There are countless Warhammer video games out there, no matter if you’re looking for Fantasy, 40K, or Sigmar-set fun. Games Workshop has been moving the IPs around for the longest time, which means anyone curious about those universes who doesn’t want to get into miniatures and the board game is likely to find at least a couple of releases that suit their interests.
On the one hand, we have absolute winners such as the Total War: Warhammer trilogy or Warhammer 40K: Boltgun. Then we have stinkers like Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 3 and poor mobile titles in the shape of Warhammer: Arcane Magic. The good news is that most Warhammer games, no matter the setting, exist in the muddy space between “terrible” and “GOATed.” There are plenty of decent AA and indie releases that might just be your cup of tea. The sucky thing is that most of those (which is the majority the output of Warhammer games) barely get any marketing budget and are designed to be super niche, so you’ll only come across them randomly or because a Warhammer-freak friend tries to get you into them.
Right now, most eyes are set on Space Marine 2 (which looks freakin’ fantastic), but there’s much more coming our way, especially as Games Workshop starts pushing the Age of Sigmar setting (essentially the new Fantasy) more and more. This is where Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin comes in, and there’s a substantial single-player demo you can play right now on Steam.
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At a theoretical level, Realms of Ruin should be an easy win. Frontier Developments has been killing it recently across many genres, and that includes the Jurassic World Evolution construction and management simulators. Moreover, this first foray into the Warhammer Age of Sigmar IP packs pretty decent production values and has enjoyed a good deal of coverage in the lead-up to its release next month. It just needed to be, you know, fun to play. Well, I’m sad to report that I’m not feeling this one right now, and it appears I’m not in the minority.
The Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin demo includes three campaign missions taken straight from the beginning of the game, so we can essentially play the first chunk of the game early. Nowadays, we don’t get many of these demos anymore, so I thought this was a big positive and a major sign that both GW and Frontier are confident in the game. Looking at the reception now, this preview might actually hurt the sales quite a bit.
People are still playing the Vermintide and Total War: Warhammer titles because they simply are well-made games regardless of the IP they adapted. Players know when they’re being sold quick cash-grabs, especially when the brand has been squeezed to death with half-baked projects. Realms of Ruin certainly doesn’t feel like one of those, as you can constantly feel the Frontier devs truly are passionate about the property, yet the final result is nothing short of painfully dull. And the worst part is that I’ve seen this happen before.
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First and foremost, Realms of Ruin reminds me of Dawn of War 3, a WH40K game so disappointing that it completely killed off the hugely profitable Dawn of War series with a shift to MOBA-like systems and mechanics that fans almost universally rejected. That sub-genre may be tremendously famous because of League of Legends and DOTA 2, but it’s as easy to totally fumble as battle royale and extraction shooters. Well, Frontier tried to craft exactly that type of RTS-MOBA hybrid with Realms of Ruin, and the product is awkward as hell.
Above all, the game is terribly slow. Like… it desperately needs a fast-forward button in single-player missions like the one in Frontier’s management sims. The maps aren’t too big, but simply moving a group of units from the “base” (more like captured posts) to any objective can be yawn-inducing. This wouldn’t be an issue if there was plenty of micro-managing to handle and resources to gather meanwhile, but those systems aren’t deep either. In fact, you can tell this game was built with consoles in mind, given how basic most of the features are and all the reaction/thinking time the slow pacing allows.
Base-building and resources are limited to capturing command posts and holding key positions on the battlefield. This basic premise is actually the basis for all the Dawn of War titles, even the fantastic first installment. However, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin clearly doesn’t want to tinker with the building and management side of things, instead sticking closer to the most criticized aspects of the third Dawn of War. Obviously, such disdain for that aspect of the overall RTS design results in an “outpost system” that ultimately feels tacked-on to bait casual players into thinking this is a proper RTS Warhammer title.
The narrative isn’t very engaging either, as we’re rapidly and without much fanfare thrown into a supposedly important adventure to explore a putrid area infested with Orruk and mysterious undead foes. The cutscenes are quick to define the main three characters as the unwavering young warrior, the loyal and optimistic friend, and the awkward wizard. After spending three full missions with the gang, I still don’t know who they are beyond those footnotes; the game instead forces them to push onwards with their quest because that’s what Sigmar demands. A decent story or cool character hooks could’ve salvaged much of the game’s mid-ness and talked me into giving the full release a try. “Maybe this will get better as it progresses,” you know.
By the time I reached the demo’s conclusion, all my hopes for Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin (as I dig both the IP and most of Frontier’s games) had been wiped out. There’s a vision at the center of it all, but I don’t think it’s the right one, especially when it repeats step-by-step most of the mistakes of one the most hated RTS sequels of all time. Some players might find something to like here if the multiplayer component is breezier, but I wouldn’t hold my breath after looking at my units crawl through the map for entire minutes and get stuck in melees that can’t be stopped unless I retreated straight to base for some stupid reason. Sick game design!
