I’m Not Sold On The New Warhammer RTS Game So Far

Both Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy Battles have received a number of successful video game adaptations over the years, but the more recent Age of Sigmar setting is yet to provide anything particularly interesting. The tabletop version seems to be doing pretty well, but there’s not been a Sigmar video game comparable to the likes of Dawn of War or the Total War: Warhammer series.

Don’t get me wrong: there have been a few valiant attempts at adapting the setting, but the best we’ve got so far is Storm Ground, a so-so turn-based strategy game that was abandoned by the devs mere months after launch. And considering Age of Sigmar has been around for eight years at this point, that’s a pretty poor return.

Enter Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin, an RTS that’s promising to succeed where others have failed. After playing the open beta this past weekend, however, I’m not convinced that it’s going to fulfil that promise.

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First off, the game is very derivative and lacks any sort of innovative features or mechanics. If you’ve played a standard match of Dawn of War 2 multiplayer, which was easily the worst part of that game, you’ll know exactly what to expect here. You only have two types of resources to worry about, there’s essentially no base building, and most of the gameplay revolves around capture points. Combat is of course a thing as well, but it feels secondary to capturing and holding strategic locations in exchange for resources that can be used to unlock new units and technologies.

Despite the fact that they’re marketing Realms of Ruin as an RTS, I always hesitate to use that term when talking about these sorts of games. Aside from the lack of base-building, one of the core pillars of the genre, there’s also very little actual strategy involved. Progressing from your side of the map to that of your opponent is generally a linear and straightforward affair. There might be a little back and forth when it comes to capturing points in the middle portion of the map, but that’s about it. There are no rushes, sneaky drops, cheeses, or anything like that in this game. In other words, no builds.

Realms of Ruin is more about moment-to-moment tactical decisions than figuring out the best build order and unit composition to counter your opponent. Hence, why ‘real-time tactics’ would be a better label than ‘real-time strategy’. I’m not trying to be a stickler here, but there is a pretty big difference between the two, and I think Frontier Developments knows that. They also know that RTS games tend to sell better than RTTs, so that’s what the marketing team decided to go with. I can’t really blame them for that, but I did want to mention it just in case you were expecting Realms of Ruin to be a traditional RTS. It’s not.

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While we’re on the topic of slightly misleading marketing, it has to be said that the trailers make the game look far more action-packed than it actually is. Most of the movement and combat animations feel like they’re running at 50 to 75% speed for no apparent reason. The animations do look nice, but it’s hard to get excited about them when everything feels so slow. One of the consequences of this sluggish pace is that matches usually last around 30-40 minutes, which is about 15 minutes too long in my opinion. The devs did confirm two additional races at launch, but it’s unclear whether they’re also working on new maps.

Even though the open beta and its sole game mode didn’t get me hyped for Realms of Ruin, I’m still looking forward to seeing what the campaign has to offer. A solid campaign with good voice acting and an interesting story can definitely elevate Realms of Ruin above the plethora of mediocre Warhammer games that keep popping up out of nowhere every few months. I’ll even go as far as to say that the campaign is the only factor that will dictate whether Realms of Ruin will succeed or fail. Judging by the open beta, the multiplayer component isn’t engaging enough to keep players hooked for more than a week or two. At most. Personally, I only managed to play a couple of matches before I got bored and jumped back into Total War: Warhammer 3.

I will admit that I’m not a big fan of the Age of Sigmar in general. In fact, it’s my least favorite Warhammer setting. I’ve been looking for a good reason to delve headlong into Sigmar for years now, but so far I haven’t been able to find one. Maybe Realms of Ruin will provide me with that reason. Maybe not. Meanwhile, the Blacktalon animated series and previous Age of Sigmar video games have all been disappointing.

If Realms of Ruin’s campaign won’t manage to make me fall in love with Age of Sigmar, I doubt anything will.

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