The Warhammer universe comes in tabletop RPG format for PC. An interesting concept that reeks of promise, if done right, but, sadly, some issues prevents it from fulfilling that promise. Warhammer has a long tradition and a big universe to collect lore from, so when its tabletop RPG Warhammer Quest takes its steps out into the world of PC, the expectations are high.
Warhammer Quest starts off as might be expected – a raw dungeon crawling RPG with focus on the strategic aspects of the genre. Expected, but good. There is not much story, which might be a weakness for RPGs, but to be honest, a Warhammer game is bought mostly for the strategy aspects, and in that department Warhammer Quest delivers.
The game begins with a tutorial that guides through the various aspects and mechanisms of the game at a slow-but-steady pace, making sure nothing of importance is missed before starting off for real. Right from the start there is a lot of DLC available to get to expand upon the experience, everything from new classes to extra weapons.
Warhammer Quest offers great amount of content mixed in with impressive DLC. The four base classes are good and make for a balanced party that easily able to fend for themselves. There is never a need to get the DLC to enjoy the experience but at least it is still there for anyone that wants it. The DLC classes are good but niche – nothing needed to complete anything, but adds decent flavour, which is a great way to use DLC to expand on the base world offered in true tabletop spirit. There are also additional dungeon packs that come with new enemies and weapon packs with additional weapons.
The gameplay itself is very balanced and enjoyable. The dungeon crawling aspect is very strongly represented, yet as it is a tabletop RPG, decisions hardly matter for much, only deciding how much reward the player is given. This is a problem that the “dungeon of the week” approach in the story gives to the story, preventing any consistency and personalisation, which is one of the charms of tabletop RPGs – however, not too serious, as it is expected from the game.
There is one issue with Warhammer Quest, though, considering it’s supposed to feel like a tabletop game. The player does not “roll” their characters. The characters come with predetermined names and looks. Character customisation is an important aspect of tabletop RPGs and one that should have been touched upon more.
While the gameplay is fun, there are some problems experienced along the way, such as several occasions where the game freezes up. At times when enemies try to perform attacks during certain circumstances, nothing happens and the game enters a locked phase, forcing a reset. Luckily this problem is mitigated by the frequent save points, so a lot of data will not be lost, but later on it happens way too often to be overlooked.
This is one severe flaw out of many, unfortunately. There are times when menus do not load correctly, also forcing a reset. Warhammer Quest currently suffers a lot from severe game breaking bugs that prevent the game from flowing as it should. It is annoying having to reset ten times in a row until understanding what enemy causes the issue and then having to maybe reset the dungeon as the only way to prevent that is to kill the enemy, which at times is impossible due to a lack of firepower, for some reason. This ruins what would otherwise have been a great game.
Until the technical errors are fixed Warhammer Quest is a simply mediocre title. The game breaking issues are there, but the gameplay still makes it somewhat enjoyable. After resetting for the tenth time in less than one hour, though, the magic disappears and the foul scent of failure makes itself apparent. The fact that this only gets worse and worse later on makes it a very unpleasant experience to continue on with.
