Warhammer 40,000, conceived and produced by Games Workshop, is a grim space fantasy set in the 41st millennium, when the galaxy is at constant war. The interstellar empire of humanity is besieged from all sides and it’s slowly rotting away from the inside, tainted by the Chaos Gods. And this is exactly where Inquisitors come into play. They are powerful secret agents roaming the galaxy to root out the taint of Chaos and heresy.
Who are the Inquisitors?
Inquisitors can come from different backgrounds, and the available classes in the game reflect their diverse training. Classes are very important in the game, as they determine the active and passive skills, the gear, the visual progress and also the core gameplay. You play quite differently with a swift Assassin Inquisitor or with the heavy, Crusader-type Inquisitor. Note that the presentation includes rough prototypes at the moment that lack additional fine-tuning.The Caligari Sector and the Star Map
The Star Map represents our own sandboxed region in this vast universe, the Caligari Sector: this is the hub of all activities. The Caligari Sector consists of subsectors, star systems and points of interests – special locations where missions spawn. Inquisitor – Martyr starts in one of the subsectors, which is a rich and complex world to begin with, encompassing many star systems and a huge number of planets, but as a persistent open world sandbox, it will be expanded even further. New subsectors will be unlocked gradually, while the ongoing storyline of the region is progressing, which you can personally influence, along with other members of the community. During certain milestone events the community as a whole will influence the consequences through the players’ personal decisions, turning the Sector into a dynamically changing world. We only introduce the conflict that generates certain missions and let the players decide on a meta-level which side they will take in this conflict.
A Living, Persistent World
In the open world game mode, which we call the Inquisitorial Campaign, you will be an Inquisitor with your own ship, free to wander the Caligari Sector and access various missions. You’ll see all available missions on the Star Map. Sometimes these are stand-alone assignment, sometimes a mission gives you clues that could lead to a new assignment. There will be specifically tailored missions, written separately and tied together with the help of special clues and they form the so-called Grand Investigations. And there is of course the most special investigation of all, the single player campaign. This is a very personal mission set on an abandoned fortress-monastery “Martyr”, which hides a terrible secret from the past of the Inquisition. Note that apart from the maps of the single player campaign, you’ll have the opportunity to play a co-op game up to four players.
From time to time we are going to launch so-called Seasons, which are integral to provide fresh content. A Season is a free content patch with a very strong central theme. A season will introduce new enemy types – new races, new factions, new conflicts, new investigations, mini-campaigns that fill out the background of the season. Seasons will run for a certain length and then they will be resolved, depending on how the Inquisitors of the Caligari Conclave decide on certain matters. These community decisions will leave their mark on the sector.
The Gameplay
When you go on a mission, you’ll enter an ARPG map. You won’t see the same map twice: they are randomly generated, using prefabricated segments put together like giant puzzle pieces, each provided with different objectives. We included everything in the gameplay that makes an ARPG work – like leveling up, loot system, and so on – and at the same time we also introduced some fundamental improvements as well. First of all, we chose a more tactical approach that fits the atmosphere of the grim 41st millennium. We wanted to create the impression that you are participating in a war. We reworked the enemy AI, so the groups have leaders who coordinate their attacks, the snipers will shoot at you from behind covers and the flankers will do whatever it takes to keep you from getting closer to your target. However, one of the truly fundamental improvements over other ARPGs is the cover system. Both you and your enemies can use certain objects as covers, which can also be destroyed.
When you deal out massive amounts of damage, you can demolish the environment around you, which is both a tactical element and a spectacular display of destruction that recalls the sense of constant warfare. We also wanted to squeeze as much blood and gore into the gameplay as possible. This is a Warhammer 40K game, after all. Not to mention that you can have aimed attacks at giant creatures and bosses, getting rid of their limbs and special abilities. Or you can finish off the boss creatures with the various execution moves.
There is still plenty more to talk about, of course. We’ll have a lot more exciting things to share with you during the coming months and I hope you’ll have just as much fun playing our game as we have making it.
When will the game release?
Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor– Martyr will release in 2017, first on PC, then on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.