Necromunda: Underhive Wars Preview

Rogue Factor, the developers behind Mordheim: City of the Damned, are currently busy working on Necromunda: Underhive Wars, a tabletop-inspired RPG set in the grim darkness of Warhammer 40,000’s future. Published by Focus Home Interactive, the game was showcased during the recent Le What’s Next de Focus event, which allowed PlayStationLifeStyle to check it out in its current pre-alpha state. Here are some of their thoughts:

Turn-Based AND Real-Time

Warhammer games are traditionally turn-based affairs, and developer Rogue Factor has gone this route in Necromunda: Underhive Wars, with a real-time twist. While a single-player campaign will be included, during our demo a two-player competitive match was shown. Development is currently only at the pre-alpha stage, so perhaps that portion wasn’t fleshed out enough to be shown off just yet. No worries, since the core mechanics of the game did appear pretty solid by this point.

Each match consists of multiple turns, which have different phases. First, each player can only control one member of their squad at any given time. Each member of the squad has a certain amount of action points, which are used up as the player commits actions in real-time. So a decision has to be made whether to use up most of those points running to a key strategic point on the map, set traps, or trigger a battle with an opponent.

Necromunda: Underhive Wars’ combat system is where the turn-based nature of the game shows up. Here, action points are still used to perform any action, including but not limited to attacking, moving, interacting with the environment, shooting, and even reloading and fixing weapon jams. Approaching an enemy that is not currently being controlled by an opponent affords certain advantages to the aggressor, and breaking the line of sight with the enemy ends the turn-based battle immediately. So if a player is losing a battle or knows they don’t have enough action points to mount a proper defense, they can use their last few points to grapple away to safety.