Disclosure:I had obtained Warhammer Underworlds – Shadespire Edition for free during a giveaway however I don’t do biased reviews.
Warhammer Underworlds – Shadespire Edition is an online based pvp game that is a digital adaption of the Warhammer board games. This game in particular does a focus towards the Age of Sigmar universe. Whilst I don’t have any experience with the board game it is an adaption of. This game seems to be true to the source material it is based on according to research I have done.
Now this is an online based PVP game. You would expect that you would be able to just jump into a game from the get go. Even though it is wise to complete the tutorials at the start if needs be. Sadly however this isn’t the case as when you wait for a game there is no one available to play with at all. I even waited for 10 minutes to see if anyone was willing to play much to no avail. I feel that playing against the AI isn’t the same as playing against someone. As this game I feel is explicitly designed for online play rather than offline play. You also cannot play offline with another human player on the same pc.
Considering PVP options aren’t available. The game only has offline mode which consists of tutorials, playing the online mode with AI or a challenge mode. The challenge mode essentially is the campaign mode for this game. In the challenge mode there is 7 warbands that you can play a selection of levels for with varied scenarios. I dislike how the game only has a campaign for half of the warbands available. I think that there should be a campaign for each warband. With each campaign explaining a warbands role in the story, even justifying why they are involved in the campaign etc.
On a technical level this game is poor. Particularly with the User Interface which is awkward to use and is quite dull. To add to this the game is unappealing, uninteresting and slow. Considering that the gameplay is turn based and can last for up to 30 minutes. The gameplay should have at least some excitement as the gameplay is quite lacklustre. The gameplay is literally making decisions on what card/where your heroes are to go on the board. This is quite a dull experience and after so long I managed to turn off to what the game was about. Considering that this is a Warhammer game I was expecting much more.
This game could have been an immersive experience that is a faithful port of the board game. At the very least the game could have used animations that reflected the source material. Visually this game could have been faithful to Warhammer which is brutal, dark and at times gruesome. Sadly there is a limited amount of animation in the game. The only animation is the pieces moving or a basic animation showing combat. I feel let down as the game has a lot of potential if done correctly. I would think that if the game visually was as dark,gritty and brutal as the source material the game is based upon then the game would be a better experience.
Overall I cannot recommend this game as it is a desolating experience even though you can play against the AI. I feel that playing against the isn’t the way to play this game. In the future if this game has people playing online and does get the love and attention it needs then it might be worth playing. But as of now I cannot recommend it even if you get it for free(like I did.).
