When it was announced that there would be a Warhammer Survivors game, and that poncle would be helping out on it, I think everyone probably had their own ideas about what would come out of it, outside of running around becoming ungodly powerful as a Warhammer character. Well, if what you were expecting was more of the same, almost to a painful degree, then congrats. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun, but boy howdy is it familiar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnZyJ4z7-n4
Warhammer Survivors takes the unusual approach of not pick and choosing between fantasy and grimdank sci-fi. Instead it features both Age of Sigmar and 40K universes – The Old World, though, can remain in the creative bin – and this is a pretty fun decision, allowing to switch back and forth. Meta-progression is more or less the same between the two, but it’s not shared.
Whichever you choose, it’s very, uh, Vampire Survivors. You’re going to be running around trying to not die, killing off hordes of low-res enemies, trying to get the experience they drop to level up and become stronger, and then so on. You’ve still got lots of stuff to unlock, you’ve still got lots of stats to invest in in-between fights, and your weapons can still evolve. The weapons do feel very familiar, despite the Warhammer skins too, with things like the 40K Boltgun basically being knives, the Nuln OIl basically being holy water, and so on.
I still did more runs than I should have in order to just test stuff out and see all the evolutions, and it’s fun watching numbers going up and the screen becoming impossible to see. It’s all of the classic things you’d expect from a Survivors-like, but with a new edgy skin. Are vampires already edgy anyway? They are, right? I’ve played enough D&D to know that players who want to be vampires are going for that lone wolf “I work on my own, my life is a torment” vibe, so yeah. Anyway, this is that but grimmer.
The most interesting aspect about Warhammer Survivors is that you seem to be able to get other characters alongside you depending on which weapons you add to your arsenal. That’s a pretty big change of pace, and it helps to make the game feel a little bit different to Vampire Survivors when a Leman Russ tank rolls in to give you a hand.
I can’t speak to the whole game, as I’ve only played the newly released demo, but I do think the Status Effects could end up making things feel a fair bit different in the long run. They could add an extra strategic layers to the whole shebang, and what the demo features is definitely enough to grab your attention. With the Warhammer Skulls trailer showing off a twin-biome stage, a painting table stage, and more, it’s clear that the team are having a lot of fun coming up with settings and ideas to put in.
In short, Warhammer Survivors is exactly what you’d expect from it, and that’s going to be perfect for some people and a bit too samey for some other people. I don’t know which camp you fall into, lovely reader, but now you know what you need to know, which is that you can just go and play the demo if you want to see for yourself.
