Skip to content
Mordheim: City of the Damned is a tactical role-playing-game based on the 1999 Games Workshop table-top game Mordheim. GW have been giving several third-party developers rights to their Warhammer game IPs, and this one comes from the lesser-known developer Rogue Factor. I was a Warhammer 40K player in my youth, and I also ran a Warhammer club which had a modest amount of players. However, I mostly enjoyed the painting over of the gaming and this title reminds me why.
Set in the Imperial city of Mordheim, from Imperial Year 1999, the city is torn. It had been in civil war for years with no Emperor sitting on the throne and with various powers fighting for control. In 1999, a great comet was sighted in the sky – a twin-tailed comet – the sign of Sigmar. Astronomers predicted it would fall in Mordheim, where his convent of Sisters stood. It was believed that it would herald the return of Sigmar, and that he would restore the land to its former glory and usher in a new golden age.
Everybody travelled to Mordheim, filling the city well beyond its capacity and such were the times that lawlessness soon grew out of hand. The citizens quickly degenerated to moral debauchery, giving themselves over to their own worldly temptations, living in an increasing state of anarchy. As time drew closer to the comet’s arrival, more and more people made the journey to Mordheim, and the situation became unbearably worse.
As individuals gave in to acts of depravity, demons walked the streets like men; the seeds of Chaos and corruption long since having claimed the souls of the pitiful thousands who now called Mordheim their own. The comet fell on the first day of the new era, but it was not to be the coming of Sigmar as predicted. It smashed into the city, instantly killing those who had gathered around it. Word got out that Sigmar had passed his judgment, that he had smote those who he deemed unworthy.
The place of Mordheim became a place of fear and paranoia. Soon after, word spread of a mysterious stone that lay scattered about the city, known as Wyrdstone, which had all manner of reputed qualities. It was discovered that factions would pay incredible amounts for this precious stone, whatever their motivation. So Warbands began traveling to Mordheim, now dubbed The City of the Damned, hoping to find this precious stone and make their quick fortunes.
You choose from four different factions which include the Human Empire, Skaven, The Sisters of Sigma and Cult of the Possessed (DLC Includes Witch Hunters and the Undead) who all carry their own stories during the single-player campaign of the game as they fight against their mortal enemies through each mission the game lays before you.
The game plays like a third person strategy game, very much like the table-top, it’s based upon you moving the members of your party into strategic positions around the city to defeat your foes. You start with a small band in your army and purchase each teammate with gold, but as you go through the campaign, you can unlock more to join as the battles get tougher. There’s a shop to buy armour, weapons and potions to help you along your way in between missions and other ways to strengthen your characters to be ready for tougher challenges in each mission to follow.
Gameplay comes down to using your different characters to their advantage at either ranged or close combat against the enemy, positioning them against the opponent and using the attacks strategically and to the strength of each warrior in your group. You don’t want to get cocky and go charging in, as you shall get overwhelmed and shall be defeated at ease, so be careful. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this gameplay-wise – it seemed the third-person route was the wrong way to go about a game like this. Overhead would have suited it much better (much like GW’s Dawn of War)
Graphics are very unimpressive, coming across like very early last-gen (fair enough, the original game came out in 2014). The arenas seem barren and dead on arrival, while character graphics look like they could have come from late PS2/Xbox.
Sound is, again, nothing to write home about. Typical music for the setting, it all just did the job for what was needed, and no more.
Final Notes: This game just was not for me – the story sounded very interesting, but I didn’t enjoy the gameplay or setting as it felt poorly executed. I usually love medieval settings in games, but after playing this, I’d rather stick to the 40K table-top game.
Graphics: 4/10 – Really wasn’t impressed with this game graphically, with it porting to a next gen console more work should have been involved in the aesthetics.
Sound: 5/10 – nothing to note here, move along, move along
Gameplay: 6/10 – In honesty, I got bored very very quickly, especially with the third-party styled execution.
Enjoyment: 5/10 – While Games workshop do work hard on their campaign stories (almost as hard as their pushy sales at least – seriously, step into a GW shop and you will see what I mean) but the story here albeit interesting fell short thanks to the lack lustre imagining of the developer. However, the strengths of the story were offset by low replay value. I know this sounds harsh, but I didn’t want to see this game after my first play-through.
Overall score: 5/10 – this is a generous score for how I felt. It may seem low, but this is my own view on a game I really could not enjoy. Hell, I think my score here is generous in comparison to how I feel about the game.
Thanks to the Youtube channels featured for the gaming footage.
Mordheim: City of the Damned is out now on PS4, Xbox One and PC/Steam, and click on the packshot for the full-size version.
Important info:
- Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
- Players: single-player
- HDTV options: up to 1080p
- Sound: DTS 5.1
|
GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
4 5 6 5 |
| OVERALL | 5 |
Retro game fan, comic book reader, board game lover and film fanatic. I have loved videogames since I was 5 years old after visiting my first arcade, I have grown up with gaming since having my Atari 2600 then Commodore 64. I ended up building my own career crafting pixelised characters and have had the pleasure of meeting many of my retro gaming heroes who developed some of my absolute favourite games.