Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Interview

In 2005, Namco Bandai formally announced Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, a new PC real-time strategy game set in the renowned Warhammer fantasy world. Developed by Black Hole Entertainment, a subsidiary of Cinergi Interactive, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is poised to recreate the popular miniatures war game, complete with its massive sense of scale, when it ships later this year. In this latest interview, we had the opportunity to speak with Chris Wren, the game's senior producer at Namco Bandai, to get a little more insight into the game.In my geekier days, I was the proud owner of several Warhammer and Warhammer 40K armies in various stages of assembly. Truth be told, I still occasionally yearn for those days of sculpey and flock, exacto knives and acrylic paints - to say nothing of actually playing the tabletop games. However, time has a way of shoving favorite pastime into the background, and as such, my infatuation with Games Workshop's many miniatures games set both in the far flung future and distant past have been reduced to a cardboard box in the shed, marked in bold black lettering 'Until We Meet Again'.

Thankfully, however, there are alternative ways to satisfy my need to roll the dice, and take up weapons to turn back the tide of chaos (or Empire, given my mood). Video games have long since proven to be a viable alternative to the tabletop game, from early releases such as Gremlin Games' Space Crusade for the Amiga in 1992 and Mindscape's Shadow of the Horned Rat three years later, to even more recent efforts such as THQ and Relic's fantastic Dawn of War.

And the list continues to grow. In 2005, Namco Bandai formally announced Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, a new PC real-time strategy game set in the renowned Warhammer fantasy world. Developed by Black Hole Entertainment, a subsidiary of Cinergi Interactive, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is poised to recreate the popular miniatures war game, complete with its massive sense of scale, when it ships later this year. Recently, we had the opportunity to speak with Chris Wren, the game's senior producer at Namco Bandai, to get a little more insight into the game.

Hello Chris, and thanks for taking the time to speak with us regarding Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. Could you please describe what your role has been on this project? Before we get too deep into Mark of Chaos, could you talk a bit about other projects have you worked on in the past, and how has working on Warhammer differed from your previous experiences?

I oversee the entire project -- sometimes this involves giving daily feedback on builds and submitting designs, other times it is tracking bugs or working with marketing assets and online efforts. In short, I do a little of everything.

I started in the industry about 12 years ago at Microprose, my first title was Falcon 4.0, which was an F-16 flight sim simulating a modern war on Korean peninsula. I was a lead artist back then, doing a lot of production responsibilities as well as art. I did some special effects work on a Star Trek RTS there as well, Birth of the Federation, and was working on a sequel to Falcon 4.0 when Microprose finally shut it doors. My next stop was Maxis; I was a producer on many Sims games including Sims: Hot Date, Sims: Vacation, Sims: Unleashed, Sims Online, Sims Bustin' Out, and the Urbz before I left to help start up the PC division at Namco Bandai Games.

But are you a fan of Warhammer? Or, I guess more accurately, were you a fan of the tabletop game prior to your work on Mark of Chaos?

I played for a while in high school, it was my secret geeky thing to do besides playing video games at the arcade every conceivable moment. I had a Chaos Army, mostly Khorne, although a couple undivideds in the mix (need them for the magic). By the time I got to college, I stopped playing Warhammer altogether; just didn't have the time for it, and to date, I have no idea what ever happened to my Chaos army.

Since we started working on Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, the musk of chaos is in the air again…our team has spent a lot of time getting back into the hobby, attending tournaments and painting new armies to get familiar with it all again. We spent a lot of time at the Games Workshop store nearby to prepare for this title and get up to speed on all the "latest" developments in Warhammer.

Nowadays, we have an occasional tabletop match still to brush up on our dice skills, but we spend most of our time playing Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. It was really important for us to be in tune with the tabletop game again as we set out to design this game so that we would carry over some of the more subtle flavor of what makes the tabletop game so great.

What was the overall goal of both Namco Bandai and Black Hole regarding the development of Warhammer: Mark of Chaos?

Making a game that really emulates the feel of Warhammer was one of the main goals, and second only to deviating from the established norms of what is expected from an RTS title. We knew Warhammer: Mark of Chaos was going to have an RTS core, we definitely wanted that, but we also wanted to do something different, so the early discussions revolved around dissecting the elements of existing RTS games and seeing which parts were really important to us and fit the kind of game we all had in mind. Some of the more traditional elements like UI and selecting units we kept (no reason to reinvent the wheel here), but you will see a little innovation in just about everything.

We definitely questioned the status quo on most things for the game and if we could strip it down, morph it, or add something to it to make it more Warhammer, more like the game we wanted, we would opt to change it. For the gameplay, our high level goal was to focus the game around combat and not resources; easy to say…hard to do. We came to the conclusion that some of the major elements of traditional RTS had to be scaled back to make room for all of the combat and customization options we wanted to add. The decision to minimize the amount of time spent managing resources was based mainly on allowing the player to stay focused on the battle at all times.

The basic premise has stayed the same throughout development -- focus on the combat, but as we get new features into place and test them, we inevitably come up with cool new ideas to make it even more fun; so features like upgrading units, hero skill trees and dueling were all idea that were not part of the original design, but rather came from playing the game and deciding, wouldn't it be cool if…

The strategy genre seems as if it is a natural fit for the Warhammer license given its tabletop war game roots. Does the game draw a lot of influence from Games Workshop's popular miniature-based game?

The tabletop game has been our starting point for all of our early design decisions, first asking, "how can we do this feature in real time?" Some of the things like the upgrades for units with standard bearers, musicians and champions we can translate exactly and it makes a great mechanic for managing your army between battles. Other features we need to adapt with the focus being more on making a great real time experience and less on emulating the tabletop game exactly. For things like morale and fear, they need to be dynamic systems in real time and cannot be constrained by the rigidity of a dice rolling mechanic. Our priority is always to make a great PC game first, obviously in keeping with the Warhammer universe, but emulating the tabletop is something we only do where it makes sense.

I'd assume that Games Workshop itself has assisted in some capacity with regards to this game's development, even if by just providing art assets. How hands on have the folks at Games Workshop been in order to make sure Mark of Chaos stays true to the established Warhammer brand?

Well we first kicked it off in the UK at Games Workshop headquarters with a meeting between Namco Bandai Games, Black Hole and the Warhammer guys. This first meeting focused on the overall story design and general gameplay mechanics and really set the stage for how we would interact for the following two years completing Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. We have daily communication with them, whether it is by phone, email or on the back of a donkey -- constant communication is key to getting things done on time.

With the artwork, it is all produced at Black Hole and we review all of the concepts and in game art with Games Workshop prior to getting it in the latest version of the game. Many of the units we created for the game have tons of reference art, but the buildings and environments needed a lot of original concepting, so in the areas where there was lots of reference it was easy to hit the mark, with the new stuff it takes a little bit longer to fit something new into the Warhammer universe.

For the story of the game, Gav Thorpe, one of the writers at Games Workshop, volunteered to write our campaign story with us; with Gav onboard, the job of keeping it all authentic was made easy. Even in the voice-overs, we review all of the actors and voice auditions with the guys at Games Workshop to make sure we have the right sound for a Chaos Warrior or a Skaven Assassin.

Like the license itself, Mark of Chaos seems to sidestep many of the typical gameplay attributes we normally associate with strategy games in favor of all out war on a massive scale. How has this design decision impacted the game's development?

The whole single player game centers around a growing conflict, so you get to start out right when it's brewing and get your feet wet taking part in some grand battles but really playing a small role. As the campaign progresses, you are given more responsibility, bigger armies to command, and by the end of the campaign you are running the biggest army out there on a truly massive battlefield with thousands of troops. Making combat fun at all times was always the focus; many of our campaign and resource decisions were based around this.

We feel that giving the player total control to build their own strategies and armies any way they want lends itself to a truly dynamic battlefield, so having good AI and many options available at all times keeps the pace up. There is no one way to win a battle; it varies depending on the conditions and you will need to adapt to succeed.

This sounds like it could get pretty complicated. So how do you create a game that will not only appeal to Warhammer enthusiasts, but also to those lacking familiarity with the license?

Everything we've designed has been with this principle in mind: we want Warhammer: Mark of Chaos to be a great introduction to what Warhammer is all about for exactly those gamers who may not have had much Warhammer exposure. The campaign story covers a lot of ground, introducing several of the races in Warhammer and distilling your encounters with them to reveal the essence of what that race is all about. You will find Chaos legions ransacking villages, and Skaven clans infighting, High Elves, well, being High Elves.

All of this is set against the backdrop of a really epic story that anyone can appreciate, but it is also nestled right in the heart of the Warhammer time line, at a critical juncture in the balance of power between the Empire and Chaos. So I think there is plenty in place to appease the hardcore Warhammer fans out there, but we've made significant efforts to make sure that none of what we presented was overbearing or presumptuous. With the gameplay, while rooted in the basic combat mechanics of the tabletop game, it is really an RTS at heart, so anyone who's ever appreciated a fast paced war game should feel right at home playing Warhammer: Mark of Chaos.

Shifting topics for a second, we were pretty much floored by Digic Pictures' E3 2006 trailer for the game, a video which was, incidentally, selected by ACM SIGGRAPH to be showcased as part of the recent event's Electronic Theater Program. What did this recognition mean for the developers and those putting in long hours at Black Hole creating this game?

It was definitely a labor of love for those guys. It was easy to see early on that these guys were going to do something amazing for us. They are truly at the top of their game and I believe the best CG movie house out there. The movie has continued to be an inspiration for not only Digic, but Black Hole, Games Workshop, and Namco Bandai Games. I still watch it at least once a week (usually to get myself in the proper mood before a multiplayer match).

So is the dark atmosphere depicted in that trailer an indication of what we can expect from the game?

Of course it's dark; it wouldn't be Warhammer if it wasn't dark. It's not about planting tulips, it's about war and fighting for your races very survival. It is the darkness that makes the victories that much sweeter, whether it be delving into it or rising above it.

Back to the gameplay, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos will feature four playable races in the Empire, Chaos, Skaven, and High Elves. In the tabletop game, these races are each vastly different from each other, from general appearance, to available equipment, to something as granular as the kinds of tactics each employ on the battlefield. Too often, it's the small things that are lost when a license jumps to a new medium, so I'm curious how the races have been differentiated here.

We chose the races because they were so different not just in their appearance, but in the play style of each army. The Elves have great magic and ranged weaponry, the Chaos are the strongest but few in number, the Empire are the most versatile, and the Skaven travel in the largest numbers but are also the most prone to fear. All armies of the game can be customized, and there is a lot of crossover as far as abilities. But each race really still retains its own style and in playing and watching many multiplayer games over the last few months, this makes for a very diverse multiplayer experience. You will rarely see the same battle twice because everyone brings their own unique strategy to the battlefield, and the many different races each with unique strategies really make each battle a challenge to play and a joy to watch.

There are other races in the game as well, such as Orcs, Dwarfs, Vampires, and Goblins. Why were these armies not given a central role in the game? Have the mighty Undead been reduced to the role of mere hirelings in Mark of Chaos? Say it isn't so.

The easy answer here is time and money, but it is also the ability to focus and really make four armies as complete as we can, while still allowing for mercenaries to give a taste of what some of the other races in the Warhammer universe are like. It allows us to introduce them in the campaign story, and in multiplayer you can make entire armies of just mercenaries: Dwarves, Orcs, Undead, etc. We did decide a little while ago to make sure we added a Champion unit to each of the non-primary races for the game, it was an easy thing to do that will enable players to not be at a disadvantage if they choose a mercenary only race. So we have Dwarf Lords, Night Goblin Shamans, Orc Warbosses and Vampire Counts to fill out these ranks.

These champion units make up one of the game's most interesting sounding features, at least to me. I've read that these units get more powerful as the game goes on, and can even be challenged by other such units in a duel to the death. How does all of this work?

We knew we wanted Champions from the start of the project, we just didn't know back then how far we were going to take them. Over the course of the game we took Champions from slightly more powerful than regular units, to essentially RPG Hero class characters that can loot enemies, challenge other Heroes to duels, build up a complex set of skills over time, equip weapons and armor, and even drink potions and use magic artifacts in real time battling to boost morale or heal themselves.

The dueling has become a mini-game within the game. It's easy to look at a Warhammer book and say that it looks great when you put two Champion figures next to each other separate from the main battlefield. It's quite another thing to try to make it happen in real time, when the player needs to manage the rest of the battlefield at the same time they keep tabs on their hero. The Black Hole guys can up with a really good balance of strategy that does not require too much of the player's time but definitely lets skill play into the equation while still allowing the player to attend to other things while a duel is in progress. Entering into a duel the player must first consider who their opponent is, what kind of enhancements do they have, what kind of Champion is this and what are they good at? Does my Champion have the proper counters to make sure that they will survive this duel? Then once the battle has begun, the player's dueling skills are revealed and it becomes a game of watching your opponent and reacting with the best possible counter moves to outlast your opponent.

There are visual indicators for every unique dueling skill in the game, so that when an enemy uses one, you will know what they are about to do and can plan your rebuttal. We added in some large morale penalties for dueling, in that if your Champion decides to flee a duel, your entire army will take a morale hit, and your Champion will lose all of his morale and become uncontrollable for a time. Should you defeat an enemy Champion you will reward you army with a morale boost, and you will get to plunder the remains of your fallen enemy for loot.

Earlier you mentioned a lack of resource management in the game. What role does army customization, a considerable part of the tabletop game, take in this game? How does it work?

For the visual side of customization, we've provided tools that let the player do just about anything they want with the look of their army. Each unit in the game has many, many options for model customization, and each unit can be painted with up to four colors. We also allow players to create their own banners and import them into the game, so you can wave a flag of your own making. This portion of customization is really geared towards multiplayer, with all of the above mentioned features, save-able every which way, and trade-able to other players.

The other side of customization affects both single and multiplayer, and it revolves around building your army and advancing your units through upgrades and experience. In the single player campaign, units will gain experience with each victory on the battlefield. The player will be earning resources by completing objectives and looting his enemies. These resources can then be spent on the troops to upgrade items like armor and weaponry as well as purchasing magic items, blessings, as well as new types of units and more units.

The Warhammer license is one that inspires multiplayer gameplay, and it would seem that given the customization options and differences in the various armies in the game, a robust multiplayer experience is a cornerstone of what the developers are hoping to deliver in Mark of Chaos. Would this assumption be correct?

Yes, war is more fun if you can beat real people. If you say "in your face" to an AI, it's just not as gratifying. So to this end, we've put in a wealth of multiplayer options and we will be shipping Warhammer: Mark of Chaos with quite a few maps for people to play with. Each map can be played many different ways. We've added several game modes which each play quite a bit different than one another. We have siege maps in which you can defend a stronghold, to lay it to waste, and even within siege gaming we have different rules you can set to either try to capture objectives, or to breach, or to kill everything that moves.

We've made some large maps to support up to six players at a time, and there are several options to include more people than this as observers, and referees. We've made it so that alliances can be made and broken during multiplayer so that we can have epic matches that go all night. We plan on hosting tournaments, and we are absolutely tracking statistics and will include a ranking system for players either by themselves or as part of the robust clan support we have put into the game.

How would you compare Mark of Chaos to, say, EA's Battle for Middle-Earth II, which isn't the same game by any means, but seems to at the very least share some commonalities with your project?

Well they are both great source material in their own right, and they do share a lot of common fantasy themes (with Elves and Orcs etc.), but honestly Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is a bit more gritty (no hobbit songs I'm afraid) and second breakfast for Champion of Nurgle is a bleeding pustule.

In short, Warhammer is a much darker universe; there are no happy endings -- only more strife and war. On the gameplay side, I think the Middle Earth games do a good job of storytelling and I think their base building is quite cool. Where we differ is in the nature of your army. It isn't something you build and rebuild every mission, you keep it throughout the campaign and it evolves over time.

It's probably too early to be thinking along these lines, but is the team considering the possibility of expansions down the line, perhaps one to give my Undead army the attention they so desperately deserve? And of course Orcs are a fan favorite as well.

Yeah, yeah Orcs Orcs Orcs…actually we like Orcs a lot too, but we felt that the gaming world has had enough Orcs already, and we didn't want to be another Orc game out there on the market. There is so much cool stuff to choose from in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos that we figured it was better to provide some fresh meat to the RTS table than the same old green skins. That said, I think Orcs would make an excellent second course. So you'll get an Orc appetizer in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, but for the future, who knows…

Is there an aspect of strategy games and the genre in general that has been overlooked or gets under your skin that you feel Mark of Chaos addresses or does better than its competitors?

Visually the game is stunning, and the customization adds a huge amount of variety to the visual landscape, but I'd have to say that it is in the focus on the whole army as a unit and one that the player keeps that really sets Warhammer: Mark of Chaos apart. There is no army machine out there cranking out troops. Instead you'll find that there is a certain level of parenting that needs to happen to keep your army happy and strong, and this level of attachment doesn't really exist with any other RTS game out there. Your troops are your own, whether in single or multiplayer, they represent you and all that you've done and are capable of doing.

Finally, can you tell us an interesting or funny tidbit concerning the game's development that we don't know already? It seems inevitable that during a game's development people go a little crazy, and there are "war stories" to be shared. This said, what comes to mind for you?

After my first meeting with Games Workshop, I arrived home to find that I had a stack of boxes from Nottingham in my office stacked up to the ceiling: books, artwork, figures, more books. They really wanted us to be up to speed on Warhammer.

Thanks Chris, it's been great talking with you about Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. We look forward to hearing more about the game as its release date approaches.

Aug 30, 2006 - 9:10 pm | 0 comments
Jason Dobson