Game review 08 July 2019, 16:13

author: Patrick Manelski

Warhammer: Chaosbane Review – A Casual Diablo 3

Warhammer: Chaosbane, which was to enrich the hack'n'slash universe with creatures of the Old World, was an exciting idea. But bearing in mind the recent disappointment with the glitchy Warhammer: Vermintide 2, I had some reservations...

The review is based on the PC version.

Fans of all genres set their venerated trinities of games, considered the alphas and omegas. In the case of hack'n'slash, you can easily count Path of Exile as one of these. In my personal rankings, I wouldn't include Diablo II anymore, and would rather see Titan Quest and Grim Dawn there. Even though I really love those games, I decided it was time to try something new.

That's why I gladly welcomed the Warhammer: Chaosbane, which was to enrich the hack'n'slash universe with creatures of the Old World. Still, I had in mind the recent disappointment in a similar situation – with the bugged, undercooked Warhammer: Vermintide 2, the bad taste of which I can still feel – so I was careful with my expectations this time. Fortunately.

Warhammer plus hack'n'slash – what could possibly go wrong?

Chaosbane was created by EKO Software – a studio, which you, dear readers, might have never heard of. As I browsed through their back catalog, a thought occurred to me: "Why on Earth did they make a game about chopping hundreds of monsters?” Their output includes the post-apocalyptic How to Survive, which is kind of a hybrid of hack'n'slash and survival, but apart from that, it mainly consists of sports games and a range of productions such as Garfield Lasagna World Tour Kidz and Bratz "Slumber Party". "But," came another thought, "maybe Chaosbane will finally let them shine?"

Apparently, Games Workshop had the same idea granting the license for Warhammer to EKO Software. Did the studio manage to take advantage of the Old World and Chaos and delivered a fleshed-out rampage of a game that would embarrass Blizzard and their Diablo 3? Well, I can't tell you just now, but you can be sure that the mentioned game will come up more than once in this coverage of Warhammer: Chaosbane. Why is that? The answer is simple – Chaosbane is basically a "poor man's Diablo 3."

If you've played the game from Blizzard, you will instantly feel at home. Be warned, though, that instead of the Deckard Kane, we have access to a range of much less distinctive characters that you probably won't remember after you're done playing. Well, unless you're a declared Warhammer fanatic. In this case, you should pretty cozy in Chaosbane because the game is full of references and nods to the fans of the universe.

Drama in four acts

Unfortunately, my familiarity with this universe is rather limited, so I was not able to fully appreciate all morsels hidden around the game. However, I have some rudimentary knowledge, so it's not like I felt completely out of place here. Still, I was surprised to learn that Warhammer: Chaosbane does such a poor job of fully utilizing this rich setting. The plot was divided into four acts, the completion of which takes about eight hours. If you decide to explore all nooks and crannies and kill every villain on the map, you will extend this time to some ten hours.

Is that too short? In my opinion, not, in the mainstay of hack'n'slash lies in the endgame, and the story is just there to give you a pretext to play. On the other hand, those eight hours did not fulfill my appetite. The first two acts were definitely longer than the latter two, so I originally expected a longer experience. I was also under the impression that the story becomes rushed at some point, whereas it could easily go on further.

As I said – the plot is not so important in this genre, so I'll just give you a rough outline. Two hundred years before the reign of Karl Franz, armies and fleets of Chaos invaded the Empire of men from all directions. Magnus the Pious and elven mage Teclis unite everyone under their banner to repel the invasion. The battle is won, but in this world, the evil always lurks in the darkness. After a short period of peace, a witch casts a deadly curse on Magnus. The Chaos returns and the Empire succumbs to darkness and chaos, while we must break through the growing forces of evil and save the last beacon of humanity.

From good to bad to pathetic

We have four characters: a soldier of the Empire, a dwarf warrior, a forest she-elf archer, and a high-elf mage. They differ in abilities, talents, and origin story. Interestingly, we learn the latter only at the beginning, in the form of a nice comic-book-style scene. I was hoping for more of these, at least on a few occasions throughout the game, but the devs just gave me one more, at the very end.

It's a pity, because, in the eight hours, I found myself just click through the dialogues, not really interested in the story. Playing Diablo 3, I felt my character was part of the plot, which also diversified the experience greatly. Here, I was merely a passive observer – my Elessa sauntered around the corners of Praag and Nuln with the task of saving the population from various threats, and that was it. I mean, that's what the assumption of the story was – in practice, after leaving a hub, NPCs only appeared when they needed saving.

What definitely deserves recognition is the visual side of Warhammer: Chaosbane. Die-hard fans of the universe and aesthetics of Warhammer might be disappointed by the vibrancy of colors or the amount of blood, which is not pouring out of the monitor, but I liked what I saw. Backgrounds are rich in detail, and the environment attracts attention. Sadly, there's nothing about the environment beyond that – there's no destructibility, and since most of the time we're busy mowing down dozens of enemies, there are few occasions to admire the view.

Don't judge a book by the cover?

At the same time, the developers didn't care much about the design of enemies, which, considering the attention paid to the background stuff, can be a bit baffling. I get it, repetitiveness is the order of the day in slashers, but for the entire three-quarters of the game, it felt like I was fighting four or five types of enemies over and over again. Between acts, they differed only in the color of aura and clothing. From time to time, there was a unique opponent for the given act, but it was certainly not enough. On top of that, the fourth, last act of the game, merely upgrades all the known enemies to their own iterations, only with more tentacles. I was half expecting a Lovecraftian Old One to come out…

For their defense, I have to emphasize that Warhammer: Chaosbane offers the best gameplay I've seen in any hack'n'slash in recent years. ECO Software did a great job in this respect – watching the protagonist was a real pleasure. The elf was relentlessly penetrating the sea of enemies; the animations were impressive, and the combat – satisfying.

And this is probably the greatest advantage of Chaosbane – the dynamics of the gameplay, thanks to which even Elontir's throw of a fireball is more than just standing in one place and waiting for the character to execute the order. In this particular respect, I believe there's a lot that Path of Exile could learn from Warhammer: Chaosbane.

The competition has solutions for the game's shortcomings

Chaosbane also used the experience of their more experienced colleagues. I mean the talent tree. Not as extensive as in the competitor from Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile), but offering a few choices with regard to the general direction of character development. It can be used to obtain two active divine skills and some passive ones. In addition, each point spent translates into a specific upgrade of stats. You have to keep in mind, though, that we can only select 50 talents, as this is the level cap in the game. Therefore, it is necessary to plan wisely.

Unfortunately, it soon turns out that the talent tree is simply meager. The only reason for investing in talents is obtaining the skills you want for your build. The bonuses to stats are, perhaps surprisingly, not so important. I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, but after level 42, I didn't even bother with it, because I already had the skillset I needed. However, there was another reason for this decision.

Buying talent requires investing money (crowns) and shards. We obtain these resources by completing missions; we also can drop them as loot. While there's plenty of money to farm in the game, I quickly learned that shards are scarce. They occur in different colors and each talent point requires the investment of a sufficient number of all colors. As a result, in order to take full advantage of the Divine Tree, I would have to resort to grinding.

The issue here was that the shards turn out to be a resource mandatory in another element of gameplay. In Warhammer: Chaosbane, we can upgrade, or rather "bless" inventory. This requires special shards, stones that combine the shards mentioned above. The most readily understandable comparison are the gems from Diablo 3, as they perform an identical function.

The mechanics of blessing the items are blatantly simple – you place the shards in sockets, and, depending on the color, you get different new properties. You can bless all you want – there's no limited number of upgrades. Every time you do, the end result is altered, so as long as you have the shards, you can play with the blessings. For an even better effect, we place the combining (triangular) stones in the corresponding fields between the sockets, thereby obtaining reinforced shards.

Sounds complicated? In practice, this system is easy, remembering what color is responsible for which stat is simple. There are few of them, so the system isn't problematic. Except obtaining the resources, of course.

Hack'n'slash without loot is like a soldier without a rifle

Now that I'm happily moaning, let me complain about the number of items that are dropped out of opponents. I always thought that equipment in hack'n'slash games was too abundant, and the only thing wrong with it was that there was too much of it. In Warhammer: Chaosbane, I would replace two or three pieces of inventory on every map, carrying around a bunch of found junk. I won't even bother naming the pieces of gear – suffice it to say that the inventory is divided into a few categories of sets, an, in general, the suffix of the name defines its properties.

In the case of Diablo 3, the devs went for a random generator of the names of items. In Chaosbane, there's just a few of them, which makes things rather amusing after a few hours. Within an hour, it turns out we get the same bow again, only of a different level, with slightly modified stats. Inventory has been divided into four categories according to quality, with the last one, red, occurring pretty late in the game. On the one hand, it's a pity – on the other, it's understandable, as it's the most useful, providing additional passive abilities.

By the way, I've had an unusual problem with the inventory. At one point, I noticed that my attack had decreased. I had not replaced the inventory, only proceeded to the next act and advanced to the next level. The defense coefficient remained the same, but the number indicating my strength decreased. The damage seemed slightly smaller, but the opponents were dying as fast as before.

I found this unusual scaling rather disagreeable – I like to feel the power of my character in a slasher game. While here, I felt no real progress in this respect along the way. This is problematic because the difficulty level in Warhammer: Chaosbane turns out to be relatively low. After ten minutes of playing, I had to change the difficulty level from normal to high, because I was just yawning of boredom, and I'm not the type of player, who finishes Path of Exile on hardcore with his eyes closed.

Repeatability should not be conspicuous

EKO Software seems to have gone out of its way to make things easier for players on every step. Graphical settings offer nearly no customization, so it looks like a lazy console port. The inventory theoretically has some stats, but in reality, it boils down to simply choosing items that have the greatest attack or defense. About which the game almost compulsively informs you. Therefore, while traveling the world in Chaosbane and bumping into some kind of a lost chest-piece, the only thing you have to pay attention to is whether the attack/defense icon is green (meaning superior). Quick change and I proceeded to a new location.

Oh, sorry, did I say "new"? That's not really true, because Chaosbane suffers from annoying recycling of locations. Each act is like a different environment, but it is so monotonous that a person quickly has enough. While the first two acts were ok in this respect, more and more familiar stuff reappears as you go through the game – not to mention linearity and almost claustrophobically small locations.

After an hour of playing in the icy forest, I was under the impression that each part of the story consists of exactly three types of corners, where chests with loot are always located in the same place. The developers didn't opt for procedural generation of levels, which – oddly enough – has been included in a separate, endgame mode. Because of that even the final stage, which was, in my opinion, the prettiest in the game, quickly became boring.

Average doesn't mean bad

All in all, nearly every aspect of Warhammer: Chaosbane has greater or smaller flaws. It could have been interesting, but the devs apparently settled for just copying solutions from other hack'n'slash games. All the while, though, I felt like I was playing a prettier, but also much less complex, Diablo 3. I can't name any of the characters I've met, apart from some bosses. Which isn't a spectacular achievement on my part, as there were a total of four of them.

I remember the first two thanks to the mechanics used in the fight. They were pretty cool, as they didn't just require you to stand in front of the rascal, throwing everything you've got at them. You have to actively react to the changing circumstances on the battlefield, so the clashes last longer. The latter two, on the other hand – and the last one in particular – I found hugely disappointing. Then, the story background of these encounters was also rather unsatisfactory. In the first three acts, we chase the challenger, who wants to become the Champion of chaos and flees from us the entire game, to finally turn into the last boss.

I know, I know. A lot of moaning, right? So let me emphasize, that not everything Chaosbane had to offer turned out weak. I definitely liked the skill system, which doesn't allow having all the abilities. Thus, investing points requires some planning, and then there are the passive skills, and those obtained from the Divine Tree.

Besides, there's a mechanic called Bloodlust. From time to time, a horde of monsters leaves a sphere that regenerates our HP and fills the Bloodlust. Initially, we only have the basic version, but as the campaign progresses, we get access to more powerful iterations. Once we collect the right number of spheres and fill the bar, we will be able to activate a special ability. It is useful at higher difficulties when you're outnumbered, or for destroying special enemies.

The system is complemented by the special tactical ability, unique for each class, accessible under the space. In the case of my elven archeress, it was a combat roll that allowed me to quickly escape ambushes and position more easily.

A casual Diablo 3

The strange thing about all this is that, contrary to what you might have generally concluded from this text, I've had plenty of fun. Mainly because the gameplay was overall smooth and combat was dynamic. At the moment, however, this game is not worth the buck. Especially coming from a genre that also offers the free Path of Exile or the inexpensive Grim Dawn. More – you're better off getting Diablo 3 – it costs less, and you get more content.

Ultimately, I felt Warhammer: Chaosbane was a casual hack'n'slash, perfect for people who don't know the genre but want to enter it without a hassle. The game may become something more with future DLCs, but considering what we know so far about these, the endeavor might be rather pricey. Another average Warhammer is a pity, especially since this one had great potential. Writing this, I'd rather join the forces of Chaos, instead of fighting them; the game can really be summed up as a simplified Diablo 3 and not much more.