When THQ revealed its latest Warhammer title behind closed doors there was a feeling of excitement and apprehension in the room. The title looked great, it was set in the future and saw the hardcore Space Marines take on the mighty Ork army in a bid to protect the emperor’s human race. The worry was there was no actual game footage, however we were assured the trailer we’d seen was indicative of the actual game play footage, and had been taken from in-engine. The engine? Well that’s being dubbed as the “Phoenix” engine and has been built from the ground up specifically for the game with a dedicated console team working on the title.
The game is a third-person action RPG title and is being developed by Relic games, more synonymous with RTS titles and more so with the PC (and most recently Dawn of War), but Relic being Relic, you know that anything they put their hands to will do well, and with some history in console games, it’ll be hoping the release of WH40K: Space Marines will be as successful as some of its PC titles.
You play as a super soldier, a Space Marine no less, and will be able to play as what seemed to be one of four classes, each with their own special progression tree. Some of the weapons, such as an electric uber hammer and a massive chain-saw sword, some bolters and some other special weapons which help destroy the hoards of Orks that encompass you. You’ll also be able to acquire and upgrade other weapons giving you a variety of ways to dispose of those pesky Orks.
And it’s not only the variety of weapons and different ways to deal death, the level of gore is pretty hardcore too, with blood and dismemberment playing a huge part of the visual direction (presumably for the sake of immersion, visceral and any other synonym for engrossing developers are using nowadays).
When I asked if the game was going to be just another monotonous hack ‘n’ slash title with RPG elements I was told that this title was going to be like no other Warhammer game we’d seen before.
“We’ve focused on the variety of weapons, enemies and have really pushed the narrative,” said the Relic developer.
There are still areas of the game which I’d like to know more about, such as how the progression tree will work, what exactly the classes will be and exactly how many people will be able to play in multiplayer mode.
And multiplayer will be a huge selling point for this game. Although we weren’t given any more details about the multiplayer, we were promised that there will be a comprehensive multiplayer mode, with co-operative play being the focus. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see competitive game modes either, but Relic aren’t talking about multiplayer much, so we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out.
The game will be released at some time in the future, there was no word on when it would be ready, but it’ll be a console exclusive, and when I say console exclusive, I mean 360 and PS3. We will, of course, keep you posted with more news as and when it becomes available.
