Necromunda Underhive Wars Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · Published September 8, 2020 · Updated September 8, 2020

Deep below the hive cities of Necromunda, lead, customize, and grow your gang in the twisted tunnels of the dystopian Underhive. Face rival gangs in tactical gunfights for power, wealth, survival, and honor.

Pros:

Decent graphics.
37207mb Download size.
Steam achievements.
Controller support.
Graphics-fullscreen, resolution, v-sync, resolution scale, fps cap, overall quality, anti-aliasing, level of detail, shadows, post-processing, textures, effects, grass, and foliage, and auto-detect settings.
Disable/enable tutorials.
Can rebind both the mouse and keyboard along with the controller buttons.
Invert axis and sensitivity sliders.
Two modes-story or new gang war.
Excellent cutscenes and voice work.
Can skip cutscenes if you want.
Based on the Warhammer tabletop game series.
Strategy gameplay.
Game-move characters around a cone of moving freely and use action and movement point to do actions like use a zip line, vault or kneel behind cover.
You choose your teams turn order.
Action and movement points refresh each round.
A round consists of all characters who have a turn.
Tactical cam will show enemies, allies, the exit, and any interaction points.
Loot bodies.
Can trade between characters and send loot to each other through looting.
Dark grimey atmosphere.
The way movement works means you have a lot more play to it all and it doesn’t feel as heavy as some Warhammer strategy games.
Save and quit option.
Overall map where you can clearly see all characters on the map.
Hover over an enemy to see stats on them and what weapons they have.
Gang creation–3 choices are House Goliath, House Escher, and House Orlock. Each specializes in different areas like melee or ranged. You can then name your gang and use a custom gang or starter gang configuration.
Hideout-your hub where you can hire/fire members, shop, see your stats, check on member progress, and take on missions.
Skirmish- exhibition (no risk or rewards) and contest (keep loot/get injured).
Custom match-you set all the rules and can forgo the level balancing that the other modes use.
Two match sizes 1v1 and 2v2.
Can play with friends or randoms in both match sizes and in some cases you can add Ai.
Gang rating based on member levels and performance.
Can buy and customize your gang identity.
Relies upon and uses a lot of verticality and world traversal.

Cons:

Cutscenes can hitch often especially at the start for a few seconds.
Can’t skip enemy turns.
Very daunting menus and Hud layout.
Tutorials are just small boxes of text that can be easily missed.
A lot to take in.
Ai can just idle for minutes then take a turn maybe.
Matches can take a while.
Hard to read the map and know what all the icons mean.
Sometimes it won’t clearly show what zip line or body you are interacting with.
Verticality can also be it’s a downfall as it doesn’t always work in levels.
Matches can drag on.
Slow starter and takes a while to get to grips with the many mechanics.
The menu structure is not always clear and easy to use.
The tutorial is a box of text and can be easily missed when playing.

8/10

Graphics - 8/10
7/10

Sound - 7/10
7/10

Accessibility - 7/10
8/10

Length - 8/10
8/10

Fun Factor - 8/10

7.6/10

Summary

For the first game of Necromunda it does things right but also does a lot of things wrong. Straight off you don’t know which mode to play, what to do or anything, only when you click story does it begin to slowly drop the mechanics and how to play on you, I say it like this as it is actually trickled, slow, and presented in text boxes, I kept accidentally failing missions because I didn’t do a certain task despite clearing winning the game, I get why it has you do these little tasks but when it becomes an all or nothing type deal it really becomes more a do as your told and do the tick list. This of course passes after a handful of story missions, but as a first taste, it’s not particularly great. Right let’s get some positivity up in ere, Necromunda is all about creating your own gang of misfits and facing off against rival gangs for cash and glory! This is an excellent idea and one that was a lot of fun on the tabletops of Games Workshop, whilst I haven’t played the physical version for many years, this game did bring the memories back. I love the way that movement works, you have a set amount of points and can move freely in a circle, it doesn’t work like in traditional games where you have a grid system to show movement, you go wherever within a designated area, you can use points to jump, use zip lines, hack, sabotage and vault walls to decrease the size of movement but it all makes sense and is honestly refreshing to see. Combat is turn-based and again takes a different approach by allowing you to pick your teams to order every round, it’s turn-based and has a percentage chance showing when aiming. You can sabotage so many elements of a level that it changes the whole match concept, Necromunda uses a lot of verticalities to make the arena bigger and is one of those things that work but also doesn’t work at the same time. Matches can drag on as you play hide and seek or kiss chase. I liked the core idea of the game and its a game that can easily be a top tier Warhammer product but it does have issues and the bugs are so draining with my main gripe being the Ai not recognizing the enemy or the enemy standing still for five minutes then moving or the enemy walking around for no reason than shooting nothing. The good news is this can easily be fixed I reckon, the game will do great things for bringing in new players and I much prefer the game flow here over other games in the genre. Overall Necromunda is an excellent first entry in the series and is not without its faults but it is a solid fun strategy game and who doesn’t want to run a gang and run amok online!