Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster Plays a Bit Like a Stealthy Hollow Knight | IGN Preview
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster offers a fresh stealth-platforming experience that puts players in the nimble paws of a sneaky Skaven assassin. Discover how fluid movement, dark underground level design, and lethal stealth mechanics make this upcoming title a standout release for tactical action fans.
Key Preview Takeaways:
- Playing as a Skaven makes movement feel unique compared to other 2D sidescrollers.
- The level design strongly resembles a Hollow Knight-style platformer.
- The quality of the story is still TBD after a very brief 30-minute hands-on demo.
It is genuinely rare for the giant, horrible rat men known as the Skaven to get a starring role in video games. Most of the time, these wretched creatures are merely horde fodder that players chew through in games like Vermintide. That context is exactly why this new title immediately sets itself apart from the competition.
Instead of slaughtering dozens of vermin, you step into the stinking rags of Vihneek, a resourceful rodent introduced under miserable circumstances. At the start of the adventure, Vihneek is unceremoniously dumped into a festering pit brimming with rotting corpses. It is certainly not how any rat man plans to spend his afternoon, but survival quickly becomes the top priority.
Rising from these unfortunate circumstances, Vihneek embraces his treacherous heritage across a variety of gloomy, vermin-filled subterranean settings. By relying on sneaking, scaling walls, and quiet assassinations, he highlights the backstabbing lineage of his species. Even in a brief hands-on session, the gloomy environments provided a fantastic variety of stealth and traversal challenges.
Why Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster Stands Out in the 2D Action Genre
Vihneek's starting surroundings are gory, putrid, and almost completely hopeless. In other words, the atmosphere is absolutely perfect for a dark fantasy title starring the Skaven. Layered caverns stretch deep into the background, and every rock crevice or torn canvas is painted with a distinct sense of gloomy malice.
While deep knowledge of Age of Sigmar lore is not required to enjoy the setting, fans of traditional Warhammer Fantasy will feel right at home. The Skaven remain recognizably duplicitous in all their wretched glory. They spend their days sneaking, scheming, and clashing underground through bitter clan rivalries.
The demo begins with Vihneek almost entirely powerless, his grubby little paws tightly bound in wooden stocks. Your initial controls are limited to slowly waddling back and forth across the damp floor. However, after freeing yourself through a bit of clever percussive problem-solving, Vihneek reveals himself to be an incredibly agile scamp.
Controlling this nimble rodent through diverse platforming challenges feels responsive and gratifying. Notably, Vihneek can run along most walls and ceilings, which drastically alters how you navigate environments. This fluid wall-crawling movement sets the title apart from standard 2D side-scrollers, while custom character animations bring his bizarre persona to life with remarkable precision.
Mastering Stealth Mechanics and Traversal Tools
Immediately following your sneaky escape, pure mobility and careful stealth are your only tools for survival. The twisting underground nooks stretching in every direction appear to form a massive prison complex. Wandering directly into the sightline of an armed guard results in instant death and forces a restart at the room entry point.
These lethal jailers are not easily outsmarted either, as they can throw surprisingly accurate ranged projectiles to knock you down from high perches. Staying out of sight requires using every piece of environmental cover available. Hiding behind drapes, extinguishing light sources, and tossing abandoned skulls as audio distractions are essential survival tactics.
To assist your planning, Vihneek possesses a useful instinct vision mode activated by holding the L2 button. Engaging this ability locks your character in place while revealing enemy vision cones and interactable objects. For example, you can spot a heavy crate hanging from a overhead crane and drop it directly onto an unsuspecting guard.
In addition to instinct vision, you can use the right stick to pan the camera a few feet in any direction. Adjusting your view up or down proves immensely helpful when searching for hidden ledges or planning your exit route. Combining camera control with environmental awareness allows players to systematically pick apart complex rooms.
Is It a Hollow Knight-Style Platformer? Level Design and Exploration
The intricate level design strongly resembles a Hollow Knight-style platformer by rewarding thorough exploration and tactical thinking. Rather than rushing through hallways, players must pause and carefully analyze how to navigate each interconnected room. Environmental puzzles frequently require back-tracking and clever tool usage to overcome safely.
While searching for an escape route, Vihneek can hunt for precious glowing warpstone deposits hidden throughout the cavernous layout. Described in lore as magical space cocaine, warpstone is the substance that originally caused the Skaven to evolve into intelligent humanoids and continues to power their advanced technology. Searching for this substance is optional, but collecting it rewards you with valuable skill points.
As you venture deeper into the complex, Vihneek eventually discovers a sturdy shield that alters the overall gameplay loop. While it can be used in emergency situations to smash a guard's brains out, it shines brightest as an offensive stealth asset. Equipping the shield allows you to sneak up behind standard enemies and execute them with a single button tap in a gory display of malice.
However, combat and movement both come with inherent risks that force you to remain cautious. Running across hard surfaces or dropping down from high ledges generates loud noise that alerts nearby sentries. Furthermore, basic gear offers zero protection against massive threats like rat ogres, which will effortlessly chase you down unless a distraction intervenes.
Upgrading Skills and Unlocking Elite Night Runner Powers
During one intense chase sequence, Vihneek is rescued from a terrifying rat ogre by a mysterious white rodent wielding sharp blades for hands. This shadowy savior offers little choice but to join his clan, officially inducting Vihneek as a Night Runner. In Skaven lore, Night Runners serve as elite ninja assassins who carry out high-stakes covert operations.
This induction grants a rad new outfit along with an expanded suite of lethal stealth abilities. The first tool unlocked is a powerful grappling hook that lets you zip up to high ledges that were previously unreachable. This tool opens up vertical exploration paths across previously visited chambers, reinforcing the Metroidvania structure.
Future abilities are purchased directly using collected warpstone skill points at the clan hideout. Potential unlocks include abilities that completely silence your footsteps or allow you to deploy dense smoke bombs to blind enemy patrols. These upgrades transform the core experience, shifting the balance of power back toward the player.
With these tools unlocked, this stealth action game begins to feel like an empowering hunter fantasy. Although Vihneek remains physically fragile, each room turns into a dynamic tactical puzzle. You constantly scan for environmental traps, pathing routes, and isolated targets to eliminate without raising a kingdom-wide alarm.
Age of Sigmar Lore, Boss Battles, and Unfair Fights
The overarching narrative keeps several intrigue-filled mysteries close to its chest. It remains unclear why Vihneek was thrown into a corpse pit, why he possesses a glowing appendage welded to his severed tail, or why his clanmates mockingly call him "half-rat." All of the violence showcased in the demo features Skaven-on-Skaven conflict, which aligns perfectly with established lore.
The primary reason the subterranean Skaven horde has not entirely overrun the surface world is their own endless internal betrayals. Followers of the Great Horned Rat spend as much energy plotting against each other as they do attacking rival fantasy races. Your primary objective in the preview is targeting a rival clan's gnawhole—a deep portal used to call in mass reinforcements.
A hands-off gameplay preview showcased a tense boss fight against a heavily armored Stormvermin warrior. Defeating this formidable opponent requires exploiting environmental hazard traps and firing a warpstone-powered lightning cannon rather than engaging in direct melee combat. After all, no true Skaven ever fights fair when victory can be stolen through cunning cruelty.
The visual execution in this project remains dark and grimy while maintaining excellent clarity during fast action. The blend of classic stealth gameplay with modern platforming mechanics feels seamless and deeply rewarding. Exploring claustrophobic corridors, backstabbing guards, and unlocking tactical powers creates a satisfying loop for strategy enthusiasts.
Seeing the world through the beady eyes of a Skaven assassin brings fresh life to the subterranean setting. Players eager to experience this stealth platformer can look forward to seizing control of Vihneek when the title officially launches in 2027.
While waiting for future updates on Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster, be sure to check out our latest hands-on coverage for other upcoming releases:
Leana Hafer is a contributing freelancer specializing in RPGs, strategy, horror, and survival games. She has been reviewing video games professionally since 2010 with over 100 published reviews across major gaming outlets.
Ultimately, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster combines fluid wall-running traversal, dark atmospheric visuals, and cunning stealth puzzles into a memorable 2D adventure that action fans should definitely keep on their radar.
from IGN India
-via DynaSage
