| Chaos League | |
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PAL boxart of Chaos League |
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| Developer(s) | Cyanide |
| Publisher(s) | Digital Jesters Focus Home Interactive |
| Version | 1.7 (December 15, 2004) |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Sports management game |
| Mode(s) | Single player Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | PEGI: 12+ |
Chaos League is a fantasy-based sports management game developed by Cyanide and published by Digital Jesters in 2004. The game is a fantasy satire of American Football, loosely based on Games Workshop's Blood Bowl franchise. The game spawned an expansion entitled Chaos League: Sudden Death in 2005.
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Chaos League falls into a multiple genre category, both real time strategy and sports games as the game involves war based tactics like unit positions and fighting strategies but the main goal of the game to score points by getting a pig skin ball to the opposite end zone, very much like the same rules found in American Football. Players are given a choice of 10 different fantasy based races (13 in Sudden Death) to play as their team, each with their own style of play, skill and tactics. The player then has to handle the teams finances in order to hire different players like Linemen, Quarterbacks etc after of which can name them individually to their liking. When gameplay starts, players are given 1 minute to set up their formation, after game starts in real time. The player can click on individual team mates and give them an order like attack opponent and pick up and/or throw. Each game lasts 10 minutes, after players can be upgraded to gain extra speed or strength or to add new skills or magic abilities, all from gaining experience during the last game they played like scoring or crippling an opposing team mate.[1]
Other aspects that differ from normal sports games include causing player knock outs, injuries or even deaths. Chaos League also includes rather crude options like stamping on downed players, intervening hooligans, drugging players before games and bribing or assaulting the referee when the rules are broken.[2] The main basis of the game's comical style is from the commentary, done by a pair of dysfunctional Chaos League enthusiasts that would insult both each other, the fans and the players in the current game. The Sudden Death add on expanded the features to include team clans to help during gameplay, fighting the ref, and aging players over time, requiring new players every few seasons.[3]
A team can hire up to 15 players (9 per team on the pitch during the match) with a choice of player positions, each one with their own skills, looks and game style. However not all positions are available for all teams.[4]
Chaos League featured 9 races, all the traditional fantasy style classes similar to that of Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons. Teams have specific restrictions on the positions they are allowed to choose from as well as the potential to use Bigfoot players.
The following races are included in the Sudden Death expansion pack.
Another aspect of the game comes from the chance to mod many aspects of the games[5] like custom team logos or pitch design. However, the more popular modding aspect came from player skins and costumes which was a simple matter of rendering character palettes in the game's software files. Changing character models was accomplished by only a very few and even then it was mostly swapping of player templates.
According to Eurogamer, Cyanide originally pitched the game idea to Games Workshop in hopes of developing a licensed Blood Bowl video game. When they were rejected, they developed Chaos League independently.[6] Besides the obvious connections to the style of the game itself, both being violent fantasy sports, minor similarities were also noticeable to Blood Bowl fans. Most notable were the recurring skills in both like "Mighty Blow", "Bulldoze" and "Projectile". Even during a loading menu in after games, a well known red sun with an Orc face, usually found on Games Workshop inks can be seen in the background.
Games Workshop has announced that Cyanide Studios now have a license to create computer games based on Blood Bowl and that "Any differences between Games Workshop and Cyanide have been amicably settled for an undisclosed sum, and as part of the settlement the Chaos League title has been assigned to Games Workshop".[7] The game Blood Bowl was released in Q3 2009 for the PC, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS and Xbox 360.[8]
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