I wish we could have gotten a Space Marine sequel. The bits where you got a jetpack and a big ass hammer were just about the most fun I’ve had with a game.
I raise you one Dawn of Awesome! (this is taken from a cutscene speech in Dawn of War 1: Soulstorm)
Yeah, at least half the fun of the Warhammer 40,000 setting and the Dawn of War games is embracing the “rule of cool” and just having a blast turning things up to 11. Whether that be the gothic music, the grimdark aesthetic, the love and attention in the animations (especially sync kills), the voice overs for the soldier barks and such, and other non-eSports focused elements.
Stuff like this was part of what sold me on the original Dawn of War back in the day, alongside playing the demo and enjoying it.
Dawn of War 2 has like over 10 MINUTES of unit responses per hero unit.
Definitely hoping Relic hit a return to form with Age of Empires IV because I harbor doubts as to the studio’s future if they suffer another heavy failure. The events of Dawn of War III naturally led to a lot of staff at the studio being let go and confidence in the studio’s talents hitting an all-time low.
Doubtful they could rely solely on the Company of Heroes series to keep them alive in the long-term, and really would be a lot of pressure on them to deliver a strong critical and commercial success with a Company of Heroes III.
The upside of them throwing the license around is we actually get games.
The downside is that most of them are garbage and trying to sort through the chaff is annoying.
That said, I’ll take it. I’d love to see a Dawn of War I successor though.
Those campaigns with the world maps in Soulstorm (I think?) were just fun.
I need to re-install Space Marine. I wanted to love it, but couldn’t get past the second or third level.
I profoundly disagree with the article. There are never enough games. Warhammer is a very broad IP I am delighted there are so many ways to explore it. I want more not less.
Dont like em? dont buy em. I do like them and I want more.
Que the “We were black listed by Games Workshop!” article later this year after publishers reasonably decide that Kotaku is going to be unfairly biased against new WH games sent their way.
A full-on remaster of DoW 1 would make me very, very happy. Relic was in such a zone with DoW 1 and CoH 1.
And I could happily live out the rest of my days never seeing another warhammer game.
I’ll see myself out of this thread now that I realize it’s not what it was billed as at the top. ;)
Its all good! I think fellow gamers should pass on stuff they are sick of!
I just think its weird and counter productive for a gaming enthusiast site like Kotaku to be calling for less games or signaling in advance they dont like certain IP before seeing what the games are :)
One of my biggest disappointments.
I respect Games Workshop’s position on licencing their IP for video games. I think they realised they are not a video game company and they are not trying to pick winners, but will allow pretty any dev to make a game. They’re confident enough in their IP that the publicity of seeing the Warhammer name over and over outweighs any individual dud game.
From the dev perspective that gives a lot of small teams the chance to make a game with a multi-million IP that they would never get a chance to otherwise. That assists hugely with discoverability.
If the price of Total Warhammer is an infinite number of shovelware titles -it was worth it.
Ah, that explains why this game looks/plays so well. You may be tired of the setting but this game looks very good.
Games workshop is going mainstream, you will be hearing a lot more from them…
I don’t mind them shotgunning their title, its given us some serious kick ass games. I think don’t think its fair to give it a bad rep just cause they want their title more visible.
More games is generally a good thing, because that increases the odds of good games. But tarnishing a brand is not a good thing, since it creates the perception – from which I’m currently looking – that your brand is a net negative.
So, basically, if it’s a Warhammer game, I am automatically less interested. Which is a relatively recent development! I used to find Warhammer stuff pretty intriguing, and even as recently as Gladius, I thought some of the lore was really cool. But now I’d just as soon have generic sci-fi or fantasy over Warhammer blather. Games Workshop has only themselves to blame for losing the Tom Chick market and I’m sure they’re weeping all the way to the bank!
-Tom
I’m an old 40K tabletop player, so on the one hand I’m thrilled to see the license flourishing and there are certainly some fantastic games using that license (Dawn of War and Gladius are top of their respective genres for me). But yeah, even I think there’s too damn many Warhammer games and, as a direct result of that glut, too many bad ones. I’ll differ from Tom here, though, and say that even as jaded as I’ve become I’ll still take an extra hard look at anything flying the 40K flag, particularly. Fantasy is less interesting to me personally but there’s some good stuff among the dreck there too, of course.
I like the Warhammer IP, because of its tabletop origins the games are ideally suited to setups where alot of diverse faction armies are getting mashed together for war. For instance, I highly doubt a Lord of the Rings: Total War or Game of Thrones: Total War could have been nearly as fun as Warhammer Total War.
Got to agree with Tom though that the lack of curation is hurting the brand. I haven’t actually heard of this Gladius title till now because I usually discount any Warhammer game that isn’t from a developer I already know.
Gotta check the front page now and again.