RPS has a great preview of Relic’s Space Marine game, set in the Warhammer 40k universe. It sounds like it could be a helluva lot of fun.
About five minutes into my demonstration of Relic’s Space Marine I realise what I’m looking at is a 3rd person shooter that draws heavily from Gears of War, so I ask an obvious question. “Is there some kind of cover system?” Relic man grins. “Actually, the team has an internal line about that. We say, ‘Cover is for Pussies.’”
I don’t take my eyes off the screen, but my ears do a double take. “We do have this though,” says Relic man. With the press of a button he sends Ultramarine Captain Titus running straight through a low wall of cover like a wrecking ball, and begins hacking apart the orks on the other side with his chainsword. “Oh,” I hear myself say, mesmerised. “Right!”
There’s a very specific image of a Space Marine Relic are pursuing here, one distinct from the rules of the Warhammer 40K tabletop game or Relic’s own RTS. It’s the image of a Space Marine put forward by 40K’s fiction, which I’ll summarise.
Space Marines are given 19 extra internal organs to help them fight, including an extra heart and a bonus lung. Their bones are laced with a ceramic substance which also causes their rib cage to grow into a solid plate. Their Power Armour is inches thick, and the Marines interface with it through cybernetic fibres that grow into their chest. Plus, all Space Marines carry inside them the enhanced genetic material of the Primarchs, superhuman generals bred when humanity was at its zenith. Altogether a Space Marine weighs around a ton and is a legendary badass, said to be the match of 1,000 Orks.
…
So, no, there’s no cover system, and that’s not just because it doesn’t fit the fiction. It’s also because Relic are trying to create a game that’s precisely half shooting and half melee combat, and apparently they found out that if you have cover then people just hunker down behind it. Hardly ideal when every single piece of Space Marine art in existence shows them standing up. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how far they can even bend their legs.
Watching the trailer on YouTube has me completely stoked, I love me some 40k and I definitely love me some Space Marines. I’ve enjoyed and have been really grateful for the Dawn of War games (and before that, I was a fan of Final Liberation and way before that, Space Hulk), but playing the fiction in this format will be great. I just hope there’s more than Orks as opponents. Smashing greenskins is Emperor’s work, but smashing traitors and heretics is far more gratifying.
Disappointing that they took out the RPG and squad stuff. I’m sure I’ll enjoy a straight up 40K action game, but the original design was much more intereseting to me.
It sounds a little like it has more in common with God of War that Gears of War, both in terms of the tenor of the action and with the upgradeability of the weapons. It’s cool that Relic is getting a chance to take 40k out of the RTS genre.
Until then, take my word for it. Space Marine is the game of this:
…followed by a picture out of one of the books (Codex Spacemarines maybe?) of SM’s in a small groups with a pile of Tyranid carnage around them. Classic.
fairly sure it’s extra of each organ types, so they have 4 lungs, 2 hearts, 4 kidney etc etc etc, on top of specialized organs that let you do inhuman stuff like spitting acids.
not sure about testicles…
here is list of things they get. Space marine is like a moving organ plant.
Cover is for Pussies. Love it. I’m not usually a big fan of pure destroy and burn FPS games, but this one has intrigued me with it’s over the top happy killing and the setting.
