Warhammer Space Marine Developer Diary

Relic and THQ have released some insights about the ucpoming Space Marine game. It looks quite innovative and allows players to directly interact with the ingame cinematics. The graphics and environment look awesome!

FPSGuru recently interviewed the developers about the game.

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When first designing Space Marine, what elements of the 40K battlefields were you really trying to capture?

Matthew Berger: The scale was very important to us; the scale of the structures, of the devastation, of the threat. Everything had to be big and imposing.

And this isn’t just for the battlefields but for the whole world. Everything is bigger in the Warhammer 40,000 universe especially on a forge world that creates and assembles Titans, so we really wanted to capture that over arching feeling.

In fact one of our biggest challenges was creating a world that felt large for a Space Marine but where human sized people live and work.

We also looked at bringing to life the frenetic pace of battles. The tabletop may be played turn by turn but there’s a lot of action happening and the battlefield can completely shifts in the blink of an eye at times. It was important to try and represent the frenetic pace of combat of a 40k battle in a singleplayer campaign experience.

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Even though Ultramarines are featured, what other options are out there for players to check out some of the other Space Marine Chapters?

Matthew Berger: The campaign focuses on the Ultramarines and you will be playing as a member of that chapter. In multiplayer however you will have the ability to customize your Space Marine either to wear the colors of a specific chapter (Go Blood Ravens!); or create your own custom scheme.

Using the customizer players will be able to tailor the look of both their Space Marine and Chaos Space Marine. Players can either play as one of their favorite Space Marine chapters (such a Space Wolves or Black Templar’s) or Chaos Warbands (such as Iron Warriors or Emperor’s Children). Or they can combine existing armor and colors to create their own unique Marine from a wide range of combinations.

We worked extremely hard to allow as much customization as possible and that means you can really create any of your favorite existing chapters or complete new ones as well! We really look forward to seeing what the fans come up with as the options are almost limitless.

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What type of mentality went into creating the Orks for the game? How do the common Orks interact with their Bosses, Painboyz, or Big Meks?

Matthew Berger: Since we were bringing the universe to a more action focused audience with Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine, we wanted to mold the execution of the Orks to match this.

One of our first decisions concerning the Orks was to move away from their more humorous side. We wanted to bring back their brutality, in the Lore this is a foe that makes whole planets quiver in fear and too often they’re portrayed more as comic relief than the threat they are.

This decision focused the creation of all the Orks, even the smaller Gretchins have a malicious wickedness to them and the regular Boys are vicious snarling creatures. Everything in their animation, modeling and behavior is meant to reinforce this.

Once we had decided on how they were going to be portrayed and what their individual behaviors were we looked at how they would act as a group. We experimented with squad behaviors and moral but the results weren’t satisfying so we abandoned those. Instead we focused on simpler interactions between the Orks themselves.

As an example smaller Orks have a tendency to cluster together and attack in packs as much as possible. While the Larger Nobs are less worried about having other Orks around them and indeed will gladly charge through Boys or even kill them outright as they attempt to get to the player.

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Even though Space Marine is primarily a solo game, the Space Marine Units are very critical in 40K, are their sections of the game that has you playing as part of a Specific Unit?

Matthew Berger: You function primarily as part of a small squad, but you only control one character. You play as Captain Titus of the Ultramarines and have at your side Sergeant Sidonus a long time comrade in arms and Leandros a new recruit (new as in only 75 years of service!).

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What was your favorite 40K weapon to bring to the shooter aspect of Space marine? Was it the Bolter, Melta, Plasma, or Flamer?

Matthew Berger: I’m actually a big fan of our Bolter; simple, effective and useful for all situations. It is by far my personal favorite weapon but I know some at Relic that swear by the awesome firepower of the Melta.

What was actually really interesting is that we were able to get in an experimental weapon that isn’t even part of the usual Space Marine arsenal, The Adeptus Mechanicus Vengeance Launcher.

This weapon fires up to five simultaneous explosives that stick to any surface. This allows the player to detonate these individually or all at once and with devastating limb flying effect.

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Can you give us some background on the story in the game? We know the Orks want the Forgeworld to launch their Waaagh, but there is also a threat of Chaos as well.

Matthew Berger: The story for Space Marine centers on the forge world of Graia. This particular forge world focuses on the production and assembly of Titans so even by the high standards of forge world it is one of immense importance for the Imperium.

Graia is currently weathering a brutal Ork invasion led by Warboss Grimskull that has overwhelmed its defenses and left it on the brink of falling to the green tide. As a last resort the Imperium decides to send in a force of Ultramarines led by Captain Titus. His objective is to secure any Titans first and then push back the Ork invasion.

Of course nothing is ever that simple in the 40k universe, as a darker more sinister threat involving Chaos is taking place on this planet as well.

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What are some of the combat elements that you felt were essential to the game?

Matthew Berger: Relic has a long history of making games in the 40k universe and there are lots of hardcore fans here who love that universe. It was very important for us to stay true to the lore and to the tabletop as much as possible.

For the combat this meant that your character, as a Space Marine captain, could not be some weakling easily overwhelmed by smaller foes. Indeed at any given moment on the battlefield you are clearly the superior threat.

Once we had decided that Titus would be as true a representation of a Space Marine (i.e. a walking war machine in-cased in amour), it became almost a no brainer to leverage the Ork numbers to create a threat worthy of his power. We worked very hard (especially our engineers) to provide battles where you are outnumbered sometimes up to 30 to 1 at any given time. Meaning you might be the deadliest thing around but at times the Orks become a never-ending green tide that could totally over power you.

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Even though 40K has all sorts of guns, a lot of the game takes place in the Assault phase. What did the team do to make the melee combat just as important as the ranged combat?

Matthew Berger: The simplest answer is that we worked very hard to make melee fun. Because If it’s not gruesomely satisfying to slice an Ork in two using your Chainsword, then you’re probably not going to want to do it at all.

Our animation team created fantastic execution moves that help sell the brutality of the assault phase. My personal favorite is when Titus guts an Ork with his Chainsword and then punches him in the back of the head just to make certain he’s dead (remember to always double tap your Orks).

Of course there are also practical reasons to use melee combat, it’s your main method of gaining health back for example. And just in case you needed any more motivation the Orks are numerous enough that you won’t be able to prevent them from getting into melee range at which point you’re better off pulling out the Chainsword than worrying about slapping another clip into the Bolter.

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The Warhammer 40,000 Universe is massive, of all things, what is your favorite part of the lore?

Matthew Berger: Actually my favorite part of the lore is something where we have very little information, Legion II and XI. I love reading all the threads online about the two lost Legion/Primarch, who they might be, why they could have been struck from imperial records etc.

In a similar vein there’s the Origins of the Blood Ravens which are shrouded in mystery and some people online have come up with very interesting theories. What’s fun for that one is that we came up internally with the Blood Ravens back-story and I’d love to be able share it in full through one of our games.