RuneQuest: Warlords preview in 7 screenshots!

Glorantha is one of those settings that gets the video game treatment infrequently, but it’s always a good time when it does. Everybody has fond memories of King of Dragon Pass. But what about a 3D game set in Glorantha? I played the RuneQuest: Warlords preview version to see how that would look like.

RuneQuest: Warlords is set “during the crucial year of 7/37 (1608) in the Glorantha timeline,” which means nothing to me, since I’m just a generalized fan of the setting. To drop some more names and titles that makes me feel like an outsider first hearing about Warhammer, the player will lead Halgrim of the Bilings tribe of the Talastar people (good) as they fight with the broos (chaotic beastmen (bad)), even allying with the Lunar Empire (human, bad?) to do so.

Outside of me being an ersatz player femboi, there’s another irrefutable truth to be revealed in this review: the game runs on the same engine as Warhammer 40.000: Battlesector. While a less surprising a discovery than a new Terminator game running on an old Russian RTS engine, it’s still an interesting choice. And everything, from how unit abilities are handled to the interface, is heavily influenced by the predecessor.

Your units get several movement points and 1 action point (2 for heroes) per turn. Attacks, health points and such are calculated per individual soldier, too. Units get battle rush points for killing and dying. When they collect 100, they can either empower one of their abilities or gain another action point. If you’ve played Battlesector, you already know how it goes, just with a lot more melee – and a lot less overwatch.

Returning players will also recognize the way campaign is handled in the Runequest: Warlords. It’s a linear series of battles, with the chance to expand your unit roster between the fights. Army size is limited by points value you’re given for a scenario. And as you fulfill mission objectives, you get tokens to spend on hero research trees, empowering both them and their forces.

With only four missions in the Runequest: Warlords preview, we didn’t get to see that many units. Outside of the heroes, the Talasari get Militia (really reliant on their javelin ability not to die – shame it’s on a cooldown), meatier Hearthguards [sic], Shadow Cats (makes the enemies they attack easier to hit) and the Sky Bull. The broo roster has their counterparts for the first two, but go a bit weirder with their ever-present shamans (ranged and debuff unit) and elk-riding cavalry.

Now, the biggest stumbling block of the game is voice acting. From the choices of the voices to questionable delivery, it’s almost on the verge on being good, but fails at the weirdest times. There needs to be more variety in unit barks as well – I am already tired of hearing Militia exclaim “I hope the spoils will be good” after playing the game for only 99 minutes.

EDIT: As we have been notified in the comments, all the voice acting bits in the preview version were just placeholders! Hurray!

Right now, RuneQuest: Warlords can hardly measure up to Ancestors: Legacy or Fantasy General II. But it’s not a full title yet and there is time for it to change. I hope the end result will be closer to the Age of Crimson Dawn than Deeds of the Fallen because, damn it, Glorantha is cool and I need more of it.