Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Updated Impressions - Big Armies, Great Graphics, and a Year to Go

We caught up with publisher Namco Hometek to get an updated look at Black Hole Games' upcoming real-time strategy game, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. Though the game has apparently been in development for a mere six months or so, it already looks extremely impressive. Make no mistake: This will be a large-scale strategy game that takes place on huge outdoor battlefields between large companies of soldiers under your command. The game has made incredible progress since the rough technology demonstration we saw at E3, since what we saw included huge outdoor areas (in this case, a sunny, grassy meadow lined with clumps of trees, small depressions, and small hillocks) and big armies.

As you might expect from such a big game, you won't command small groups of individual units on the battlefield. Instead, you'll give orders to large companies of soldiers that will fight until they die...or until they lose their nerve. The game will make full use of modeling morale (currently, each company has a set of icons that hovers over it, including a green meter to indicate its remaining health and a blue meter to indicate its remaining morale). Demoralized troops can be routed and may turn tail and run. You'll be able to hasten your enemies' dismay by bringing in powerful mercenaries, known in the Warhammer universe as "dogs of war," by training cannon on them and generally by taking the high ground to gain a range bonus while herding them in to valleys to give them combat penalties. Even though the game's battles will be large, there will clearly be some tactics involved in winning the day, particularly in the matter of commissioning hero units, who will be exceptionally powerful, can carry potent weapons, and can be attached to companies to grant additional bonuses in battle.

The focus of the game will apparently be on fighting and winning battles, so real-time strategy fans who are sick of sending peon units to chop wood and mine gold in the faint hope of building a barracks someday will be relieved to hear that there will be no mining and no wood chopping. You'll instead gain resources by capturing strategic locations, like farms and gold mines, and rather than always starting from scratch with a new base in each mission, you'll instead develop a static capital city in one of the four corners of the world map. The capital city can be outfitted with improvements and technologies to strengthen your armies, but your primary activity in the single-player game will be marshaling your forces to whichever territory you feel like conquering next. Unless, of course, some rival general has designs on your capital city, which will also lie in a contestable area. In this case, you'll be able to garrison your units inside your buildings for a defensive bonus, as well as to conceal them, possibly for an ambush against a careless marauder.

Namco and Black Hole are apparently working out the details on the game's multiplayer modes, which should at least offer some sort of cooperative mode and some kind of competitive mode. In addition, Namco currently plans to let take your heroes and battalions (which can gain experience levels if they survive their engagements) online, from the single-player game, right to multiplayer. Naturally, to make sure that beginner players with beginner armies don't get repeatedly crushed by veteran players with fully developed forces, the publisher is planning to include additional multiplayer features, like a ladder ranking that matches players of roughly equal skill level. Likewise, it's also considering other features, like a video replay option that will let you watch and learn from previous battles.

If nothing else, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos looks very impressive, thanks to its huge armies, dynamic lighting and seemingly tasteful use of bloom effects, and its highly detailed environments, like the ramshackle wooden cabins we saw in one capital city. While we weren't able to take a look at all four of the game's factions--the empire, the forces of chaos, the high elves, and the ratlike skaven--we understand that each will be available in both the single-player campaign and in multiplayer. All things considered, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos shows a lot of promise, as it already has great-looking graphics, huge battles, and one of the most intriguing fantasy universes ever created backing it up. Unfortunately for Warhammer fans, the game is scheduled for release during the holiday season of...next year. So stay tuned to GameSpot for more updates.