Frontier Developments has shown the first gameplay details of its recently announced Warhammer RTS game, Realms of Ruin, and confirmed the game’s two open beta test dates.

The gameplay video, exclusively shown as part of the PC Gaming Show, shows the game’s basic elements: big fantasy warriors clashing with each other with steel weapons, some units’ special abilities – such as a Kruleboyz squad becoming invisible, a Stormcast unleashing a lightning strike on the enemy -, and some dialogue snippets that alternate between pompous and rough.

The first open beta test will run next month from July 7 to July 10, ahead of a second test period sometime later this year. You can sign up through the game’s website. Two factions will be available in those periods – the Stormcast Eternals (think of them as fantasy Space Marines) and the Orruk Kruleboyz (a sly, nasty bunch of orcs) – but two other armies will join them at launch. However, Frontier is keeping their identities secret.

Realms of Ruins follows a familiar RTS path, involving recruiting units and capturing objectives across a map split into various territories. But it’s being pitched as a more accessible RTS with minimal base-building – only constructing defensive buildings – and fast-paced multiplayer skirmishes that can be done and dusted in around half an hour. A typical skirmish involves capturing Victory Points from your opponent to drain their score while progressing along a tech tree to field stronger units. All of which, of course, are taken straight from Games Workshop’s tabletop miniatures wargame of the same name.

The gameplay video shows us some troops that Frontier didn’t show in the initial teaser trailer, such as a big Marshcrawla Sloggoth (the Orruk monster with a handful of grots riding on its back) and a Murknob holding a Belcha-banna with what looks like a still-working tongue pinned to it.

Frontier hasn’t revealed a release date for Realms of Ruins yet, but if it arrives later this year, it’ll face some stiff competition in what’s become a strong year for the RTS genre.

Source: PC Gamer