The Warhammer miniatures game is famous the world over for its incredible attention to detail. Gamers and collectors buy and meticulously paint dozens, if not hundreds, of figurines, and then place them on a tabletop battlefield, like a moment frozen in time. Now imagine that battle in motion, and that's the idea behind Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, a real-time strategy game due out later this year that will attempt to make Warhammer come alive like never before. Like the miniatures game, Mark of Chaos has incredible visuals, but these required a huge amount of attention to detail. We'll let lead designer Gabor Szabo explain.

We Need More Skulls

　　Lead Game Designer, Black Hole Entertainment

　　Many members of the team at Black Hole were Warhammer fans before work began on Mark of Chaos. We were already familiar with the unique richness and depth of the Warhammer world. We wanted to create a game that would amaze Warhammer fans, but also captivate those who are new to Warhammer.

　　The armies of Warhammer come to life like never before in Mark of Chaos.

　　As big fans of the real-time strategy genre, we have played with many great games over the years, including a few that were set in the Dark Ages. What was common among those games was that they introduced a dark and bloody world, similar to the world of Warhammer. We felt that players worldwide, like us, have been waiting for an epic new fantasy game, and indeed, even a Warhammer game. We felt we were faced with a terrific challenge and also a rare opportunity.

　　We wanted to set the bar with Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and offer more than any other real-time strategy game. We had to come up with unique innovations and implement unique features to up the ante of this game within the genre and bring this game to the next level. From early on we thought it was a must to concentrate on the battles, which is really the essence of Warhammer. We pulled the genre apart into its smallest pieces, analyzed all the parts, and built it up again from scratch. In order to parallel the essence of traditional Warhammer, we concentrated on elements that made battling more interesting, and directed the player's attention and energy toward these areas. Introducing role-playing elements was another essential step we made, as it is part of the unique game experience of the tabletop Warhammer game. An example of this are the diverse champion skill trees, where you can customize your hero to be better suited for specific tactics. Warhammer fans and gamers alike will recognize well-known and beloved role-playing elements as well as magic items and equipment. Just imagine wandering around the land of the Old World, searching through the dark nooks around the battlefield and finding powerful magic items. There will literally be hundreds of them.

　　We dove into the Warhammer design with great excitement. The initial development period involved defining our methods and translating the heritage of the original Warhammer graphical style into a real-time strategy game. Although our art team is chock-full of enthusiastic fantasy fans, it took them some time to adopt the unique Warhammer look and feel. Our art director was constantly asking for "more detail, more ornaments and more skulls, because, after all, it is Warhammer." His requests were addressed so well that at the end, each unit was completely decked out in incredible detail due to the tremendous amount of spikes, chains, crests, and other ornaments. Our biggest challenge then shifted to emphasizing the main differences between the biggest and most brutal creatures.

　　The vast array of armies and units include orcs, skaven, elves, humans, and more.

　　Soon after getting started, each of our graphic artists found his specialty in the various fields of the design process. Some guys got to see their creativity come to life by designing and breathing life into monsters, while others were more interested in buildings and machinery. Within a few weeks, we had a bunch of exciting concept art, and the overall design began to emerge. This, however, was only the beginning of our journey.

　　The Black Hole team has always been committed to delivering high-quality visuals. While developing Mark of Chaos, we wanted to create a graphical style that seemed so real and immersive that you forget that you are only playing a game. It was important to faithfully represent Warhammer's dark and murky atmosphere by allowing our characters and the enemy to suffer a variety of bloody wounds and scars. The characters in the game are so well detailed that the visuals could compete with any role-playing game, even from up close. Because of this high level of detail, we established a camera that depicts the enormous battle scenes from over our hero's shoulder. The variety and multitude of movements, battling, and other animations are all unique for each race and character type, thus providing more complex visual scenery.

　　My favorite graphical feature is the slot system, which offers you a multitude of character customization--different faces, arms, legs, armor, weapons, etc. We wanted to put an end to clone armies. In the beginning we thought that implementing the slot system would only prove worthy for the bigger and more important characters, but the assortment it produced was so successful that we decided to implement it for all units. There are already a large variety of unit types in the game, and there isn't even one where variety is lacking. The Warhammer world also enables us to play around with proportion and scale. Small units, such as goblins and dwarves, are only half the size of a human fighter, but the situation is quickly reversed when a chaos warrior emerges next to a human fighter. Even bigger units such as rat ogres or giants are truly exciting to see on the battlefield, throwing smaller units aside and generally causing a great deal of confusion to them.

　　Get ready for epic siege battles, coming your way later this year.

　　Our biggest concerns during development were to provide players with a game experience that is worthy of its tabletop cousin, and to contribute new and unique game features that let it stand on its own as a strategy game. With that said, the tabletop Warhammer experience was an important element that we have kept alive. In addition to the traditional battles, there are numerous battle types from the well-known Warhammer world that will be available in the game. For example, in one quest you must raid the caravans of the Sigmarite priests for valuable relics. In another quest, you are asked to find and rescue an important skaven warlord from the intricate captivity of another skaven clan. You can escort a valuable Empire gunpowder caravan en route to the human capital, or perhaps with the help of the noble high elf army you might stop the followers of Nurgle from spreading a deadly disease. Of course the popular orcs also make their appearance here and there, wherever the call of battle takes them, even if it means getting in the way of your march. During a siege, you can either defend a castle from the enemy or play the opposing role by attacking with siege towers and cannons to destroy the enemy stronghold. We'll have more on siege warfare in the diaries to come and there are, of course, plenty of surprises left to reveal.