From its dark fantasy setting to its heritage as a tabletop miniatures wargame, the Warhammer franchise has always been a bit hardcore. Rogue Factor and Focus Interactive’s newly announced third-person tactical strategy RPG, Mordheim: City of the Damned, certainly looks like it will fit that mold. With a gritty art palette, permadeath options, and player looting, Mordheim will aim to appeal to Warhammer fans and hardcore strategy gamers alike.
As you’d expect, Mordheim draws its inspiration from the tabletop skirmish game and setting of its namesake. In it, you’ll take the helm of a warband from one of the four iconic factions of the Mercenaries, Skaven, Possessed, and Sisters of Sigmar. Combat, which is a turn-based affair, plays out a little like XCOM without a grid, where you’ll take your fully customizable warbands into battle against monsters like rat ogres and a whole host of baddies from the Warhammer universe. You can customize individual characters within your warband by changing their weapons, appearance, and even names, and progress them through an RPG-style leveling system while unlocking new skills.
During combat, you’ll be managing resources like SP and MP - Stamina Points and Mana Points, presumably - and trying to gather magical Wyrdstones. There’s also an interesting mechanic based around the Morale meter, which, when depleted, will cause your units (or those of your opponents) to rout.
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The game offers a solo campaign as well as several multiplayer modes like Deathmatch and King of the Hill, wherein many objectives will change due to procedurally generated maps. Currently, all multiplayer modes are centered around one warband vs. one warband skirmishes, but the developers are looking at incorporating larger player battles.
No platforms have yet been announced for Mordheim, but I could see it fitting equally well on PC and consoles, and maybe even mobile devices, given some tweaks. The game’s aesthetic definitely looks appropriately Warhammer-y, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it as Rogue Factor and Focus Interactive release more details.
Som Pourfarzaneh / Som has been hanging out with the MMORPG.com crew since 2011, and is an Associate Director & Lecturer in Media, Anthropology, and Religious Studies. He’s a former Community Manager for Neverwinter, the free-to-play Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG from Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, and is unreasonably good at Maze Craze for the Atari 2600. You can exchange puns and chat (European) football with him on Twitter @sominator.
