Warhammer Survivors Demo Review
Warhammer Survivors is a new Survivors-like game from Auroch Digital, the creators of Warhammer 40k Boltgun. I enjoy Survivors-like games quite a bit, and have around 100 hours across the genre. While that isn't a huge amount of time, it's enough to be able to separate great from mediocre. In addition, I'm a casual fan of 40k. I don't play the tabletop but I like the lore. And the memes. I love me some good Grimdank memes. I'm not much for Warhammer Fantasy or AoS, but I do play the Total War series, and I listen to lore often enough.
When I saw that there was a 40k Survivors-like game, I was cautiously optimistic and I was right not to set my expectations too high. The game does have some cool aspects, but I think this is only really worth a purchase if you're a fan of 40k or AoS and haven't really exhausted most of Vampire Survivors. However it should be kept in mind that at time of writing, only the demo is available. After spending 2.7 hours on the Warhammer Survivors demo, I don't think it adds anything new to the genre, nor does it meaningfully improve anything pre-existing.
Sound
The sound effects are not bad but not great. Due to the repetitive nature of the gameplay of a Survivors-like game, less is more to an extent. The music is okay and the sound effects are inoffensive, but there's nothing particularly great in terms of sound design. I suspect this is to keep the player from going insane from hearing the same noises constantly. I didn't hear any voice lines which is slightly disappointing but not wholly unexpected. I don't recall Vampire Survivors having voice lines either, and Soulstone Survivors' voice lines got old pretty fast. I wouldn't mind some voice lines when choosing a character at the very least. Overall though, Warhammer Survivors seems to follow Vampire Survivors' mindset of just having less in the way of sound. There isn't too much to speak of here.
Visuals
The visuals are excellent. It follows the design styling set up by 40k Boltgun: pixel art with detailed backgrounds. If you were looking for something more akin to Soulstone Survivors or DRG Survivor, then I suspect you'll be a bit disappointed. This is basically 2D all the way. As a Survivors-like, it doesn't have a ton in the way of "backgrounds" however the map aesthetics, doodads, and overall art is great on the 40k map. I can't say the same about the AoS map though. The 40k map feels like it has a lot of detail and work put into it. It looks very much like an Imperial world overrun by the Tyranids. There are industrial and military doodads scattered randomly across the map. That's fine in terms of gameplay, but as far as aesthetic goes, it doesn't FEEL really 40k to me because it lacks clutter for the purpose of gameplay. Now, the AoS map has colors that are a little more muted aside from the warpstone, so it feels kind of generic and bland. Maybe that's the point, but my point still stands. If you look at the Total War games, the areas with Skaven corruption look awful, but in a good way.
The character sprites and weapons look good too. The chainsword in particular has striking visuals and looks great. The characters and enemies you play as and come across respectively, are really well done. I'm not the staunchest supporter of the Ultramarines, as I'm more of a Lamenters, Blood Angels, and Blood Ravens fan, but Malum Caedo looks as advertised from 40k Boltgun and the Guardsmen have that classic Cadian aesthetic. I don't know a ton about AoS, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the AoS characters, but they look thematically correct. As for the enemies, while the sprites look good, I do have some complaints about some of the sprite usage as well as enemy projectiles. At time of writing, the enemy projectiles are just green balls of light, which are re-used assets for 40k and AoS; a small complaint but it stood out to me. In addition, the Termagants, despite holding weapons, are melee units. They're the starter Tyranids. That seems visually disingenuous. Streaming it in a Discord call, other friends had the same confusion.
Also a small gripe, but at around the 20 minute mark when I had maxed as many weapons as possible, it was really difficult to see any enemies on my screen, simply because of all the clutter. I think Vampire Survivors handles it much better, since even though there is tons of visual clutter from the sprites, they felt less intrusive than the ones in Warhammer Survivors.
Gameplay
The gameplay is basically a 1:1 copy of Vampire Survivors. If you want Vampire Survivors with a pot of Nuln Oil, this is it. There are your typical weapon and survivability buffs. Certain weapons combine with certain passives to make the most powerful versions of weapons. Unfortunately almost every weapon in Warhammer Survivors already exists in Vampire Survivors. As an example, the default chainsword is the same as the default whip. They do vary a bit once it gets to evolved weapons however. In addition, the only weapon that I found to be "new" was D6 dice which fall from the sky and explode after a significant delay. I didn't particularly like using the dice since they tended to always fall to the bottom part of the map, so it seemed unreliable when combined with the delay and random explosion, which was dependent on the number on the die.
I found the 40k Universe to be more enjoyable than the AoS one from a gameplay perspective. The starting character for 40k, Malum Caedo, gets an additional 10% damage per 10 levels up to 40 or 50%, as well as a damage received reduction which is useful. Furthermore the starting chainsword is pretty good after you have a few upgrades. I did not find the same experience in AoS, where the starting character gets a base movespeed buff as well as a scaling weapon range buff. At around the 15 minute mark, the issue I ran into was just not having enough damage to deal with the higher tier enemies. At the 20 minute mark, I definitely didn't have enough damage to deal with the high HP threats around the map, even with maxed out damage increases and multiple evolved weapons. I suspect this would become more manageable with maxing out damage from meta progression, but in the demo, there's no real goal outside of meta progression.
Closing Thoughts
I'm not saying the game isn't fun or enjoyable. The demo for Warhammer Survivors is fine if you want Vampire Survivors but Warhammer. It delivers that exact experience. I was hoping for something slightly more innovative than a reskin.
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