Warhammer Quest Review

Back in the day I used to head down the garden and play a bit of D&D with a couple of mates on a Saturday morning in my mum’s shed. We always enjoyed it, but never took it too seriously. And then one day, as we passed Games Workshop in town, we saw these kids and adults playing a game on a large map, with dice and beautiful hand painted figurines. It was then we realised they were out of our league. These gamers looked focused, they looked dead serious and, what was this strange complex game? It was Warhammer and it scared the bejesus out of me.

Now though, with Warhammer Quest arriving on Xbox One, those fears have come back to haunt me. Will I understand what’s going on? Will I get bogged down by complex lore and stats? Well, let’s get into that dungeon, roll those dice and find out.

Warhammer Quest feels like a game from the ’90s. With its top down views, dungeon exploration, text based quests and multiple choice tree paths. It also made me think fondly to playing D&D back on those Saturday mornings, building characters up from nothing and fighting big bad bosses.

You start the game in a village, in some old worldly/Middle-earth type setting, with a menu of characters to choose from. You get a quest to explore, which might be a ‘go and rescue this person or donkey’, or ‘go and get this magical item’ style task. You put together a team of four, and then you’re off to the dungeon.

Here the top down view sees the map divided into squares, showing where you can move to and how many places you can move in each turn. You can then move each character until the turn is ended. When the creatures, monsters, orcs, spiders and all manner of big bad enemies appear, combat occurs. Here, the action is turn based as well, whereby you select your move based on a normal attack, magic or using a special item. After your attack, the enemy then has their turn and if you’re left standing, you progress through the dungeon. This is exactly how Warhammer Quest progresses until you reach a final boss and complete your quest.

Thankfully, to keep things really interesting, you can pick up some sweet, sweet, loot on the way, before selling it in the local settlement, and buying some extra weapons/armor instead. Also, like most role-playing games you would have ever played, experience is gained after each fight and you have the option to spend money to level up and buff your stats, all whilst gaining new abilities.

In the settlement you can choose from a huge roster of characters to take with you on your next adventure. There is also a temple which will happily take your hard earned money in exchange for the possibility of some favour from the gods. But be warned, sometimes they don’t hear your cries for help, even when you’ve put down hard cash.

So far, pretty standard D&D type stuff. But how does it play?

Well, honestly? Pretty good actually. The initial controls take some getting used to, as they feel awkward at first, but it all soon becomes second nature. The actual setup of Warhammer Quest is very old school, but hugely enjoyable, and there is loads of content to be had with tons of hours to be spent in the dungeon arena. The gameplay is very addictive and you find yourself wanting to win every battle successfully, if only so you can find out what loot you can grab and how much you can begin to level up your characters.

After a while though it dawns on you that it is basically the same game over and over again. You get a quest, you enter a dungeon and you win or lose battles. There are bits of story that will help keep your interest, but after eight hours or so my initial vigor starting to wane.

Story wise it has a very familiar feeling and anyone down with the role play world will be at home as detailed narrative descriptions and many fleshed out sub stories come together well. I would’ve like to have seen more of the characters you are playing with coming complete with interesting back stories though. The looks of the game have had a little upgrade since their release on the PC and iOS a few years back and it reminds me of a certain time in gaming history…but that isn’t a negative thing, because it all holds up well in the context of the game, without ever being remarkable. The sound effects are good and work well, even though every time an orc lets out a scream my dog starts barking. There is no voiceover to be had, but the score is very rousing and dramatic, working well within the game.

I have really enjoyed my time with Warhammer Quest and more than happy that it reminded me of games and D&D experiences from times gone by. It is very addictive and there is a lot of content that will take you a good chunk of time to get through, but it can get very repetitive, and also gets very hard as you progress. The price is a bit of issue for me, as I feel if it was around the £15 mark I would be able to recommend it a bit more. But if you love your role-playing and especially Warhammer, then well, this is the game for you.