shortening sight distances one time or increasing movement speeds another. Time limits can also sometimes add pressure, but are not the rule.
Great toolset for tabletop fans
For those who want to delve deeper into the armies or battlefields, Age of Sigmar offers a comprehensive toolset.
You can customize every single unit of the army using several selectable colors. It’s not free painting with digital brushes, but even so a myriad of possibilities are conceivable.
A beginner-friendly map editor for extensive design of your own war zones.
A scene editor that allows you to design quasi dioramas. With free placement of all assets and units and full control over all animations, you can let loose to create the wildest Warhammer battle creations.
Who could Age of Sigmar be for?
Two groups come immediately to mind when it comes to the target audience for the game: RTS lovers who can do without base building, and Warhammer fantasy fans. Both will have a hard time getting past Age of Sigmar, because in the absence of alternatives, both have little choice but to grab it.
It remains questionable until release whether perhaps the campaign can develop enough traction to lure newcomers into this subgenre of real-time strategy as well as the Warhammer universe. Thanks to the clearly presented game mechanics, this could succeed, if the license, which is sometimes perceived as unwieldy for outsiders, doesn’t scare some off from the start.
What did we like, what is still unclear?
What did we like
Unit designs are coherent, the environment graphics know how to please.
Generally a stylish implementation of the factions, each of which also feels unique.
Great audio design, especially the sounds of the units skillfully instill character into each army.
Very versatile toolbox, perhaps the quintessential Warhammer fantasy sandbox to this point.
This is still unclear
Can the story convince to the end? Does the campaign design remain interesting?
Does the Conquest mode really remain fun in the long run, since at its core it’s just Skirmish games?
Balancing, the potential nail in the coffin for any RTS: can the developers manage to keep a multiplayer mode alive here in the long run?
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin will be released on Steam on November 17, as well as for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Editor’s Verdict
First things first: I’m not a huge Warhammer fan myself. I know 40K halfway, and I’ve held Warhammer Fantasy figures in a friend’s hand before or played the first part of the Dawn of War RTS series, but I myself don’t belong to one of the core target groups of this game. I like my bases, just like in a Command & Conquer or in Age of Empires. Still: I see the great potential the tools can unleash in the hands of true veterans of the franchise, and that there’s a rock-solid, stylish and brand-loyal RTS waiting in the wings here.
Because the gameplay itself, the campaign, the Conquest mode as well as the individual battles go off easily, look great and the beginning of the story is also promising. I’m confident that Warhammer Age of Sigmar – Realms of Ruin will enrich the genre of tactical RTS games without base building, which continues to simmer at a slow pace today.
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