Anyone know if I'm wrong in saying that this is console only? Devs don't normally think brawlers will sell on PCs, so it wouldn't surprise me.
Looks kinda cool, but a bit... undeveloped. It doesn't look particularly different or original in design or mechanics. It looks exactly like the sort of game you have fun playing through once and then forget about. Even the story sounds basically like a re-hash of DoW - orks manipulated by Chaos - and there'll probably be Eldar skulking around somewhere being nosey.
C'mon Games Workshop, give us something a bit more interesting, do something dramatic with your IP.
Have us as an inquisitor, with RPG elements to improve equipment and abilities throughout. Let us gather a band - the boardgame Inquisitor had some really interesting stuff in it that allowed for infinite possibilities, from caged demons to lobotomised servitor gun drones to trained assassins.
Put us investigating corruption in a hive world; its leadership corrupted by power, wealth and chaos, you put them to the sword only to suddenly have a genestealer infestation breakout from the bowels of the hive where it's been brewing for decades, waiting t take advantage of the loss of leadership.
Have us fight along side the Imperial garrison against the Tyrannid vanguard, seeing the Imperial war machine at work - armoured columns, aerial-dropped infantry, basic warfare (eg, trenches) enacted with advanced weaponry. This part of a game could be free-form, with missions that may not be always winnable - allow battles the player is involved in to go badly, have the lines pushed back, insurmountable odds, heavy setbacks. Feel the futility of war in the 'Grim Darkness' of the 41st Millennium, not this gung-ho "Marines, fuck yeah! Kill 'em all!" stuff.
Have a unit of Space Marines brought in later in the game to really showcase just how much more powerful than a human they really are, and how "just a single squad can change the course of a war" like they do in the lore. Fight along side these gods of war, smash through the enemy lines and slay the head Genelord chappy, accidentally summoning the wrath of the local 'Nid splinter fleet.
Having doomed the world, desperately fight rear-guard actions to evacuate as many innocents as possible, then call in Exterminatus as the Hive fleet descends, destroying the living weapon in the fiery conflagration that is the Inquisitor's last word in any argument.
There. Boom. A dramatic plot, two twists, ups and downs throughout, Orks aren't anyone's stooges, Chaos isn't the big bad, it doesn't hinge on betrayal, it captures the darkness of 40k in ways that go BEYOND the gothic architecture, and it would make for a hell of a good game, possibly capturing the 'squad building' element from Mass Effect 2 without all the wordy quests and running around talking to people, a heavy focus on the combat that is led to and developed and progressed not purely as a game mechanic but also by the developing plot elements.
By 'progressed' I mean, at the start you are fighting corrupted Imperials and cultists, not because they are easy for you to kill, but because that's all the influence Chaos has there. When the Genestealer infestation breaks out, the 'stealers will be seriously dangerous (especially at your early game level) but the various mutants and hybrids flesh the force out with cannon fodder. Later the infestation spreads, organic matter being re-purposed into new killing machines as the Tyrannid vanguard establishes itself, leading to the emergence of the bigger gribblies to further challenge you.
Again, not because 'it's later in the game and you're more powerful', but because of in-game events and plot that can be expressed through changes to the environment and NPC dialogue. Also, the use of Nids opens up
Aliens style levels hunting Red Terrors in the dark,
Star Ship Troopers style massive defences against a swarming sea of gribblies, 'hold the line' moments as impacatable carnifexes breach the defences (nice moments for the commissars to shine
, horrific levels as you infiltrate enemy lines to attempt sabotage, passing their gene pools with the fresh corpses of your comrades digesting in them - the possibilities are rich and varied with Nids as the foe.
So, there you go, Games Workshop. I'd appreciate a thank-you note if you'd be so kind, but if you made that game playing it would probably be good enough. Again, the W40k IP has SOOOOO much potential, but the games just don't seem to be willing to really enjoy it and just want to make 'gritty sci-fi shooter' or 'generic sci-fi RTS' again and again - after all, that's what the market really wants, right? Not something really imaginative, like Portal, or expansive and character-led, like Mass Effect......... .. .... . Yeah, I'll leave that one with them.
