Warhammer Chaosbane: Tomb Kings by developers Eko Software and publisher Bigben Interactive/Nacon—PC review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
After a few rounds in Early Access, Eko Software and Bigben Interactive’s fantasy based Warhammer Hack & Slash Chaosbane finally hit full release over the past summer. Surprisingly coming out only over six months later, the first expansion has become available changing up a few elements to the core style for the better. Creating a much smoother gaming experience as you run across the desert tomb raiding, it’s time to once again save the world from impending doom.
Available from the main menu to dive right into, the events of Tomb Kings take place after the end of Act 4 of the original story. Magnus has been saved, crowned Emperor, and it was time to follow an expedition out into the middle of a god forsaken desert which soon goes sideways. Doing what you do best, you take out your weapons and you start slaughtering anything that comes near you.
I’ll be up front in that Tomb Kings doesn’t exactly fix the “what’s next” issue that Chaosbane had on launch. While you once went into an area, completed it, went back to the hub and then came back out, you now have one wide open area instead of several mini instances. Having replayed the entire original campaign with another character before diving into Tomb Kings fresh, it was a nice change of pace to have to actually do the footwork instead of just diving into one portal or entrance after another to get back to the slaughtering.
Tomb Kings is designed as a single area with several points of entries into the surrounding tombs. To get from any one point to the other, you’re going to need to run there. It doesn’t take that long but at the same time you do appreciate the core campaign’s portals maybe just a little more as there are no town portals. With new enemies and an increasing difficulty though, the grind of experience points feels natural as long as you didn’t super jack your weapons making you wonder if you shouldn’t up the difficulty a little bit.
This leads me into another observation. I hadn’t actually loaded Chaosbane since finishing up my original review and playthrough back over the summer. Being gifted another code for Robert and then buying the Magnus Edition for Richard for Christmas, we started new characters to go through the original campaign as they hadn’t played and I noticed several new adjustments for the better that carry over to Tomb Kings. While the core skill mechanics are all the same, God skills seem to have gotten a bit of an upgrade. Now having God skills from both the original campaign and Tomb Kings, you can now just use points to gain the rewards and undo them as you please. You don’t need to pay with gold and fragments anymore allowing for you to much more easily set up your various playstyles.
Summary
So mixing in some of the old with the new, and always available to bounce back and forth, Tomb Kings adds a couple new hours to Chaosbane acting as an Act 5. While it doesn’t fix what do you really do next after you finish the campaign and the expansion, it’s still a good dose of quick fun for new and returning players alike.
Score: 7.5 / 10
