PC Gamer magazine (UK) has scooped first real details on THQ's Warhammer 40,000 MMO, shedding light on the game which was unveiled in March '07.
According to the info, the title's definitely an MMORPG as opposed to what could have been a Planetside-esque MMOFPS. But despite that it appears developer Vigil Games is aiming for a reasonably in-depth combat system, as it's orientated around cover, suppressive fire and flanking.
Firefights will take place on a larger scale than those planned by EA Mythic for Warhammer fantasy MMO Age of Reckoning, says the info. Players will be able to form squads, and presumably the WH40K equivalent of guilds - Chapters, will that be? - although that's information being kept under wraps at the moment.
"All of the races important to Warhammer 40,000 lore (not to mention the fans) will be represented", creative director Joe Madureira has explained, adding that "We want each and every race to have weight in the game world... and feel distinct."
He adds there'll be "Tons of stuff hanging off your character, weapons, scrolls... we are going to have the coolest looking characters of any MMO, ever. Once we begin releasing images, feel free to call me on that."
Vigil Games general manager David Adams, meanwhile, cryptically offers that "The term 'Battleground' takes on an entirely different meaning" in the game - which is obviously a reference to WoW's Battlegrounds PvP stuff but who knows what Adams actually means?
"Players", PC Gamer says, "will get to explore cities, alien temples, Chaos shrines, deserted battlefields (er, woo?), mysterious ruins, ancient structures, and - here's the cool one - 'drifting hulks in space'. Space hulks, we call those".
Thanks to PC Gamer magazine for the information in this article, which appears in its new issue #187 which is now in the hands of subscribers and hits your newsagent shortly. The magazine also has a massive feature on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2, so don't miss it!
Those are some interesting details, especially on the races front, i'm really curious if they'll add the less human races too now. And combat sounds pretty exiting too.
As a vast part of the races arsonal is guns, a FPS style would have suited it better, but it'll be interesting to see..
Mainly point to note besides it not being a MMOFPS theres nothing really soild in the information, 'repisenation of all popular races' doesn't mean playable to me and with the word 'popular' how do we know what they deem as popular? It could be only just Orks, Space marines, Eldar and Choas for all know it.. plus from what they're discribing as 'features' surguests to me is that they are just going to go off what Mythic are doing with Age of Reconing and making it more 'spacey', which is no way a bad thing as theres no that much difference between both respective tabletop versions..
It's a shame EA, Mythic and THQ don't compare notes with both the IPs, it's techically the same IP and together they could make some damn good games
Is that Joe Madureira as in former X-Men comic artist Joe 'Mad'? if so expect this game to be a long time coming, that guy cant hit a deadline to save his life.
Yep that would be the same Joe Mad. It was his stuff that got me into comics... now I have a collection worth 20k.
He was fine for hitting comic deadlines, but when it comes to videogames I'm pretty sure every project he has been attached to has ended up being cancelled. This had better not go the same way, seriously... there will be a LOT of p**sed off WH40K fans if this ends up becoming vaporware...
I'll withhold final judgement until I've seen more solid info, but as with other people here I'm kind of a bit disappointed that they seem to be heading down the RPG route as opposed to something based around massive, visceral, persistent, real-time combat, be it shootery or hack-un-slashery in nature. At least Age Of Reckoning seems to be making inroads in that direction, although 40K was always my poison of choice.
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