Game Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 universe has already proved it can slot into the RTS genre nicely indeed, thank you very much, and shortly we'll discover whether GW's other Warhammer universe - the fantasy one - can follow in its futuristic brother's successful footsteps. Warhammer fantasy, you see, is parping its war horn and advancing onto the PC real-time strategy battlefield in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, a game trooping our way this autumn courtesy of Namco Bandai and developer Black Hole Entertainment.
A handful of us here at CVG Towers have fond memories of the Warhammer fantasy table-top game, and so the ability to unleash Empire, Chaos, Skaven and High Elf armies and Orcs, Dwarfs, Vampires and Goblins in what are promised to be epic RTS battles in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos certainly causes the game to prod our appeal receptors. And that means we were more than pleased to sit down with the game's lead producer, Chris Wren, recently and poke him for more information on the title. Part one of a two-part interview begins below...
Could you begin by giving us an overview of Warhammer: Mark of Chaos's storyline, explaining how it ties in with the Warhammer universe?
Chris Wren: The storyline for Mark of Chaos begins at the end of the Great War between the Empire and Chaos. In Warhammer lore, Magnous the Pious of the Empire has struck down the Chaos leader Aasavar Kul using his Hammer imbued with the spirit of Sigmar, an Empire god. With their leader slain, the Chaos army has broken into small tribes and war bands and is left scattered throughout the northern Empire. The leaders within the Empire are left squabbling for power all the while a corruption of Chaos from within the Empire begins to take hold and the Chaos forces scattered about begin to search for a new leader.
You will take up the role of either an Aspiring Champion of Chaos or the Empire to begin this struggle. On the Empire side, you begin as a lowly commander forever hindered by your family's dark past, your father and entire family has been once accused of being in league with Chaos and your entire family bears this mark. You must prove your worth to the Empire by leading its forces to victory over the Chaos Hordes to regain your family's honour. Should you begin the game by choosing Chaos, you will start as an aspiring Champion but without an army and you must challenge the other tribes of Chaos to earn their respect and loyalty by defeating their leaders, with this you will build your army and restore the taint of Chaos that once plagued the Empire.
In what areas would you say Mark of Chaos is pushing RTS boundaries?
Chris Wren: We started out by deciding to not make this a traditional RTS at all, we wanted to make a great war game set in the Warhammer universe. While you do battle in real-time and there is a lot of strategy, we have diverged from the more traditional base building model to focus more on the battlefield and the decisions you make there. Aside from a focus on battle, we have integrated many RPG elements into the experience to make your army and your Champions more customisable and more your own. Our Champions have skill trees that you evolve over time and you will create specialized Champions to lead your armies.
We have also put in the concept of loot and inventories for our Champion units, they can pick up items dropped by enemy units or found whilst destroying a local village, some of these items can be equipped like weapons, armour and magic relics, others can be used in real-time to boost your Champion's health or other attributes. The idea of statistics and levelling is not unique to Champions - all of the units in your army will gain experience, and you can spend resources to upgrade their weaponry and armour as well as their leadership ranks.
So unlike most RTS games where you will start from scratch with each new battle, in Mark of Chaos you keep your army from battle to battle and the army you finish the game with is the same army that has battled with you throughout the whole campaign, so there is a premium on keeping your veteran units alive and keeping your Champions healthy. In multiplayer, you can do all of the above customisation of your army, and you can also customize everything about the look of each unit. Our editor allows you to paint your army any way you want, create a custom banner for them, and further customize every aspect of how they look, form the armour they wear to the type of beard they have on their faces.
What kind of input has Games Workshop had and, although you're working within the confines of an established universe, how much creative freedom have you actually been given?
Chris Wren: We have a very good relationship with Games Workshop, we sat down with them at the beginning of this project to help us define what type of game we wanted to make. We have since relied on them to keep us honest with respect to the license, but they have been much more than that, they have been an integral part of many of the decisions we have made regarding the game and have been very supportive in helping to find ways within Warhammer to accomplish our goals.
We decided to hire an author from Games Workshop's Black Library to craft our story and to give life to our characters and responses within the game, the story has turned out great and the responses you get from units still makes me laugh each time I hear them.
If you had pick two favourite units from the game, what would they be and why?
Chris Wren: It would have to be the Giant, because of his drunken demeanour and his ability to pick up and throw units across the battlefield, and the Chaos Hellcannon, because it can fire body parts at the enemy to demoralize them. I hope I don't need to justify these choices, but they are damn funny to see in the game.
We've been told to expect epic battles. Exactly how epic are things going to get?
Chris Wren: The battles do get big, we've got a couple sieges in the single-player campaign which easily have four to five thousand units doing battle, and in multiplayer you can have up to six people playing head-to-head with thousands of units on screen at once, multiple duels going on, artillery flying from castle walls and just a mess of units beating each other senseless in the middle.
What aspects of the Warhammer tabletop game have you retained for Mark of Chaos, and why choose these particular aspects?
Chris Wren: The look of the universe was important to maintain, not just because Games Workshop told us to, but because we felt it was critical to capturing the spirit of Warhammer for old and new fans alike. From a technical standpoint I'd say the points system is something we borrowed almost verbatim to balance out multiplayer sessions and even some of the single-player missions. The points system let's you build an army any way you want - so long as the points requirements is met, the game will be balanced against any other army with the same point value, we know it works because Games Workshop has been tuning it for 25 years.
Check back tomorrow for the second and concluding part of our interview with Chris Wren, where he discusses multiplayer, effects of environment on tactics and strategy and more.
The game i always wanted. What i really want from the online side of the game is that u would keep the same army from battle to battle. Also with each battle that is played online, both players would have the option af putting up a magical item for the spoils.If u win u get ranked higher but u also become stronger with magic weapons and experience.As well of offering magical weapons for the spoils you could also put up in game money.
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