Jigglybean says:

neat! I just want DoW 2

September 5th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Bobsy says:

Whoa. There’s running… AND gunning!

September 5th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

cullnean says:

dunno lone space marine run and gun, is that really in the spirit of 40k?

September 5th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Ging says:

spd: He does mention that this is essentially the first playable build, so the animations and well, everything will become much smoother (I hope).

But I do agree, I’d say that an FPS would perhaps match the ethos more (though Fire Warrior disagrees with me)

September 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

Lord_Mordja says:

Stabbing someone with a chainsword is just silly.
Also: OH GOD! So many retarded buzzwords!

I’ll wait and see; given that it’s early footage there’s lots of room for improvement.

The outside environment is beautiful if…empty.

September 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Diogo Ribeiro says:

So… 300 machismo (minus 299 soldiers) meets Gears of War with QTEs in yet another action title with awesome scenarios which you’ll only be able to run through and gawk at with the camera.

Hey, at least it sounds better than FireWarrior.

September 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Fumarole says:

I want to orchestrate a Ballet of Death!

September 5th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

Sum0 says:

The intro videos to the Dawn of War games always send tingles up my spine. Is it so difficult to do a shooter with hundreds of teammates fighting hundreds of enemies on a huge battlefield? Hitman: Blood Money did fantastic crowds. Just give them guns and make them run at each other on a giant, cratered battlefield. That’s how I see WH40K.

Having said that, it does look at least marginally cool. I do wish the WH40K games would model the bolters as more than just bog-standard machine guns, though. These are giant, nasty pieces of work, they require power armour to even carry, and they shoot 20mm artillery shells with built-in rocket propulsion which penetrate flesh and then explode. It should be like a grenade launcher going off every second. And that’s just the pistol.

September 5th, 2008 at 4:51 pm

danarchist says:

Well from a 40k nerd: the player seems to be a squad sergeant so the use of the chainsword fits the flavor, they are supposed to lead from the front, power fist to fang, with any alien or heretic scum they see. I didn’t catch it but did he say this was a mmo or just a single player game? If its multi player that may fix the issue of only one marine running around alone. But your right marines very rarely work alone, actually in over a decade I don’t think I have read one book where they did.
I am dying for something other than swords and sorcerery or fps crap to play. I can only replay deus ex so many times. Here’s to hoping the industry is finally over its elf fetish!

September 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

Bursar says:

Brothers of the Snake by Dan Abnett featured Marines working alone. The idea being that 1 marine was often all that was required in certain situations.

Pretty good book all told.

September 5th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

mujadaddy says:

It reminds me of the Tekken Brawl mode or whatever it was called.

monkeymonster: “since when is a chaos space marine the equal of a “normal” one”

Chaos marines are far superior to the weak-minded shepherds that tend the Dead Emperor’s flock. Skulls for the Skull Throne!

September 5th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Biggles says:

Yeah, bolter should be insta-hit with explosions and a bit slower, say a cool 2-4 shots per second and some nice kick back, with probably some emphasis on taking cover or parrying bullets and rockets with your arms/shoulders to hide the exposed head. Also, team mates, obviously, or even better, co-op ala left 4 dead.

September 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

Heliocentric says:

what a waste. Of effort and of a license, i never really felt the dow represented the world of 40k, but it represented the board games depth (not too little not too much). Couldn’t they at least make you an imperial assassin, any would do. They could even be a game start class choice. Sniper, stealth melee etc. Hell.. Even stick you in a dredy. Infact a dred would make a great console game due to limited turning speeds being justifiable. But if nids are in the game all is forgiven.

September 5th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

ack says:

Environments: Yes.
Gameplay: No.
Any developer that uses that many buzzwords have spent waaaay to much time in a meeting room with suits trying to defend why they should let him keep the licence.

September 5th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

Radiant says:

This looks fun as hell.
CINEMACTIONS!
INTIMATE BRUTALITY!
Sounds like the devs are having a lot of fun.
Nice environments too.

September 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

Alex says:

This looks like Blood Rayne in Power Armour. Why don´t these devs never have a complete 40k geek amongst them… for, lets call it, quality assurance. I´d like to see a game from that franchise that fits it already! 40k is so neatly laid out in dozens of books, tabletop- and pen and paper games… and still noone of these publishers will ever bring out a proper 40k game. Not even DOW is close to be really from the 40k universe. Not even close… sigh.

September 5th, 2008 at 6:22 pm

David says:

Alex, FireWarrior did a good job of keeping to the fiction, if I recall correctly. Not that it prevented it from being a Halo mod.

September 5th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

phuzz says:

As Tom says, it reminded me of Spartan Total Warrior, although although that game was fun, it was a bit, how to put it, dumb?
But what it did have was loads of guys running around with you, and some fun, flowing combat, although this early demo is obviously far from finished.
Something closer to Halo in terms of more ranged combat would be my preferred balance, but it sounds like they’ve already made up their minds about the direction which is a shame.

September 5th, 2008 at 6:43 pm

Hypocee says:

Spartan came out on PS2 as well - that’s where I played it - and it’s a real buried gem. The box art just screams that it’s some kind of dull action-RPG, so I kept pasing it by for over a year.

What it actually is is some alternate-world version of Koei’s Warriors games. In my experience this one’s less about building up combos and more about movement and manoeuvre - where you’re usually surrounded and fighting in circles in Warriors, in Spartan you’re usually judging your movement relative to some strong enemy while trying not to get surrounded by mooks. The rest of the time you’re usually trying to fight your way through them to a time-limited objective or boss. There’s lots of dodging and shield-bashing to get people where you want them, and some scrums feel a bit like a precursor to AssCreed’s crowd pushing engine. It’s a terribly un-special-looking game, but extremely interesting to play.

September 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm

Okami says:

Is intimate brutality some new form of domestic violence?

September 5th, 2008 at 9:21 pm

Gerfervonbob says:

So much negativity! It is early in development and it was just a small segment of a level, they may have battle segments. Instead of a liner melee corridor shooter I see an opportunity for an really kick ass War40k game. Call me an optimist.

September 5th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

JonFitt says:

@Taxman “narrator says it is not meant to be powerful, the game is intentionally a melee close combat title.”

Doesn’t that strike you then as missing the point of 40k Space Marines? Completely?

September 5th, 2008 at 10:29 pm

ReturnToNull says:

Looks awesome, most of the mechanics seem solid, but the presentation is currently crap. The animations are really wooden, and awful looking in places. The run/walk is particularly awful and grating on me. I’d love some sort of short rampup/cooldown after a charge so the animation transition isn’t all jerky.

Also the AI looks awful, seriously. I would -love- to have them in on this so called ‘Ballet of Death’. If I’m engaging three guys in close combat it should -look- like a 3 on 1 with everyone involved, not a series of 1 on 1 fights while the so called allies sit back and watch as I beat the hell out of their comrades.

Otherwise, a very tempting buy cause I’m a 40k junkie.

September 5th, 2008 at 11:05 pm

Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:

Annoying buzzwords, QTE silliness, and jerkiness of the animations aside…

Definitely have to agree with the general 40K geek sentiment here. While I can put off my distaste for over-the-top violence, and my dislike of the Space Marines in general, I find it difficult to fathom how apparently difficult it must be for 40K game devs to “get” the message that the Bolter is supposed to be a–how do you say?–ah, yes, BFG.

Every time you ask a 40K fan about what the Bolter is, they’ll tell you. It’s basically a grenade launcher that fires its rounds as quickly as an M60, whose projectiles function like really, really big, mean bullets. THQ didn’t quite “get” that in Fire Warrior, and here it seems like they didn’t quite “get” that here.

The rest of what they’ve shown captures the feel of 40K really well, so I guess this is a case of geek-lore’s Uncanny Valley. It’s so close to what it should be, the mistakes glare at you even more.

I guess they sacrificed canon authenticity for the design philosophy, which is about as melee-based as you’d expect a game focusing on a guy with a chainsword to be. But they could at least make the bolter feel meatier, and retain the same level of, er, non-effectiveness as the current build seems to imply.

They could at least reduce the fire rate and increase the volume of the bolter’s sound effects.

But hey, it’s kind of moot because, frankly, I don’t actually care for the Space Marines. They always got all the setting love, when I thought there were more interesting things afoot across the rest of the Imperium. Honestly, who’d have thought a Commissar could be a hero of a series of comedies?

September 5th, 2008 at 11:32 pm

Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:

From the looks of it, baddies seem considerate enough to stand back while you finish the one-on-one cinematic. Like movie ninjas, but with more power armor.

September 6th, 2008 at 12:49 am

Ghostunit says:

Why the hell would you spend ages playing a mini game to kill the guy on the ground (who seems to be fighting back?) - especially when it seems you also have the option to kill him with one button?

September 6th, 2008 at 2:14 am

Aftershock says:

I laughed when i saw the grenade “explosion”. I know its a very early build, but a big yellow circle still makes me laugh.

Melee focused? SINCE WHEN?! these are supposed to be space marines, a squad based, tactical team. Hell, the Gears four act more like space marines than this guy does.

And if a Chaos marine is a Space marines “equal” then how come against 3 Chaos marines and 3 traitor guard he STILL wins? The traitor guard aren’t even using lasguns, which would normally render them useless!

And yeah, the Bolt pistol everyone is talking about is actually a bolter that he is one-handeding. Sigh. The things he’s being shot with are more like bolt pistols. Only they need to explode.

But yeah, meatier bolters, less chainsword stabbing,

September 6th, 2008 at 3:57 am

Aftershock says:

So there i was, thinking of what would make a kickass 40k game, and this came to mind.

Black Crusade. Legions of Chaos marines and beats swarming out of the Eye of Terror, overwhelming Cadia and taking many planets before the Imperium can mount a defense and make planetfall on a continent currently being contested. All the other continents have either sunk into chaos entirely, or have been orbitally striked, and thus split into little bits.

The civilian population are being herded onto ships, and jungle around the city shudders. Hundreds of Daemons charge out, and are almost to the city walls when the autocannons and heavy bolters open fire. The first ranks are cut down instantly.

Inside the city, the Space Marine chapter mobilises. The imperial guard are left to keep the population under control, and the dropships are leaving as fast as is possible.

In the skies, the chaos fleet rounds the planet and opens up into the Imperial Fleet in orbit above the city. Plasma flies between the two fleets as fighers fly from the Chaos fleet to stop the civilian dropships, and fighters from the imperial fleet attempt to intercept them.

Back on the planet, the daemons have taken the outer walls, and have been held back by the heavy weapons teams and marines in the trenches behind them. The wall suddenly explodes, and a Dreadnought roars into view. The daemons are all but vanquished, and the dreadnought storms over the trenches, crushing marines, and burning IG. Drop pods land around it, and terminators come out. The dreadnought readies for combat, when it is shredded by lascannons. The Marine’s armour is here. The assualt appears to have lightened up, and the terminators walk onto the wall. They see a dark ritual in progress, and charge right into the middle of it. They are sucked into the vortex, and consumed as sacrifices.

The the dropship line is slowing, due to the battle raging above them, and the civilians are growing restless, and some try and flee. They are gunned down by the guard.

The newly born daemon prince rushes towards the terminators, their thunderhammers crackling with anticipation. His sword swings through several of them, only blocked by the librarian. He glows with bright light, and the daemon reels. The light is suddenly extinguised, as bolts of dark energy rain down from the city walls, summoned by the Sorcerer there. As the inner walls are assailed by the daemon prince and his sorcerer, the sky is ablaze with the retro thrusters of Chaos drop pods.

Part 2 coming later, if i feel like it.

September 6th, 2008 at 4:27 am

zuddy says:

Piping in with the rest of the 40k geeks. Not much of a Smarine fan, Orks are better. Waaaagh! Everyone is pretty much spot on, the bolter as it is now is a bit of a weedy piece of kit, seriously… did this guy decide to be nice and load up some rubber bullets? And it is a two handed rifle, not a pistol like this guy seems to be using it as. At least use a bolt pistol if you’re going hand to hand.

The chainsword… well I like chainswords, but it’s used way too much here. If you really want to have an in your face close combat game, use an assault marine. Or better yet for the whole lone warrior thing, how about an Inquisitor? They get access to crap loads of ass kicking weapons.
If this game is going to feature new weapons you can pick up, how is the ‘intimate brutality’ going to work when you get a heavy bolter and have to put away the sword?

Now to defend the video just a bit, he’s alone because he seems to be the last one standing from his squad. He did wake up from being unconcious. Maybe he needs to rejoin the battle brothers? And for a first build, this looks sweet. Will be waiting to see more.

If they get it right hell yeah I’ll get it, even if they don’t, I’ll still get it. Can’t turn down any 40k stuff…

Please no cinemaction, the first was fun to watch, everything after was painful.

September 6th, 2008 at 7:20 am

Okami says:

If they really need to make a WH40K Hack&Slash, they should just take the “Obvious Tactics” comics and turn that into a game. Three Marines fighting against a whole planet of Nurgle cultists. There’s a lot of purging and cleansing and deeds of heroic idiocy and in the end, they blow up the whole goddman planet.

So you got three main characters, can switch between them at will and at some points you have to use a specific one.

Also: Cinemaction sounds incredibly stupid.

Also: A Gaunt’s Ghosts tactical shooter would be awesome. Just saying…

September 6th, 2008 at 10:20 am

Optimaximal says:

I’m giving this the benefit of the doubt, for now… If things don’t improve 2-3 vids down the line, then i’ll join the colour-me-unimpressed crowd.
Canon & gameplay aside, the guy makes repeated reference to the fact this is the first time the game has even approached playable, let alone had its storyline etc. set in stone.
As zuddy points out, the marine is clearly recovering from being knocked unconscious at the start of the vid, assuming this section even makes it into the final game.

September 6th, 2008 at 10:40 am

Rakysh says:

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he an assault marine?

September 6th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Anonymous says:

40K is all about melee. Even for space marines - they can, and do, shoot things, but they’re expected to get into close combat, and they’re good at it.

Usually space marines operate in groups, but not always - if the others die they’ll be alone, for instance, but even without that they sometimes operate alone. The Iron Snakes not only occasionally send single marines to do missions, they sometimes send single marines who’ve just barely been promoted to full space marines to protect a world from a ship full of dark eldar raiders. Solo marines happen.

I dunno about chapter - the brief glimpse I got of his shoulders made me think fists, so perhaps he’s a Crimson Fist? They’re blue and they’re a classic chapter.

September 6th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

Andrew Kirkman says:

Now I love 40K, Iwas one of thos 40K nerds at school and I play all of the games…but this looks a bit pants tbh, I look forward to seeing more footage but it kinda looks like a scifi version of Assasins Creed with all of the quick kills which very very quickly made a good game idea very boring

September 6th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

Shawn says:

I’m really loving what I see but I hope they make the keyboard and mouse controls properly. A game like this should do well on PC with all the 40k fans. Between this and DoW2, and the upcoming 40k MMO, it’s nice to see the franchise flourishing. I know a lot of people are going to say this is a Gears rip on the console side, but the chainsword(is that what it’s technically called?) has been done in the 40k universe long before Gears. The finishing moves are very sweet as well, nice and gruesome.

Art style looks amazing too, would love to see a high res video of this though, and more videos.

September 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Frito says:

I’d prefer to play as a lone Imperial Guardsman. It would be a very short game.

September 7th, 2008 at 1:51 am

Nimdok says:

I’ve actually been waiting for something like this for a long time, kinda Rogue Trooper with SMarines.

September 7th, 2008 at 4:58 am

Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:

I always felt Chaos was among the more boring of the Imperium’s enemies. They’re the “evil twin,” and basically look like their loyalist counterparts, save for extra spikiness. You can’t get much more boring than that.

I’d rather see the Emperor’s Muppets fight the Tyranids, or perhaps the Eldar. Those’re some interesting, and very different, enemies to send the Soupbowls and Flashlights after. And I suspect, ten or so years ago, Blizzard felt the same way.

And Real Horrorshow, I have to say… game-mixup aside, I would be thankful for the lack of WW2 in this post, not mournful. Even though Company of Heroes is a great game, WW2’s one heck of a dead horse at this point. There are probably more WW2 games for the PC than there are bones in the human body.

Homeworld 3, however, is something that needs to happen. Badly.

September 7th, 2008 at 7:30 am

phuzz says:

If they want up close and personal violence, how about an Orky warboss? Now there’s a character who’d rather run right up to an enemy, pull off their head and stuff a stik bomb down the hole just for kicks
(and instead of overkills you get WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHZZZZZZZZZZ obviously)

September 7th, 2008 at 10:44 am

Janto says:

Eversor… I hated those skull faced monkeys, they could take out a whole squad of ’stealers if they got lucky.

September 8th, 2008 at 3:57 am

Lu-Tze says:

To continue my groove of “angry internet man thinks he can make games better”..

The theme of my version of “Gears of Warhammer” runs throughout with the phrase “Customisation” and “Teamplay”.

I’ll start with Multiplayer because that feeds into the Single Player… Insignia designer and Unit painter like Halo 3. Make your own Chapter basically, with good support for playing with your mates/as a clan.
Design a unit as per Call of Duty 4. Do you want Scout Armor or Terminator Armor? That’s going to determine what kind of weapons you can kit out, as well as your speed. Make a boxing Terminator if you want, with a Power Fist on each arm and ambush people with lethal uppercuts. Or have a flamer. Or kit out a scout with a Chain Sword. If you want to keep the weapons with their canonical availablility to different ranks, tie that into online levelling up.
And as well as the standard team modes, give the players some fun co-op online stuff like GTAIV did. Defend a base against continually increasing waves of enemies and see how well you and your mates can do in the online scoreboards. Try to complete an objective as fast as possible, whatever.

Then take that, and put it into the Single Player campaign. You can’t just go around picking up other people’s Bolters, so how you kit yourself out is important. Work together, specialise and diversify, and play the Campaign with your Chapter. Cut Scenes don’t need to refer to the chapter name or your units name, just call him by his rank. And if you are playing through solo at least populate a few non-essential friendly AIs (so basically, use Imperial Guard in place of the Marines in Halo 3) around the place.

Now you’ve got a game i’ll buy, and something that has unique selling points that are supported by the licence.

Disclaimer : WH40K knowledge may be inaccurate in places.

September 8th, 2008 at 9:52 am

Chris says:

The Chapter thing is odd - I can’t work out the insignia. To me, it looks like a skull on one side and an upwards-pointing arrow on the other. Not a Chapter I’m aware of, but then I haven’t really been following 40k for the last 15 years or so.

Well, apart from DoW obviously.

September 8th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

anon says:

I hope they make the bolter more realistic. It needs to blow people apart. That way when they use the heavy bolter it will kill everything in 0.2 seconds and then if you get a lascannon it kills the world.

September 9th, 2008 at 12:02 am

Greyface says:

So, I’m a girl, and FPS + Warhammer 40k is essentially my wet dream chance to take out my penis envy on all the big-dicked but poorly armed men in the world.

For me, FPS gaming is about the following: I kill with extreme perverse prejudice (read: God of War fan-girl) because, god damn it, I want slipping in blood to be a tactical concern. I do bad things and giggle (but not into my mic, ffs) to anyone and anything dumb enough to get into the way of my sword/staff/rock at the end of a club/lightsaber/chainsword/bolter. Storyline is intestine frosting on my bloody meat cake. Graphics are wasted if they’re not used for interesting spatters of blood.

It’s cathartic, it’s dirty pleasure, it gives us the ability to take our nerd-person rage out on a world filled with…. other nerd-people… whatever.

That said, I have both a minor and major issue with the above clip. Minor issue: No fucking -way- are blood-gasming scenes worth having bitches stab -my- Space Marine ass (what chapter, god damn it!) while I stare at myself doing all the dirty fun things even boyfriends won’t try. Major issue: Seriously… which of us won’t feel like a poof playing this game knowing we’re engaging in cinemaction and ballets of death? Bull.fucking.shit. I don’t play games like this because of crap ass market-speak phrases like that. Can you imagine calling -anything- Master Chief or Duke Nuke’em does a ‘ballet of death?’ Serious Sam would put a chainsaw through your eye for that shit.

Ballet of death… cinemaction… go play Kirby, bitch.

September 9th, 2008 at 3:20 am

Hmm-hmm. says:

The graphics were pretty okay, especially for such an early build, but I fear for the gameplay. As said, an FPS (squad-based!) would be preferable. Even poured into a mold like this I have the feeling that, what with the ‘cinemaction’ nonsense (which looks good but interrupts the gameplay) and especially the whack-a-mole sequence at the end it’ll be a really dumbed down action-packed God of War wannabe.

September 12th, 2008 at 2:22 am

Paul says:

It would be better if the prymary weapon would be a bolter(and other ranged weapons from a normal upgrade)and the secondary from the knife to the daemonhammer.Also why are the chaos space marines melee units.the cultist should be so,not the space marines.Did that grenade just stunned them,it should have killed the cultists and the other to thorw him at least.Also it would be nice if you could throw your enemyes down,if this game stand pround with the envoyerment.And a nice thing it would be if you would say:,,For the Emperor“ and the chaos to say their ,,taunts“.Also bring the other races into discussion.And ranged units to try to take distance when you get near them,and when they see its usless to attack you.

October 10th, 2008 at 10:59 pm

L!L'JOKER says:

Well the environment and your cinema stuff looks good but dats where it all hits da brakes after dat its just a dev not knowing any thing bout the genre trying to appeal to the wronge crowd and in the end getting noone.
Yes i know its early in the making so hopefully he reads all dis criticism and gets it right but dat would mean changing out the whole thing which sadly i doubt dey will do but heres an idea. Change it to fit. The gameplay they are trying to throw on us sounds more like the melee blood bath loving orks that cant shoot straight in the first place not the fine tuned super human marine with a gun that spits death.
I just think the developers need to grab them a 40k novel and do some research cause appealing to the fans will appeal to everyone i believe and probly drag new people to the genre.

October 20th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

llMonstersll says:

I think a bit of objective gamepay will need to be introduced to make this game plausible. Yes it’s alpha, but I’m gonna go ahead and suggest away.

1. You can call your combat system whatever silly thing you want, that’s fine. Just don’t let the all the trendy titles inhibit potential gameplay possibilities. If the game does want to emphasize melee, it needs to provide an objective to use it and rewards for treating each threat in the proper manner. So lets adds some things

1. Make the bolter destroy cannon fodder enemies, and add more enemies

2. Having multiple enemy types that require different manners of dispatching will add variance and a reason to use your bolter/melee weapon. Weak enemies=your choice.
Strong ranged and armor=get close fast and melee. Strong melee=blow his face off from range as much as possible. Give grenades that do knockdowns on tough targets so you stall one group of enemies while you get started on another. OR have a few npc allies you can order to engage a group for you, but will ultimately just hold them till you get there. (Make them Guardsmen, SM allies in this role wouldn’t fit since they are so strong.)

Throw these different enemy types at you in rapid succession and viola! You’ve gone from slash/slash/slash gameplay to “Kill the guy the right way and he dies fast, or putz around and get swamped and die.”

Space Marines should be efficient, and I’m not adding anything groundbreaking or complex. I just think they should consider adding a rewards system for gameplay that includes the bolter as a viable option for certain situations, but still has moments where you can stick to your buzzword happy melee theme that someone obviously payed you a lot of money for.

And yes, go hire a lore geek to make this stuff fit right, you owe it to those who might potentially pay you to play this game.

October 27th, 2008 at 3:22 am