Warhammer Vermintide 2’s Necromancer skeletons are surprisingly smart

pcgamesn.com:

The Warhammer Vermintide 2 Necromancer is right about to burst forth her minions from the earth, unleashing the undead hordes against the forces of Chaos and the Skaven. With the new Sienna career set to launch in a Warhammer Vermintide 2 update next week, developer Fatshark gives us some insight into how the skeletons came to be, and the potential created by its new tech developed for the feature.

You can’t be a Necromancer worth their salt without a skeleton army, of course, and the newest Warhammer Vermintide 2 career is no different. Transforming spell-slinger Sienna into a Necromancer is perhaps one of the most unique tool sets yet introduced to the popular co-op game, and gives you an ideal way to distract your foes while you unleash devastation with her new Warhammer Vermintide 2 Necromancer weapons.

“The idea of a Necromancer has been kicking around for a long time,” Vermintide design director Joakim Setterberg explains. “It was already in the back of our skulls when starting work on the Grail Knight.” He says the team was eager to step away from Sienna’s reliance on fire magic, so as to find “a gameplay role that didn’t cannibalize her regular careers.” It also wanted to build the tech for a pet-style class that could summon minions and control enemies, making the Necromancer a perfect fit.

The skeletons, as it turned out, required their own unique AI design separate from that used for bot players. “Sienna’s skeletons are actually rather like a friendly faction of their own, sharing behavior and movement with Vermintide’s enemies,” Setterberg says. “That meant a lot of work, both from a pure visual and combat behavior perspective but also balancing their presence and relative player positioning so that they