This is not a new game. I think it is having a bit of a renaissance because of all the fame and attention that Warhammer in general is getting right now due to their new release because the player base is higher now than it was 6 months ago.
This quite old and relatively basic game is the reason why I purchased a PS5, because I wanted to be able to play along my brother and some close friends but since they all have PS5's and I was on a PS4 it would kind of ruin the experience for them because they had to stream the older version of the game, which is a feature that I was unaware even existed. Also, they couldn't use their toons that were many levels apart from mine, which doesn't exist as far as I can tell in the PS4 version of the game.
Anyway, here are some tips that are by no means expert advice, but something I wish I had known when I first started playing.
Well it is free if you have a PS-Plus account, which is something that I think is just pretty standard right now. For me it just makes sense to pay $10 a month for something that gives you access to nearly 300 games and a catalogue of games that is ever-evolving. I kind of look at it as a free trial to lots of things and near permanent access to older titles. Chaosbane: Slayer Edition is currently free on PS-Plus and has been for a long time. I can't imagine any financial incentive for them to attempt to sell this game again because I don't think anyone would pay for a game that is 5 years old.
"Blessing of Wisdom* is a skill that everyone has access to at the start of the game and it boosts your XP gain. I think this was introduced as the game got older because everyone was basically rushing to max level. There is a reason for that because the game truly starts when you hit level 50, which is the max level.
You might feel tempted to try to spec out your toon in earlier levels but this is kind of a waste of time since so much gear is dropping and you'll be swapping out stuff regularly. It isn't until reds and green items start dropping that you should really focus on the stats and certain combinations too much. I found that it was just a waste of time to spend a bunch of time in the equipment menu until I got to level 50 items and even then unless they are red or green you will end up replacing them later anyway.
There doesn't appear to be any sort of cap on level differential when playing in private online games so there is absolutely nothing stopping you from joining a raid with your level 50 character alongside your friend who is level 1. If the higher level character jumps up the difficulty to a medium level, which is something they should have very little difficulty accomplishing, the level 1 character can just stand at the entrance, fight nothing, and still get massive amounts of XP. I tried this with my brother when he wanted to start a new character and he gained 10 levels by just standing at the entrance. After half a dozen raids which I easily completed unassisted, he was max level.
Of course you need to have your level 50 accomplice be damn sure that everything has been killed near said entrance because at such a level differential you will likely be one-shotted by almost anything other than a rat.
When you are running around in early game you will notice that a lot of gem shards are dropping. The game doesn't even tell you what these are for until a bit later, I think it was level 20 or so. You might feel tempted to bless the items which will embed the gem shards into them and as you would expect, boost your stats quite a bit. However, since you are going to be tossing out these lessor items later anyway, this use of shards is a total waste. You are going to need a lot of shards in later play, so I believe it is best to simply stockpile them until you are level 50 and start finding green and red items, which will happen a couple of times in every run.
That's all I can think of for now. There are other things that I could mention but this is already a post that is long enough that I am in danger of nobody reading it. The biggest tip is the first one because why not play something that is free anyway?