Chaosbane is exactly what you’d expect if you heard the words “mid-budget Warhammer Diablo clone”. No more, no less. You pick one of four heroes, you kill endless hordes of creatures and you loot progressively shinier trousers, stopping occasionally to fight a larger, tougher monster with an annoying area attack. That’s it. I wouldn’t call it a bad game, but it is a mediocre and derivative one, and far too repetitive for its own good. It’s Diablo, but Warhammer.

The Warhammer licence does help a little, particularly in the enemy design. Each Act is framed as a battle against followers of a different chaos god (representing war, magic, disease and sexy times respectively), and there’s a deep pool of appropriate monsters to draw from for each, including a big end of level boss. I particularly enjoyed fighting Slaanesh, whose agile followers would backflip out of combat and manoeuvre around, preventing fights from descending into one big mosh pit.

Technically there’s a story that links these acts together, but it’s so basic my eyes started glazing over in the very first cutscene. I didn’t expect a compelling narrative, but after the cheerful banter of Vermintide and Mechanicus, I was hoping for something at least mildly entertaining. The standard is pretty high for Warhammer tie-ins nowadays, and Chaosbane fails to reach them.

Chaosbane’s big problem is repetition. There’s so little variation in the combat. Despite a handful of new skills unlocking my basic approach, hold down attack, hit an area attack when surrounded and a health draining attack when hurt, didn’t change much between hour one and hour fifteen, despite the ability to swap around skills at will. One of my attacks noted that it ignored armour, but since there was no real indicator which enemies were heavily armoured and which were not, it was impossible to figure out when to use it effectively, and I soon traded it for another big area attack.

Loot didn’t hold my interest either. The majority of items are uninteresting stat boosts that don’t materially change the way you play. Perhaps real game changer items lurk deep into the endgame, but in the time I had with Chaosbane I didn't encounter any. The mark of a good action RPG is that you should be regularly getting new skills or items that make you want to change your style and approach things differently, and Chaosbane doesn’t do this anywhere near often enough for my liking.

Part of this might have been due to the fact that I spent the majority of my time playing as the trollslayer (in my defence, orange mohawked dwarves are rad). Unfortunately, he mostly just performs different kinds of axe swing, while occasionally picking up better tattoos. Things got a bit more interesting when I restarted as a high elf mage, who had a nice floaty orb attack that could be redirected with the right stick to waggle it in and out of the daemons.

One thing I did enjoy was the bloodlust orbs: every now and then an enemy will spit out a glowing red globule. Grab one and it’ll heal you up; collect enough and you’ll be able to activate a “super” mode where your character is nigh indestructible and deals massive damage. What makes it work is that the orbs only stick around for a few seconds, meaning you’re forced to manoeuvre around the arena in order to grab them mid-fight. It gives you something to think about other than watching a big bunch of numbers pop up, which is what Chaosbane desperately needs.

I only got to spend a short time with Chaosbane’s multiplayer for this review. It was fairly easy to drop into a random game, even with the low number of people online pre-release, but when I got there the enemies exhibited a pronounced tendency to awkwardly rubber band towards one player or another. It didn't make the game unplayable, but it was noticeable. There was also a bug where damage numbers occasionally became huge and took up the entire screen, but I’m certainly not complaining about that. I hope they never fix it: it’s hilarious.

More promising is the inclusion of four player local co-op, which is so easy to set up I actually managed to start it accidentally mid-dungeon. You can even combine local and online co-op. That’s the one context in which I can see myself going back to Chaosbane, when you just want to throw something on in big picture mode to play with a bunch of mates.

It’s hard to blame Chaosbane for just being an unoriginal action RPG, but ultimately I found myself asking over and over, 'Why don’t I just play Diablo instead?' And that is a question the game fundamentally fails to answer.

Warhammer: Chaosbane, the hack-and-slash dungeon crawler that’s bringing Diablo sensibilities to Games Workshop’s Old World, now has a story trailer that provides the backdrop for all the Nurgling-smashing you’ll be doing in its subterranean caverns.

Chaosbane starts a few years after the Chaos invasion of 2301, and the sacking of Praag, the largest city in the northern realm of Kislev. Magnus the Pious eventually leads an Imperial army against Chaos, and slays its champion Kul in battle outside the walls of Praag.

According to Warhammer lore, Magnus was then crowned Emperor, and this is the backdrop for the action in Chaosbane. The animated trailer doesn’t really connect these larger, world-level events to the game itself, but it seems clear that your job will be to purge the remnants of Chaos from the region and prevent them from reconstituting a warfighting force.

There’s no gameplay in this trailer, either—but if you’d like to see some of Chaosbane’s characters in action, we’ve already seen the wood elf and dwarfen slayer in-game.

Warhammer: Chaosbane is right around the corner—the game launches June 4.

Warhammer: Chaosbane, the forthcoming action-RPG set in Warhammer's Old World, is currently having its second closed beta for those who have pre-ordered.

 New in this beta are the game's other two classes, the dwarf trollslayer and elf scout, and local or online multiplayer is available for up to four players. Players will be able to test out some of the second act, set in the city of Praag, as well as a reworked version of the first act from the previous beta.

The beta runs until April 24, and the finished game will be out on June 4.

The last of Chaosbane's four heroes now has her own reveal trailer. The Warhammer action-RPG isn't blazing new trails by having an elf archer as a character, and yet having seen her Legolas her way through some beastmen then dodge-roll out of the way and summon some dryads I will definitely play her in the full game. 

Characters with ranged attacks are usually my favorites in action-RPGs with characters who roam around with gangs of pets a close second, so combining both in the one class seems perfect. The elf's summons are tree people who act like meat shields only made of wood, which is what some regular shields are made from, I guess. This analogy is getting away from me.

Warhammer: Chaosbane will be out on June 4.

Every action-RPG has low-level greeblies for you to demolish by the dozen, and in Warhammer: Chaosbane they're Nurglings. These lesser servants of the god of pestilence are sacks of pus and vinegar with spindly arms and pointy teeth. They burst so easily that wading through hordes of them is like popping bubblewrap. Until, that is, I see a gang of Nurglings climbing each other like circus acrobats, forming an angry green tower that shuffles in my direction. I hit them with a shield charge, flying forward like a bowling ball and sending the wobblebelly brats flying apart.

This is one of the things I enjoyed about Chaosbane. Another is the on-screen declaration that, though this beta version requires an internet connection, the final game will be playable offline. I breathe a sigh of relief at that. Not just because I live in Australia and sometimes my internet craps itself for no reason, but because it suggests Chaosbane won't be a game-as-service. Sure, developers Eko Software are planning regular updates, but I've seen nothing to imply Chaosbane will be weighed down by secondary guff to the degree Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor—Martyr was.

That was a decent game dragged into mediocrity by its structure, trying to be a full-on looter shooter like Destiny while also being a Diablo-style action-RPG. It didn't help that the camera wasn't great either, to be honest. Chaosbane doesn't suffer from either of those things. It's just a straightforward hack-and-slash you can play alone or in co-op, whether local, online, or a mix of the two, while bashing Nurglings with sword or spell.

Chaosbane is set in Warhammer's Old World, and goes back in time even further than usual, to the point in the timeline when Magnus the Pious has just reunited the Empire to drive out an incursion of Chaos. You play a hero of that war—Imperial soldier, high elf mage, berserk dwarf slayer, or wood elf archer—roped into fighting the servants of Chaos who attack Magnus in retribution for his victory against them. In the early levels that means going into the sewers to fight beastmen, mutants, lesser daemons, and so many cultists that half the city's population must be secret servants of dark gods.

There's a bit of Warhammer's "grubby fantasy" vibe in the grotesque monster designs and architecture, but it's also very classic action-RPG. There are barrels and treasure chests full of loot around every corner, and it doesn't feel much like Warhammer when I'm digging through berets and breeches perfectly fitted to my soldier that pop out of each one (though I appreciate the look of those breeches, complete with big metal codpieces).

The soldier has a variety of tanky abilities, like a whirlwind attack, a taunt, and a banner that boosts damage in a radius marked by light and floating prayers written in gothic German text. It's a bit much, visually speaking, as are most of the special abilities, but at least the regular attacks are just blurred arcs rather than waves of particle effects. When I hit someone with in a game like this the only things I want to see come out of them are blood and maybe numbers, not a lightshow like I just stabbed a Pink Floyd concert. I am particular about these things, yes.

I've played less of the mage, but I do like that some of his spells can be steered around after casting. I hold down the space bar and draw circles with the mouse, sending an aetheric globe around and through the "ungor" beastmen surrounding me. It can also be maneuvered with the right-stick of a controller, but I'm having no trouble manipulating it with mouse and keyboard. Though I do have issues when I try to drag and drop skill icons onto hotkeys—they keep vanishing halfway. Hopefully that's fixed by release.

My main takeaway from this beta is that sigh of relief, repeated every time I see Chaosbane dodge a common pitfall. It's got lots of skills to spend points on but not so many it's confusing (I can tell already I'll navigate this by ignoring the ones geared for co-op play, of which there are plenty). It's got a slider for difficulty and any time you're in the hub you can tweak it as much as you want. Loadouts can be changed anywhere, and health is a represented by a bright red orb that's easily visible. These are low bars to clear, but after seeing so many games screw up the basics it's nice to see them done right. I can see myself sinking hours into this just like I did with Torchlight, clicking on monsters, comparing the stats on gloves, collecting armor sets, and killing a lot of tiny green brats.

Warhammer: Chaosbane comes out on June 4.

In Warhammer the slayers are a cult of dwarfs who've shamed themselves so utterly they shave most of their heads (sometimes even their beards), then march off to seek heroic deaths in battle. They don't want to commit suicide because that would be dishonorable, but they don't want to go on living either, so they throw themselves into fights with the toughest enemies around, like trolls and daemons, without wearing armor. Or even a shirt.

The forthcoming Warhammer ARPG Chaosbane has a slayer among its playable heroes, and his name is Bragi Axebiter. As you can see in the video, he's got a lot of flashy, over-the-top attacks that involve spinning in circles with his axes out and throwing them at things. He can launch himself at whatever he embeds his axe in too. He seems pretty manoeuvrable all round.

Chaosbane comes out on June 4, or May 31 if you shell out for a fancy edition.

Warhammer: Chaosbane, a new action RPG set in the Warhammer fantasy universe, is set for release on June 4. Along with the game's release date, Bigben and Eko Software have also announced pre-order bonuses, which will include two beta phases, starting next month.

The beta, which will be open to anyone that pre-orders the game, will be in two phases—the first is set for March, with the second following a month later in April. The beta will allow players to sample the beginning of the campaign, as well as test out the four different classes both solo and in co-op mode. Further details are expected regarding the dates and content of the beta phases at a later date.

In addition to beta access, players who preorder Warhammer: Chaosbane will receive an experience bonus which will remain active for the entirety of the character’s progression as well as a pack of four legendary crates (ah yes, computer games in 2019). You can check out further details at the official site.

Warhammer: Chaosbane was announced in June last year and might look familiar to fans of Diablo or the more recent Warhammer title, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor—Martyr. Chaosbane will allow you to choose one of four character-based classes, each with a specific role and skillset. There's also a unique bloodlust mechanic to help take down tricky bosses, granting speed and additional powers—the duration and number of additional skills will be based on your Bloodlust level—all of which lends itself to the drop-in co-op that is present.

Warhammer: Chaosbane is set for release on June 4.