Dotemu and Old Skull Games are taking Warhammer back to side-scrolling steel with Deathmaster, a Skaven assassin platformer that stands apart from Vermintide and looks tailor-made for Switch 2 retro action fans.
Warhammer games rarely put the ratmen front and center, and when they do it is usually as expendable hordes to be mulched in first person. Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster flips that script. Revealed during the Warhammer Skulls showcase, Dotemu and Old Skull Games’ new project is a single player 2D action platformer built around one Skaven assassin and a very sharp blade.
You play as Vihneek of Clan Eshin, an ambitious killer trying to claw his way up the Skaven hierarchy. Rather than another big army war story, Deathmaster zooms in on back-alley treachery, clan politics and quiet executions carried out in the dark corners of the Mortal Realms. That narrower focus suits the format. Levels are compact, layered spaces where every ledge, crawlspace and dangling chain is either a route to stalk your target or an escape line when a job goes wrong.
The core hook is how Vihneek moves. He scuttles across ceilings, slips through low vents and chains together wall-runs, slides and lunges with a kind of rodent parkour. The controls are pitched as fast and responsive in the reveal materials, with an emphasis on staying in motion to maintain the initiative. You are fragile, so the kill is meant to come from positioning, not trading blows.
Combat leans on stealth rather than brawling. Patrols can be watched from the shadows and marked for silent takedowns, with assassinations triggered from behind, above or below. Light and darkness have clear gameplay weight. Snuffing out torches or lurking in unlit alcoves lets Vihneek stay invisible until he decides to pounce, while getting caught in the open quickly brings reinforcements down on you.
On top of positional kills, Vihneek has access to the dirty tricks that define Skaven warfare. Traps can be laid in chokepoints or under ledges so that suspicious guards literally walk to their own execution. Poisoned blades, throwing weapons and other Eshin tools round out a kit that feels closer to a 2D immersive sim than a straight action platformer, encouraging experimentation with how you approach each encounter.
What makes Deathmaster particularly interesting in the Warhammer catalog is how sharply it contrasts with the Vermintide style of game. Where Vermintide and Darktide build themselves around cooperative, first person melee and ranged combat against waves of enemies, Deathmaster isolates you in side-on spaces and pushes you to avoid open fights entirely. You are not part of a squad carving through the Skaven you are the Skaven, using isolation and surprise to turn the environment into a weapon.
That change of perspective is more than cosmetic. Vermintide is about stamina bars, cleaving arcs and crowd control in dense arenas. Deathmaster, from what has been shown so far, is about reading patrol routes, understanding level layouts and timing vertical movement so that you always drop in from an angle your victims cannot defend. It turns the same universe into something closer to a methodical, trap driven action puzzler with blood on the walls.
Dotemu’s involvement matters here. The studio has built a reputation on modernizing retro action, from the tight hit stop and readable animations of Streets of Rage 4 to the way it made TMNT Shredder’s Revenge feel like a lost arcade board that just happens to run at modern resolutions. Old Skull Games brings experience with 2D work as well, and together they are framing Deathmaster as a self contained, single player campaign rather than a live service grind.
That focus dovetails nicely with where Nintendo’s next hardware is headed. On Switch 2, Deathmaster has a chance to slot in as a slick, responsive side scroller in a library that already proved there is a big audience for retro leaning action. The premise of short, replayable stages built around stealth routes and assassination setups feels naturally suited to handheld play. You can imagine picking off a level on the commute, trying a no alarm run, then docking the system at home to hunt for alternative paths and collectibles.
The visual style also looks like it will flatter the hardware. The reveal footage and early screens point toward a high contrast, painterly 2D look that prioritizes clean silhouettes and dramatic lighting over bleeding edge tech. That keeps enemies readable, makes stealth states obvious at a glance, and should hold 60 frames per second without compromise on Switch 2’s rumored higher spec.
For retro action fans, Deathmaster is not trying to be another precision platformer in the mold of Celeste or a punishing boss rush like Blasphemous. Its lineage feels more like a mashup of classic 16 bit cinematic platformers, with their deliberate animations and trap filled stages, and modern indie stealth like Mark of the Ninja. Warhammer’s grimdark flavoring gives it an identity most 2D stealth titles do not have, but underneath the skulls and warpstone the appeal is familiar: learn the map, find the cracks in the patrol patterns and execute a flawless route.
There is still a long wait ahead. Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster is targeting 2027 for Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC, and Dotemu has not yet broken down deeper systems like progression, upgrades or how far the Skaven politics thread runs through the campaign. But even from this announcement, it stands out as a rare thing in Games Workshop’s catalogue, a Warhammer game that trades battlefield spectacle for the intimate thrill of a perfect kill. If Dotemu and Old Skull can nail that feeling on Nintendo’s next handheld hybrid, Deathmaster could be a cult favorite waiting to happen.