away enemies who are invading her
personal space.
Elessa joins a party of up to four
characters – yes, you can play locally
or online with up to three other
players, or go it alone. The other
playable characters include Konrad
Vollen, a human soldier specialising
in close-up combat, so is prettymuch the tank class, an axe-wielding
dwarf Slayer called Bragi Axebiter
(he’s a Slayer who’s a dwarf, not a
slayer of dwarves), whose role is that
of DPS. Finally there’s a spellcaster.
Elontir, one of our favourites and a
high elf mage who can throw multiple
bouncing fireballs around the place.Chaos is the word
With even two characters on-screen
it’s absolute carnage as the game
throws busy waves of creatures at
you, which you’re going to rapidly turn
into ground beef.
When you’re done, all that’s left
is loot which you can then pick up,
trade, or equip to change your look
and buff your stats. All very familiar
to players of Diablo III in particular, of
course, but just because Chaosbane
is treading a well-worn path doesn’t
mean it doesn’t stand out on its own.
For starters, it looks pretty impressive,
while the action is fast and smooth,
and the settings of the Old World, a
continent ravaged by the Great War
Against Chaos – a particularly bloody
conflict that’s decimated the Empire
Of Men – are beautifully realised.
The controls are intuitively mapped,
making use of both left and right
sticks as well as having your available
skills mapped to the main buttons,
plus RB. You have a bottomless
healing potion too, drunk with LB,
but it has a cooldown period. Should
your character die, you can of course
be resurrected by a team-mate. Fill
up your Bloodlust meter and you can
unleash a devastating attack, unique
to each class. It’s just our chaotic cup
of tea, this one, and we can’t wait to
get hacking and slashing when the
game launches on Xbox One in June. QLovers of couch co-op dungeon
crawlers rejoice and quaff mead in
an isometrically represented tavern!
Warhammer: Chaosbane is imminent,
and though it takes its setting from
the Old World of Games Workshop’s
Warhammer Fantasy Battle universe,
being an action RPG it has more in
common with classic isometric fantasy
games like Diablo and Gauntlet.
We got busy with the game’s latest
beta phase, after developer Big Ben
unveiled the fourth and final of its
playable characters, the wood elf
archer Elessa. Elessa’s powers, aside
from some powerful arrow-based
attacks, include summoning a Groot-
like tree spirit – a dryad – to help in
battle, a nifty dodge-roll out of danger
and spinning knife blades to clearThe fantasy universe of the tabletop miniature wargame is inspired by the works of Tolkien and Michael Moorcock
BELOW If you like
mobile ranged
characters, you
should get to
grips with wood
elf Elessa.
Warhammer:
Chaosbane
Throwing a Gauntlet down
to challenge for the couch
co-op crown
Chris Burke
PUBLISHER BIGBEN INTERACTIVE DEVELOPER EKO SOFTWARE
ETA JUNE 2019“You can play
locally or online
with up to three
other players, or
go it alone”
034 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
PREVIEW