Alongside its recent Tomb Kings expansion, Warhammer: Chaosbane has been bolstered by a slab of free new content, adding a fifth playable hero to the game’s roster.
Joining the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, Keela is a Dwarf Engineer who sports her own unique hack n’ slash moveset, combining gadgets and explosives with hefty swings from her custom-made hammer. This free Chaosbane update also adds a new story chapter which you can dive straight into, exploring the Empire forges of Nuln, whether playing alone or online with fellow adventurers.
Wanting to know more about Keela and how Chaosbane has evolved since launching last year, we caught up with Eko Software’s Production Director, Jean-Georges Levieux.
Why did you decide to introduce another Dwarf character?
For the first four characters, we wanted to propose players play with an archetype that they could easily identify and instantly like: you have the strong human wielding a shield and capable of taking a lot of damage, the roaring Dwarf Slayer that deals huge amounts of damage as he craves for a glorious death in battle, the swift Wood Elf Scout capable of dodging and setting traps, etc. But in the end, it seemed important to start offering a different experience for both Warhammer fans and action RPG players alike, and a female Dwarf Engineer is not a common thing throughout the Warhammer universe.
What were some of the other hero concepts you originally experimented with?
Actually, we had this idea of creating a different character very early in our minds. So it was pretty clear with Games Workshop from the very beginning that we wanted to propose something out of our comfort zone. We asked ourselves: “What type of character would we like to see, as players, in an action RPG set in the Old World?”. That’s how we came up with the Dwarf Engineer and it seemed natural to make it a female character.
What kind of input does Games Workshop have when creating new characters such as Keela?
The priority for our friends at Games Workshop is to make sure that everything we create is true to the Warhammer universe. With millions of fans around the world we both want to respect the core material and be 100% sure that we won’t disappoint fans of the license. But they are also very open to ideas and suggestions and we can have our own input to what we offer to the players in-game.
Why did you decide to make Keela a free addition to Chaosbane?
After the first critics from players that pointed out the lack of content, we wanted to right our wrongs. This is why we announced very quickly that we would be working on adding new content for free in the game. After a couple of additional months of development, here we are with the addition of Keela, the new environment of the Forges of Nuln, and a bunch of new elite enemies.
What has been Eko’s biggest challenge in supporting Chaosbane since launch?
I would say that the most difficult thing when working on a game such as Chaosbane is the overall balancing. There is a thin line between having a character or a spell that is overpowered or useless. And with so many skills, weapons and armours, and levels of difficulty… we have to take all of these variables into consideration every time we work on a new item or a new enemy. Apart from this, we had some setbacks with console update approvals that led to some patches being delayed, unfortunately.
Can players expect more free content updates in future?
We are working on future updates, but that’s a story to tell another time!
For more on Warhammer: Chaosbane you can read our full review.
