Currently, a bare-bone aRPG in the Warhammer Fantasy setting in the time of Emperor Magnus that lacks the content of more fleshed-out competitors like D3, PoE and Grim Dawn, and currently offers way too little value for money.

The champion of the Empire, a hero named Magnus, has been placed under a magical spell and his life is slowly slipping away. As you play as either a human soldier, a dwarven slayer, an wood elf ranger or a high elf mage, you are given quests by the high mage Teclis and witch hunter Voss to find the culprit. As the story progresses, you travel from Nuln to Praag to Kislev and eventually into the realms of Chaos to save Magnus. Each hero has its own unique abilities and skills, so as you finish the game with one character, you can replay the game as another character. The game also offers a co-op mode.

Controlling your character is easy, as the controls are mostly in line with those of other aRPG's. In comparison to other games, controlling your character in Chaosbane sometimes feels a tiny bit "clunky". The UI is mostly intuitive, although it would be nice if the game would give a bit more guidance whenever you unlock something new. Currently, whenever this happens, you get a message saying "You now have access to <something>" or "Here's a little thanks", and then you have to look at all the screens to find out what's new. Especially the item enchantment screen could use more explanation as to what you're supposed to be doing, and about the effects of using different kinds of fragments.

Experienced aRPG'ers won't have any problem at all with assigning and using skills. There's more than enough skills to customize your character and try different builds, although the developers cheated a little bit with their argument that "each character has more than 50 skills", since most skills have a tier-1, a tier-2 and a tier-3 level. So if you count those as "different", then yeah, each character has around 50 skills. The skills themselves are broken down into three categories: those that generate power, those that cost power, and passives that work all the time. As your character progresses, you unlock skills by either leveling up, by donating loot to the Guild (which increases your standing with them, and at certain levels you get access to new skills), or by spending points in the "God Tree". The "God Tree" can best be compared with PoE's skill tree, albeit far simpler. Each point grants you a specific bonus, and depending on the path you choose in the tree, you can unlock certain "God skills".

Content-wise, the game currently offers relatively little. The game consists of four acts, and within each act, the maps and visuals are constantly more or less the same. The campaign has little to no replay value, and the only reason to replay the campaign is to level up other characters. There's not many NPC's (and those that are there don't have much dialogue), and each act has only one boss, with the final boss adding up to five bosses total. After finishing the campaign, there's a few end-game options: boss rushes, expeditions, relic hunts and invasions. Expeditions and relic hunts are basically modes to get better items, invasions are levels with increasing difficulty (think GRifts in D3 or maps in PoE), and boss rushes are just the boss combats.

A good aRPG is for a big part all about finding loot, grinding for gear and tweaking your build. Item-wise, Chaosbane unfortunately also offers little variety. For instance, if you play as Bragi, the dwarf slayer, you always fight with hand axes. No hammers, no great axes, no other weapons whatsoever, just hand axes. The same goes for all other gear slots, which basically offer only 1 "type" of item, with the only variation being the item stats (which increase based on the item's rarity). Now, this might fit the slayer theme, but if the developers had implemented Bragi to be "just a generic dwarf", far more customization options would have been possible, as they could've implemented character paths like slayer, ironbreaker, hammerers, miners, thunderers, etc., all with specific skills and gear. The same goes for all the other characters. Loot drops themselves are dependent on the difficulty you're playing at, currently scaling from "Very easy" to "Chaos 5", offering 10 difficulty levels.

The game's graphics are basically ok, although they're nothing special. The cities of Nuln and Praag are atmospheric, and IMHO do justice to the Warhammer Fantasy setting. The lands of Kislev are too bright to my liking, and the realms of Chaos constantly remind me of some sort of candy land. Even Diablo 3 is more "grittier" than the second half of Chaosbane, which is a shame, since the Warhammer world is an excellent setting for a dark, gritty, even horror-y aRPG.

In the sound department, the game is lacking; there's no real background music, so it's mostly just sound effects. The characters you speak to, are voice acted, but at times, either their voice lines are missing or there is some bug in the game that causes the voice lines not to be played. So in those cases, you're stuck with reading the on-screen text box.

To complete campaign mode with 1 character will take roughly 10 hours. Leveling up other characters and playing end-game content can be a time sink, but in its current state, I feel reluctant to pour down hours and hours into it. As it's priced as an AAA-game at 50 euros, in its current state, I personally find the game to be overpriced for what it has to offer. Maybe the developers will add more content to the game (in which case I will adjust this review), but right now, I can unfortunately not recommend this game.

+ easy and intuitive to play
+ nice graphics
+ first two acts are atmospheric and in line with the Warhammer "feel"
+ enough customization options in the skills and "God Tree" department
+ it's nice to have an aRPG in the Warhammer Fantasy setting

- too little value for money in its current state
- not much storyline, and not a very original story
- too little variation in maps, and the world doesn't feel "connected" as you cannot walk from one area to another
- too little variation in items (only item rarity and some stat differences, but too little different item "types")
- very few NPC's and bosses
- not fully voice-acted, or voice lines are bugged out
- last two acts look not very much Warhammer-ish
- little to no music

Warhammer: Chaosbane feels as a very "stripped" aRPG, only having a basic implementation of features that other games of its kind have refined to a point of perfection. As such, it simply cannot compete, as it currently offers too little to stand out from the competition. Especially at its AAA-game pricing of 50 euros, it therefore offers far too little to justify that price. Let's hope that the devs keep adding more content and features over time, which might make this game more up-to-standard. Until then, there's better alternatives out there.

[h1]TL;DR[/h1] Currently, a bare-bone aRPG in the Warhammer Fantasy setting in the time of Emperor Magnus that lacks the content of more fleshed-out competitors like D3, PoE and Grim Dawn, and currently offers way too little value for money. [h1]Summary[/h1] The champion of the Empire, a hero named Magnus, has been placed under a magical spell and his life is slowly slipping away. As you play as either a human soldier, a dwarven slayer, an wood elf ranger or a high elf mage, you are given quests by the high mage Teclis and witch hunter Voss to find the culprit. As the story progresses, you travel from Nuln to Praag to Kislev and eventually into the realms of Chaos to save Magnus. Each hero has its own unique abilities and skills, so as you finish the game with one character, you can replay the game as another character. The game also offers a co-op mode. Controlling your character is easy, as the controls are mostly in line with those of other aRPG's. In comparison to other games, controlling your character in Chaosbane sometimes feels a tiny bit "clunky". The UI is mostly intuitive, although it would be nice if the game would give a bit more guidance whenever you unlock something new. Currently, whenever this happens, you get a message saying "You now have access to <something>" or "Here's a little thanks", and then you have to look at all the screens to find out what's new. Especially the item enchantment screen could use more explanation as to what you're supposed to be doing, and about the effects of using different kinds of fragments. Experienced aRPG'ers won't have any problem at all with assigning and using skills. There's more than enough skills to customize your character and try different builds, although the developers cheated a little bit with their argument that "each character has more than 50 skills", since most skills have a tier-1, a tier-2 and a tier-3 level. So if you count those as "different", then yeah, each character has around 50 skills. The skills themselves are broken down into three categories: those that generate power, those that cost power, and passives that work all the time. As your character progresses, you unlock skills by either leveling up, by donating loot to the Guild (which increases your standing with them, and at certain levels you get access to new skills), or by spending points in the "God Tree". The "God Tree" can best be compared with PoE's skill tree, albeit far simpler. Each point grants you a specific bonus, and depending on the path you choose in the tree, you can unlock certain "God skills". Content-wise, the game currently offers relatively little. The game consists of four acts, and within each act, the maps and visuals are constantly more or less the same. The campaign has little to no replay value, and the only reason to replay the campaign is to level up other characters. There's not many NPC's (and those that are there don't have much dialogue), and each act has only one boss, with the final boss adding up to five bosses total. After finishing the campaign, there's a few end-game options: boss rushes, expeditions, relic hunts and invasions. Expeditions and relic hunts are basically modes to get better items, invasions are levels with increasing difficulty (think GRifts in D3 or maps in PoE), and boss rushes are just the boss combats. A good aRPG is for a big part all about finding loot, grinding for gear and tweaking your build. Item-wise, Chaosbane unfortunately also offers little variety. For instance, if you play as Bragi, the dwarf slayer, you always fight with hand axes. No hammers, no great axes, no other weapons whatsoever, just hand axes. The same goes for all other gear slots, which basically offer only 1 "type" of item, with the only variation being the item stats (which increase based on the item's rarity). Now, this might fit the slayer theme, but if the developers had implemented Bragi to be "just a generic dwarf", far more customization options would have been possible, as they could've implemented character paths like slayer, ironbreaker, hammerers, miners, thunderers, etc., all with specific skills and gear. The same goes for all the other characters. Loot drops themselves are dependent on the difficulty you're playing at, currently scaling from "Very easy" to "Chaos 5", offering 10 difficulty levels. The game's graphics are basically ok, although they're nothing special. The cities of Nuln and Praag are atmospheric, and IMHO do justice to the Warhammer Fantasy setting. The lands of Kislev are too bright to my liking, and the realms of Chaos constantly remind me of some sort of candy land. Even Diablo 3 is more "grittier" than the second half of Chaosbane, which is a shame, since the Warhammer world is an excellent setting for a dark, gritty, even horror-y aRPG. In the sound department, the game is lacking; there's no real background music, so it's mostly just sound effects. The characters you speak to, are voice acted, but at times, either their voice lines are missing or there is some bug in the game that causes the voice lines not to be played. So in those cases, you're stuck with reading the on-screen text box. To complete campaign mode with 1 character will take roughly 10 hours. Leveling up other characters and playing end-game content can be a time sink, but in its current state, I feel reluctant to pour down hours and hours into it. As it's priced as an AAA-game at 50 euros, in its current state, I personally find the game to be overpriced for what it has to offer. Maybe the developers will add more content to the game (in which case I will adjust this review), but right now, I can unfortunately not recommend this game. [h1]Pros and cons[/h1] + easy and intuitive to play + nice graphics + first two acts are atmospheric and in line with the Warhammer "feel" + enough customization options in the skills and "God Tree" department + it's nice to have an aRPG in the Warhammer Fantasy setting - too little value for money in its current state - not much storyline, and not a very original story - too little variation in maps, and the world doesn't feel "connected" as you cannot walk from one area to another - too little variation in items (only item rarity and some stat differences, but too little different item "types") - very few NPC's and bosses - not fully voice-acted, or voice lines are bugged out - last two acts look not very much Warhammer-ish - little to no music [h1]Verdict[/h1] Warhammer: Chaosbane feels as a very "stripped" aRPG, only having a basic implementation of features that other games of its kind have refined to a point of perfection. As such, it simply cannot compete, as it currently offers too little to stand out from the competition. Especially at its AAA-game pricing of 50 euros, it therefore offers far too little to justify that price. Let's hope that the devs keep adding more content and features over time, which might make this game more up-to-standard. Until then, there's better alternatives out there.