The sneaky skittering rats of the Skaven are a mysterious bunch. Their cruelty and treachery is hardly reserved for the other races of the Warhammer world, but turn it inward as well, with no semblance of pity for the weak amongst their own ranks. It’s from a slurry of dead bodies that our particularly worthless ratkin emerges. Beaten up, with a broken tail and nothing but a desire to survive, they’re somehow destined to become a Deathmaster, nonetheless.
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – Deathmaster is the story of this rat’s survival and eventual rise through a clan of particularly sneaky Skaven Assassins, until they become a deathmaster themself. But that starting point, dragging themself out of the pile, gives you a creature that has nothing. No weapon, no shield, no tools, nothing.
Deathmaster is a side-scrolling 2D stealth game, and that naturally brings some quirks and oddities to the stealth action. Quickly you need to learn how to hide and evade, cowering behind patches of cover in the foreground to avoid the gaze of less desperate, less ambitious Skaven guards. They’re largely dullards, happy to pace back and forth a little, giving you the ability to slip by, dropping down through thin platforms to reach lower tunnels, or clambering up walls and along ceilings to avoid them just as well.
Get spotted, though, and you’ve got no defences in this early stage, the other Skaven able to dispatch you with just a single blow. Fortunately, you can often outrun them if spotted and wait for them to settle back into their routine, or distract them, using your tail to fling skulls as a noisemaker to draw them out of position. When you do get a shield, finding it on the floor, the first instinct isn’t to block and parry, but to leap onto an enemy and bash their brains in!
The opening stage builds up to a climax with an insane Rat Ogre breaking out of containment and going on a rampage. It’s just when it looks like your number’s up, that a Skaven Assassin strikes and saves you. This isn’t an act of altruism – not a chance with the Skaven – it’s because your worthless, and that means you’ll cost him nothing. He now owns you, inducting you into Clan Skrell amongst its initiates.
It’s now that you finally get to feel like an actual Assassin. No longer just hiding in the shadows, but striking from them as well. After gearing up at Clan Skell’s home, getting a grappling hook to use to latch onto points and zip to that location, you’re onto your first mission, flying with a cohort (which you’re quickly separated from) as you try to infiltrate Clan Viktus.
There’s not much more to our hands on time with the game, but as opening acts go, it’s certainly evocative. One thing I enjoyed was the animation, which had initially looked a bit like the kind of paper marionette animation when viewed from afar, but on closer inspection shows a lot more fluidity to the motion which is very pleasing. And that’s even before you start to appreciate the rich griminess of the Skaven underworld, both in the foreground and the background of this otherworldly place.
This was just a taster, and I’m intrigued to see where Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – Deathmaster takes our ratty assassin going forward. The gameplay is direct and satisfying, the visuals on point, and the ratty dialogue? Yes, yes. Very ratty it is.
