Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin designer discusses RTS accessibility

Frontier Developments' Sandro Sammarco talks about making Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin an engaging RTS that's easy for anybody to jump into.

Ozzie Mejia

July 14, 2023 3:00 PM

As the different worlds of Warhammer continue to spread across video games, we recently had a chance to check back in with the team at Frontier Developments. The publisher behind such games as Elite: Dangerous is next jumping into the Warhammer Age of Sigmar universe with the upcoming Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin. To learn more about what this RTS title has in store for players, Shacknews spoke with Principal Game Designer Sandro Sammarco.

"We basically wanted a fresh take on the real-time strategy genre," Sammarco told Shacknews. "We didn't want to reinvent the wheel, so that's why the core game mechanics are all there, what you'd expect from a real-time strategy game. You produce units, you upgrade through tech trees, and you go and stick your swords and axes in the other guy's face. But we wanted to make sure that as many people as possible could enjoy the product. That goes through the controls, but also through to the rule systems that we use. It's a bit of a pick-and-mix, we looked at things that would give us the tactics, the engagement, and the fun, but we wanted to avoid super complicated mechanics, because it can be quite daunting jumping into real-time strategy games."

Sammarco discusses the game's Warhammer Age of Sigmar roots, accessibility, game speed, designing specific units, the addition of controller support, multiplayer, working with Games Workshop and more. Those interested in learning more about this excursion into the Age of Sigmar world can check out Greg Burke's Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin preview. For more gameplay videos and interviews, be sure to visit Shacknews and Shacknews Interviews on YouTube.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

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