Warhammer is getting a new fantasy real-time strategy game
The Warhammer tabletop game and strategy video games have a long, sometimes fruitful, sometimes damaging relationship, with another crossover on the way.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin, a “modernized take on the classic RTS,” was announced during the Warhammer Skulls showcase on Thursday. Frontier Developments, the team behind it Elite: Dangerous, Jurassic World EvolutionAnd Roller Coaster Tycoon, has collaborated with Age of Sigmar And Warhammer 40,000 creator Games Workshop to bring the game to Windows PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X “soon”.
Realms of ruin will take place in the realm of Ghur, also known as the realm of beasts. It is a “wild and savage” existence level that appeared after the destruction of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle war game on the table Set in 2015, the story was co-written with Gavin Thorpe, a longtime Games Workshop designer and author of a handful of books in the Black Library collection of novels and graphic novels.
As in “classic” RTS games like Starcraft, Command and ruleAnd Age of Empires, Realms of ruin puts a strong emphasis on controlling key map locations, gathering resources, and attacking enemy command posts from a bird’s eye view.
Frontier has four factions slated for release, only two of which have been revealed: the superhuman Stormcast Eternals and the cunning Orruk Kruleboyz. During a recent behind-closed-doors presentation, Polygon took a look at part of the game’s second campaign mission, which featured a battle between the two factions. The player, in command of the Eternals, had access to the heroes Sigrun, Iden, and Demechrios, along with a varied array of superhuman units.
By capturing “Arcane Conduits”, the player progressed through the Eternals’ tech tree, unlocking increasingly powerful units (including Annihilators, Prosecutors, and the Stormdrake Guard), and defeating the Kruleboyz across the map. The battle seemed intense, if a little slow. Recent real-time strategy games include a “tactical pause” option to increase approachability without sacrificing intensity, but it remains to be seen if Realms of ruin will follow.
Frontier has not yet announced a release date for Realms of ruin, or the dates for planned multiplayer betas. This will be the studio’s first foray into the real-time strategy space, which, despite its waning popularity since the “Golden Age” of early ’00s mainstays, has been on the rise in recent years. Realms of ruin will be the first video game set in the Age of Sigmar universe since 2021 Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Grounda solid but forgettable XCOM-esque.