Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin deployed to Gamescom 2023, and we tried out the latest tabletop spin-off from Games Workshop and Frontier to find out if it’s a campaign worthy of legend or not.
The Premise
For those of you still busy in Total War Warhammer III, there’s probably one big overriding question when it comes to Frontier’s latest release. Why? This isn’t exactly a new response for the Age of Sigmar IP. The tabletop version of this digital tale launched back in 2015, spinning the core Warhammer universe off into a new world. Clearing the decks, this refresh offered up a new opportunity to create unique experiences, and Frontier is hoping that it can do that same here.
Due to land across PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 on 17 November 2023, Realms of Ruin plunges players into a new challenge in a world where you’ll face powerful celestial warriors, sneaky Orruk Kruleboyz , inhospitable wildlife, and other more unnatural foes. In an early hands-on, I sat down to do battle for the god King Sigmar, and tried out some early gameplay to see how this tactical experience sacks up against the reast of the Warhammer adventures. While reams of Ruin might begin in a new world, there’s plenty of familiar concepts in this new title. Taking a top down perspective, this short sampling opened up on the a baren swampland. With the infamous Kruleboyz lurking around somewhere, it was up to us to make a beachhead and go hunting for some missing scouts.
Like any decent RTS, this expedition into enemy territory gives a good overview of a detailed landscape. These swamplands aren’t the only untamed area available, but they provide a good idea of what to expect. At least this time, thing’s weren’t exactly expansive. As an early introduction to these Realms of Ruin I would expect that to change as combat escalates. Mission objectives are clearly defined, and navigating is simple enough thanks to the mini map in the bottom right. At first glance, it’s obvious why we’re here and what’s going on. There’s nothing daunting about this initial scenario. I was tasked with managing troops and some powerful heroic characters, overcoming any troublesome Orruk, saving lost soldiers, and defending an outpost. While this skipped the base build scenario, this explore, destroy, and defend balance isn’t exactly rewriting the rules of the genre.
DirectStep
While the Liberators might have familiar compatriots in other Warhammer titles, Frontier’s DirectStep tech does not. Although keyboard and mouse controls are available on PC, and compatible consoles, I took hold of a controller to see what options are available for anybody who wants to embody the armchair God King! Frontier has taken the time to reinvent the radial menu. The new DirectStep tech takes the tradition of overcluttered, difficult mouse mappings and makes controlling groups of Celestials something much less time consuming than a free wheeling cursor would and dial styled menu might. With an opening mission scenario that put two sets of melee focus Liberators and the hero Sigurn in my charge, the first problem is to get moving. Troop selection and passage through the Realm of Ruins is at the core of any campaign. Rather than port a traditional click and drag into this title, this game soft locks onto individual unit groups, allowing players to jump between local allies with nothing much more than a tilt of the stick and a button mash.
Actually getting those troops to the enemy simply requires selecting units by moving the analog stick and smashing the move order, linked to a single button press. You’ll note that there’s no need to pause out of a battle to issue orders. These can even be chained together to select an entire route across the map. Broader strokes are available, using a two button combination to select anything within a defined region, then giving orders the same way. Waypoints, again with just a couple of buttons, can be dropped in to bring every new body straight to the front of the fight. No more getting bogged down traversing the map to send on a new group of recruits.
Directing troops to move or attack is equally easy. The new controller focused system that comes bundled with realms of ruin provides a range of features for co ordinating during battle. While there’s some nuance available, troops will tend to auto attack the nearest enemy in a given direction, either when they go hurtling into them, or if they spawn on top of them. This assumes that you’re moving within range of enemy combatants to take them on, and should at least make initial decisions and quick changes a fire and forget problem. Whether this then drills down into more nuanced combat stances, I didn’t see. If you’re looking for a bit more control in combat, then you might have also noticed the options to charge, retreat, or utilize a unit’s special ability nestled at the bottom left of the screen. This allows for a few more options than simply putting boots on the ground, but it only takes a single button combination. Again, these options don’t end up mired with sub settings to get the job done. None of the options we came across were particularly complicated. There’s plenty of praise to be lauded on a system that understands switching across the map, or delving into sub stats and menus on a controller takes time. Realms of Ruin seems to strip away a bunch of the obvious button bashing required to simply get into battle, and moves items like build queues and upgrades out the way during more visceral moments.
Resource management
While this very early mission didn’t delve too far into resource management, it’s obvious you won’t be sending harvesters out to dig around enemy Tiberium fields. Instead, I stumbled across Arcane Conduits, where you’ll do most of your building. These can be used to harvest Realmstone, one of the currencies plastered across the top of the screen. This resource still pushed me to move out and hold territory, but capturing assets to generate currency still pushed me out into the world without requiring me to simultaneously keep a secondary eye on a bunch of farming NPCS.
Troops
As I’ve already described, Realms of Ruin includes a range of hero characters and troop types that Warhammer fans might already recognize. These aren’t unlimited. In this demo I could recruit new soldiers, but only with adequate currency and only up to some hard limits This meant picking troop distribution based on the enemy. Whether that be Orruk or something else that you don’t want near you.
Upgrades are also essential. During this brief reccy to smash some Oruk, a series of small but significant upgrades provided my Liberator force with increased defence and helped any ranged vanguard Hunters to defend against all damage. Even at tier 1, allowing my ranged classes to act like rouges and become hidden seems incredibly compelling.
The Rest of the Campaign
As for the rest of this adventure, you can check out more about what’s coming on the official website. It’s no surprise that Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin imagines this IP in intricate detail. Vicious Orruk, glorious Stormcast Eternals, the lethal Nighthaunt, and other enemies are detailed and true. Even better, there’s no sign of the more unorthodox rulesets that made Age of Sigmar so divisive at times. Don’t expect beard buffs. How the full campaign unfolds, and where the narrative thread leas us is yet to be seen, but console players should have a much easier time being couch commanders in Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin.
