The open beta for Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Realms Of Ruin is live now
Until July 10th
Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Realms Of Ruin's open beta is live now. You've got until July 10th if you want to give the Stormcast Eternals or the Orruk Kruleboyz a spin in Frontier's real-time strategy game.
The beta includes 1v1 multiplayer matches or fights against the AI and is designed to test both network stability and overall game balance.
Frontier warn of a few expected issues in the beta, including errors when matchmaking during peak times, time-outs while queuing, crashes, and UI inconsistencies. They also say that easy difficulty may not be that easy while they continue to work on AI, and suggest experimenting with other difficulties or "against human opponents who may have a concept of mercy".
Although there seem to be umpteen Warhammer games released every year, Realms Of Ruin is one of only a few set in Age Of Sigmar, the modern (canon-retaining) reboot of Warhammer Fantasy. Katharine's played it and had a grand time with its nippy multiplayer battles, which are about capturing victory points and feature no base-building, and which can finished in 30 minutes or less.
In truth, though, I'm mainly just looking forward to getting back into the thick of the Orruk's excellent battle barks, too - with my archers screeching "Time to leg it!" as they belt it back to base in a retreat, and my Killaboss belching out "Wharrrrrs!" and "Time to do some bossing!" as they charge into the fray. My favourites, though, are the cries of "We got more know-wots!" when a new bit of tech gets researched, and "They're stealing our magic thing!" when conduits come under attack. I love this stuff, and it takes me back to playing Warcraft II: Tides Of Darkness as a kid and continually poking my orc peons to get a rise out of them. More daft barks, please. They're good.
The beta will come to a close on July 10th at midnight BST (4pm PT/7pm ET/1am July 11th CET). Until then, you can request access via Steam.