Necromunda: Underhive Wars

Necromunda: Underhive Wars is a solid port of the tabletop game with a great campaign system, currently hampered by poor AI and crashing and save loss issues.

Necromunda: Underhive Wars is a capable strategy games full of tactical options, but the glacial pace will put more people off than draw them in.

Patience is a virtue. It's a virtue many of us lack in the modern era, where a day's rest can mean more lost work than you'd like to budget for. But despite that, sometimes it's better to just sit back, relax, and take things slow. We need to unwind, think to ourselves for a while, take our time, and enjoy life at a leisurely pace. It's essential. So when I play a slow-paced game, I think to myself, this is fine. I can afford to take things slow for a little while. But Necromunda: Underhive Wars genuinely puts me to sleep with a dark presentation and pacing which is so sluggish that it would d...

Ultimately then, Necromunda: Underhive Wars is actually a pretty decent strategy RPG once you dig into it. It does itself a great disservice by simply being obscure and steering you towards its boring story mode from the outset, but go against it and create your own gang and you’ll find an experience that is hugely rewarding. There is still the issue of its turtle’s pace to overcome though – hopefully developer Rogue Factor can patch in an option to speed up the gameplay when you’re watching the CPU.

While we would have preferred to see an adaptation of the grunnier 90s tabletop game, Necromunda: Underhive Wars is still a thorough, faithful adaptation of a Games Workshop classic. Its strategic skirmishing gameplay can prove rewarding, but it's clunky and gets bogged down by technical issues and stodgy pacing. Necromunda fans will delight in being able to create their own Underhive mob though casual fans of the genre may want to stay clear if they’re not particularly fussed about Warhammer 40K.

I was starting to think we’d turned a corner with Warhammer game adaptations. It wasn’t so long ago we were drowning in generic entry after generic entry, with over half of them being a different brand of Space Hulk. Then, somewhere along the way, we started getting more variety of much higher quality. Battlefleet Gothic Armada II was amazing, Mechanicus was phenomenal, Vermintide II remains one of the best L4D clones out there, and then there’s the golden boys Total War Warhammer I and...

Necromunda: Underhive Wars has an engaging sandbox filled with a trove of missions and operations, as well as gang customization. Unfortunately, its linear campaign leaves a lot to be desired, and its own combat mechanics remain egregiously flawed and underwhelming no matter the content you attempt to tackle.

Die-hard Warhammer fans and those looking for a Necromunda fix are sure to enjoy some of what Necromunda: Underhive Wars has on offer. However, for anyone else looking for an exciting turn-based strategy experience, it may feel somewhat underwhelming.

The world of Warhammer 40K is vast. Set in our galaxy during the 41st millennium, it sees gigantic armies battle it out across the stars in a universe where there is only war. It’s a vast setting full of alien races and nefarious powers. Unfortunately, Rogue Factor’s Necromunda: Underhive Wars, which is set in the 40K universe, ignores all of that vastness to focus on a gang war on some polluted mudball.

Developer Rogue Factor's next tactical-RPG hopes fun gameplay can carry it through its many stability issues. Too bad it does not.