Polygon had a chance to go hands-on with an early version of the game ’ s Stormcast Eternal campaign in April. The final game will include three factions — the Stormcast Eternals, Nighthaunt, and Maggotkin — angstrom well as a competitive on-line multiplayer mode. But the base game is more of a narrative campaign, with abstract turn-based legal action and a roguelike format. Players progress across a hex-based map, making ranged and melee attacks and casting spells .
The feel feels a moment like a blend of all three existing tabletop games. There ’ s the rich body of lore being drawn from the basal tabletop game ; the adaptive, evolving style of narrative shimmer from Warcry ; and the teach, about Chess-like competitive feel of Underworlds. Gasket Games CEO Jeff Lydell said the goal all along was to use the many aspects of the Age of Sigmar to make something entirely raw .
The objective, Lydell said, is to draw players into Games Workshop ’ randomness universe and set them to task unlock new and stimulate characters inside their game .
“ We chew through the scenery, ” Lydell said. “ We take you through multiple different kingdom from the Age of Sigmar and introduce you to different characters that we ’ ve set in that, and introduce you to unlike characters that we ’ ve set in that deoxyadenosine monophosphate well as different aspects of the lore that you can explore. ”
Each of the game ’ s units and champion characters is upgradeable, with options for understudy weapons, armor, and spells. Lydell said that his team has created more than 500 unlike unlocks for the game. In the single-player campaign that we played, unlocks carried over from plot to game, lending the experience a kind of Rogue Legacy-style progress. Each prison term I came back to play another round, I had more and different options to choose from for outfitting my forces .
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“ Your hero is the anchor bomber that continues to progress, ” said Ian Christy, design conductor at Gasket Games. “ It takes a long time to unlock all the [ upgrade ] slots on the bomber, but holy moly, are they tough once they ’ ve got all those slots unlocked. ”
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Each time I played through the Storm Cast campaign, unlocks ( in the form of in-game cards ) appeared as loot in a certain hexadecimal on the map. much as in Firaxis ’ reinvention of the XCOM franchise, specially XCOM 2 : war of the Chosen, those loot containers became an optional objective. The hazard was damaging or evening killing off a minor unit of measurement, but the reward was discovering a powerful piece of random gearing or, sometimes, another unit wholly .
Another treat for fans of the Age of Sigmar is that Gasket Games international relations and security network ’ metric ton drawing on any existing parts of the canon from the Black Library. The developer has been given the horizon to explore a new separate of the universe, and expand the storyline of the franchise on its own .
“ obviously Games Workshop has the stopping point pronounce, ” said Christy. “ We ’ ve worked close [ with them ] and added to the Black Library. so, preferably than deriving from the existing [ lore ], we ’ ve tried to build it out. The beautiful thing with the Age of Sigmar [ … ] is that there ’ s a lot of open district to explore. ”
When the game launches subsequently this month, players will be able to tackle the single-player experience at their own pace or startle right field into the multiplayer game and create their own warbands from scratch. Lydell was immediate to note that there are no microtransactions built in “ at the here and now, ” but the team is still exploring ways to add content to the $ 39.99 game for consecrated fans .
“ There ’ s something like 26 factions in [ the full-fledged tabletop wargame ], ” Lydell said. “ ultimately, our goal with this was [ to ] make a very effective Age of Sigmar game, and our long term goals are [ to ] make as much of it as we can. ”
