Wardens of Chaos – New Party RPG Inspired by Daggerfall & Might and Magic 6–8

If you’re the sort of PC gamer whose eyes go glassy with a moist, nostalgic sheen at the mere utterance of Might and Magic VI, the intricate party dynamics of VII & VIII, or the enormous, gloriously imperfect ambition of Daggerfall, then take a seat. We need to talk about Wardens of Chaos. This real-time party-based RPG is not simply tipping its hat to the classics in a respectful bow; it’s all but building a shrine to them.

We’ve had the chance to stomp through its early build (and you can view our glorious, somewhat frantic, gameplay video embedded herein), and the aroma of classic adventure is pungent. You and your chosen party of four are out for vengeance after your home town gets the ol’ fantasy flattening treatment, and what do you know, there’s a world-ending conspiracy brewing beneath the surface of the Lands of Alsinar. Generic maybe, but it’s in the execution that we’re interested.

What strikes us first, in the same manner as stepping out into the open from the starting dungeon in Daggerfall for the first time (with fewer game-breaking bugs, hopefully!), is the hyped Freedom of Exploration. The developers are whispering sweet nothings of ‘minimal linearity,’ and from our journey through a slice of Alsinar, it’s looking like they mean it. Jagged mountains in the distance? Probably climbable. Ominous-looking ruin? Presumably overflowing with skeletons and questionable loot. The world map guarantees a rich selection of outdoor zones and a veritable rabbit hole of dungeons, just begging for a party of well-meaning kleptomaniacs to ‘free’ their treasures.

This does not sound like a game that is going to be interested in holding your hand… it is a game that wants you to get lost, get in over your head, and probably die a few times in the process of discovering your limits. We approve.

And who’s going to be doing this liberating? Your handpicked group of four adventurers, chosen from a roster of ten classes. This isn’t a question of just picking a fighter, mage, thief, and cleric (though you absolutely can, you traditionalist, you). The potential for party synergy and wild builds is already making the min-maxxer part of our brain twitch. Will your front line be pure brute force or will you include some sneaky martial artists? Will your mages specialize or do you go for a jack-of-all-arcane-trades? The choices look genuinely open.

This leads nicely into the Character Development, which looks satisfyingly crunchy. Nine schools of magic, with five ranks from Novice to the dizzying heights of Grand Master, and a variety of martial skills provide a nice progression from stumbling apprentice to god-bothering powerhouse. Quest experience and, one presumes, from reducing legions of monsters to experience piñatas, is drained into skill points. It’s the old drill : kill, learn, grow, kill bigger things… we wouldn’t have it any other way. The possibility of painstakingly crafting every character, trawling through spell lists & skill trees is oh so familiar & irresistibly appealing.

Visually, Wardens of Chaos isn’t attempting to keep pace with the latest ray-traced abomination. Instead it opts for an aesthetic that appears to be a lovingly upscaled version of those late 90s/early 00s classics… It’s functional, readable and puts the emphasis squarely where it should be – on the world’s breadth and the systems’ depth, rather than pixel-perfect pores. And if we’re being honest, when you’re controlling four characters in a real-time scrap with a dozen aggressive goblins, you want clarity instead of cinematic flash.

The quest for revenge for your home city provides a satisfying hook, grounding the grand ‘save the world’ shenanigans in a personal stake. But it’s the combination of this narrative drive with the sheer freedom – freedom to construct, freedom to rave, freedom to skill – that’s got Wardens of Chaos squarely on our ‘keep a very close eye on this one’ list. It’s a game that plays like it was made by people who get what these retro RPGs were so endlessly replayable; that sense of a vast, indifferent world that gradually, tediously, bends to your party’s growing strength…

Early days, of course. The true test will be how all of these systems hang together over the duration of a huge campaign, whether the quests are engaging, and if the world truly does feel alive (and full of nice, emergent chaos). But the foundations are undeniably exciting. If Wardens of Chaos can fulfill its massive potential, it might just be the deep, player-driven RPG experience that a lot of us have been secretly (or not so secretly) dreaming about.

What do you guys think?? Is this the kind of RPG that gets your dice rolling? Is “Grand Master” a cool enough title, or do they have to do better? Let it be known in the comments below!

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