Bloodshed in the Realm of Ghur

Despite being a contentious tabletop reboot, Age of Sigmar’s setting and factions were practically begging to be transformed into a real-time strategy game for those of us who prefer our fantasy battles in digital form. Now, eight years after its launch, Frontier Developments is nearing the completion of such a transformation with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin.

During a recent preview event, we got the chance to play through Realms of Ruin’s first campaign mission and three multiplayer matches, getting a feel for both the Stormcast Eternals and Orruk Kruleboyz – two of the four planned launch factions.

The former was actually a tutorial mission, which proved to be as straightforward an affair as possible. Controlling Sigmar’s golden warriors, we were adequately introduced to basic concepts like movement or point capture. We also got to use a few unit abilities, one of which allowed us to sneak past dangerous opponents without getting noticed.

This mission also laid the narrative groundwork, with the Stormcast Eternals attempting to advance into the Realm of Ghur, after previous unsuccessful efforts to establish a foothold there. Shortly after their arrival, both the local wildlife and the Orruk Kruleboyz use swords, spears, axes, and razor-sharp teeth to send a clear message - they aren’t fond of intruders.

The full campaign is “a single-player cinematic experience, which tells a story of desperate survival in the wildlands of Ghur using multiple points of view,” Principal Designer Sandro Sammarco tells us. It won’t limit us to playing just as the Stormcast Eternals, but it doesn’t sound like co-op is going to be included.

“What changes in the campaign [when compared to multiplayer] are the types of challenges you face, and the types of maps you’ll come across – you might need to hold three points at once under immense pressure, or kill a particular unit on the battlefield, or escape a particular part of the map, or weaken an objective, among numerous others,” he explains.

“The story drives the objectives. The campaign delivers that cinematic narrative experience, and the gameplay supports it, and the same dynamics you saw in multiplayer will feed into that, including fielding new units, Bastions and upgrades.

We were then thrust into three multiplayer matches against a fellow previewer, which made up the bulk of our time with this early build of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin.

It soon became clear that Frontier Developments is aiming for a unit-focused RTS that revolves around juggling between a smaller number of squads and using their distinct abilities to get the upper hand.

Realms of Ruin puts units into three broad categories, resembling a rock-paper-scissors system. Squads marked with a sword are more efficient against those marked with a shield; shield beats arrow, while arrow beats sword. Heroes – marked using a star – act as an outlier, requiring an even more tactical approach, thanks to how their abilities can turn battles around.

The Knight-Vexillor’s Banner of the Reforged sends out waves of healing energy in an area around him, keeping your warriors in the battle for longer while also knocking back enemies after a few seconds.

Units typically start with abilities, such as the Stormdrake Guard’s fire blast that inflicts damage in a cone-shaped area, but the tech tree allows for the unlocking of more options.

Across both factions, we controlled a mixture of melee, ranged, and flying units. When in the air, the latter can only engage other flying units unless ordered to land. This can be done in the standard boring fashion of gently bringing your dragon to the ground or by having it violently crash into a group of enemies.

There’s a minimal amount of base building involved, and Realms of Ruin’s simplified economy revolves around managing only two resources. Gaining both is closely tied to controlling territory. To have a steady supply of Command, you need to capture and hold Arcane Conduits.

Doing so also contributes to obtaining Realmstone, which is further granted by building Bastions on top of Arcane Conduits – fortifying them in the process – as well as holding Victory Points. The latter were also the main objective in the mode we played, depleting the opponent’s score when held and eventually determining who walked away victorious.

Bastions come in four different types, granting a defensive turret, increasing the amount of Realmstone gained, offering vision in a broader area, or healing nearby troops and helping you more easily hold territory away from your main base.

An interesting touch is how keeping your units near Arcane Conduits after capturing them extends the active controlled territory, which is depicted by a circle around them. This, in turn, increases the amount of time the enemy needs to spend taking Conduits from you.

Unit recruitment is handled via a menu accessible at any time either by pressing the D key or using a button found on top of the minimap. Fresh squads enter the battlefield through a portal near the Muster Point in your base.

The Muster Point is a vital building to which squads who might not be faring too well in battle can retreat. It also allows you to heal wounded units and can be upgraded, granting access to higher-tier squads and new options in the tech tree.

Although tier 1 warriors can be recruited using just Command, their more powerful counterparts generally require a mixture of Command and Realmstone. The latter is also needed to upgrade your muster point, Bastions, and research technologies that improve individual units, so we often had to decide what to prioritize depending on how the match progressed.

Once squads enter unit-to-unit combat, they seem to stay engaged until one side is either dead or given the order to retreat. Retreating outside of battle isn’t possible and doing so costs a small amount of Command.

When you decide to attack an enemy Bastion – aiming to seize one of their Arcane Conduits and disrupt their economy – you also need to take into account any newly spawned enemy units who may take offense to the destruction of their structures.

Line of sight also plays a big role, since you don’t want to get surprised by enemy armies or ambushes, especially while your own troops are navigating patches of swampy terrain that slows them down. You can see more of your surroundings through abilities or by sending flying units in the air, extending their vision range.

We played Realms of Ruin on PC using keyboard and mouse. Although the controls feel familiar if you’ve dabbled in the genre before, they and the UI could do with some improvement. We ended up wishing for more functional tooltips.

In the work-in-progress build we tested, the only way to actually learn what an ability does was to press its hotkey once, then read the text that appeared on the lower left side of the screen. A second press would then cast it.

Certain menus occupied too much of the screen, rendering it difficult to track and quickly react to enemy incursions. Using the Charge ability also felt a bit awkward, since you can only do so in the window after giving an attack order but before the unit engages its target.

Units and buildings thankfully had a dedicated button to trigger additional details, but while the UI showed some stylistic polish, it had a scrappy, unfinished feeling to it.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin also has a dedicated control scheme for controllers – called DirectStep – which we did not get to try out. Our opponent did, however, note that they enjoyed using it during our matches.

The limited time we spent with the Stormcast Eternals and Orruk Kruleboyz was not enough to fully grasp the intricacies of either faction, but they seem to play quite differently.

Sigmar’s warriors are more resistant, boasting potent abilities that complement their great staying power from the get-go. Their greener peers seem to rely on quickly pumping out weaker units at first before higher-tier squads and research unlock the faction’s true damage potential.

Our third PvP match proved particularly intriguing. After a significant period of dominating our opponent, we found that their newly deployed units were suddenly able to decimate squads that had previously stood as an almost unassailable bulwark against enemy assaults.

We’re not entirely sure if this was a result of a bug or a string of upgrades our opponent discovered. But, if it was the latter, this could paint the Orruk Kruleboyz as a faction whose playstyle revolves around extremes – scrappy survivalists early on, but capable of dishing out serious damage when they ride their big beasts into battle.

Based on our initial impressions, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin aims, in a broader sense, to offer a more streamlined take on Relic-style real-time strategy, positioning itself closer to Dawn of War 2 than Age of Empires. According to the developer, its goals are to make the game welcoming to newer players while also providing a high skill ceiling for genre veterans.

It certainly doesn’t cater to base building enthusiasts, nor does it task you with managing a complex economy or thousands of units. A steady flow of resources is very important to stay in the fight, but is ultimately ensured by capturing and holding territory while besting your opponent in battle.

Realms of Ruin pledges to be user-friendly and succeeded in keeping things engaging, whether we were triumphing over opponents or facing challenges ourselves. Whether this balance holds in the complete version remains to be seen. However, after experiencing this small segment, we are keen to delve deeper into its campaign and explore the remaining two factions.

The open beta for Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin will be accessible from July 7th to 10th across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X. The full release is “coming soon,” according to the developer.

Most Anticipated Feature: Playing through the full campaign.