Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy - the next Warhammer 40k RPG from Owlcat Games

[ArchAngel]

Day 1 purchase.

Playable on day 900

1 year is enough. I was just finishing my 2nd run of RT and the game is much different and more polished then when I did my first run at release more than 1 year ago.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

I'm hopeful! So far, it's complicated though.

I jokingly view it as this: Owlcat took the opposite lesson from Planescape:Torment and its development than the Disco Elysium boys did. They all saw what could change the nature of a game. But each went for different extremes.

Disco got rid of combat entirelly after experiencing Torment's slog of copypaste trash encounters replacing quality set pieces and questing in later areas such as Curst Prison (a result of crunch and rushing it so the game could meet its holiday season deadline). Owlcat based their entire business modell around that. I mean, these guys are about to release their fourth 150-200 hours longest CRPG ever opus in the span of like 7 years, plus DLCs plus Enhanced Editions... that's insane. It would have been insane in the 1990s, when production was simpler. It's an output that in terms of quantity would make Ubisoft's factory lines tweaked to ship content to customers blush. High arts (or a telltale sign of superior quality control) it is, however, not.

Mind you, I'm more frustrated than anything. For one, their type of game is right up my alley. Then I also like the better parts. I just wish half of it wouldn't be such a filler slog.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I mean, these guys are about to release their fourth 150-200 hours longest CRPG ever opus in the span of like 7 years, plus DLCs plus Enhanced Editions... that's insane. It would have been insane in the 1990s, when production was simpler. It's an output that in terms of quantity would make Ubisoft's factory lines tweaked to ship content to customers blush

They're releasing their fourth game WHILE working in two other projects. I gonna take a wild guess and suggest that Owlcat is doing this ''factory line'' approach to keep money coming in , so they can actually bank/fund their ''high art'' projects since there no a single hint of what possible could be their Big Triple A game. Wishful thinking but alas

 

[ArchAngel]

I mean, these guys are about to release their fourth 150-200 hours longest CRPG ever opus in the span of like 7 years, plus DLCs plus Enhanced Editions... that's insane. It would have been insane in the 1990s, when production was simpler. It's an output that in terms of quantity would make Ubisoft's factory lines tweaked to ship content to customers blush

They're releasing their fourth game WHILE working in two other projects. I gonna take a wild guess and suggest that Owlcat is doing this ''factory line'' approach to keep money coming in , so they can actually bank/fund their ''high art'' projects since there no a single hint of what possible could be their Big Triple A game. Wishful thinking but alas

There is no AAA high art games anymore, it is all a slop.

 

[Ibn Sina]

They are releasing fourth game in a row in quick succession because they are reusing all the assets and animations and even game systems 4 times in a row with minimal tweaking or improvement. This is precisely the reason they are able to release so quickly. 4 games in a row and there is barely any in improvement in art, systems, graphics models or anything really. They ignore criticism and feedback and release each game with the same faults and errors as the last in half broken fashion. You can guarantee 30-40% of the game is unplayable in initial release and have to wait a year for fixes or use console commands and third party dev tools to blunt force your way through their buggy mess.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Yeah but so far I haven't been disappointed. I mean to be fair I really like their take on Rogue Trader.

 

[TheKing01]

Yeah but so far I haven't been disappointed. I mean to be fair I really like their take on Rogue Trader.

Agreed, only issue I've had consistently with Owlcat is the wargame thing they shove into every installment.

The inclusion isn't really the problem as much as the execution is just not very good from what I've experienced in Kingmaker, WoTR and Rogue Trader.

 

[Jaedar]

Couldn't you play or have a Grey knight in TTRPG of Dark Heresy?

Yes. It was the second worst supplement, only one worse was ascension.

 

[Rieser]

Yeah but so far I haven't been disappointed. I mean to be fair I really like their take on Rogue Trader.

Agreed, only issue I've had consistently with Owlcat is the wargame thing they shove into every installment.

The inclusion isn't really the problem as much as the execution is just not very good from what I've experienced in Kingmaker, WoTR and Rogue Trader.

I actually kind of liked the wargame in Rogue Trader. More fun than the dogshit in the Pathfinder games, anyway.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Yeah but so far I haven't been disappointed. I mean to be fair I really like their take on Rogue Trader.

Agreed, only issue I've had consistently with Owlcat is the wargame thing they shove into every installment.

The inclusion isn't really the problem as much as the execution is just not very good from what I've experienced in Kingmaker, WoTR and Rogue Trader.

I actually kind of liked the wargame in Rogue Trader. More fun than the dogshit in the Pathfinder games, anyway.

You're talking about Naval combat? Agree with that.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

 

[Darth Roxor]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

 

[TwoEdge]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

Sigh... If only... They're actually catering to the romance crowd, believe it or not.

 

[Infinitron]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

I'm not sure that tweet has anything to do with Dark Heresy. They're still creating content for Rogue Trader.

EDIT: I'm wrong

 

[The Nameless One]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

Wouldn't complain if we had both.

 

[Trithne]

If they actually limited themselves to something suitable to the scale of dark heresy the crowd that has never touched a model would ask where all the 40k was

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I'm not sure that tweet has anything to do with Dark Heresy. They're still creating content for Rogue Trader.

These enemies appear in the trailer. Also there's a little Dark Heresy logo.

 

[ArchAngel]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

Wouldn't complain if we had both.

Maybe you missed recent news about DoW Definitive Edition?

 

[The Nameless One]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

Wouldn't complain if we had both.

Maybe you missed recent news about DoW Definitive Edition?

Free stutter and glitches in 4k with dubious x64 support? Yeah I doubt I missed anything.

 

[ArchAngel]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

Wouldn't complain if we had both.

Maybe you missed recent news about DoW Definitive Edition?

Free stutter and glitches in 4k with dubious x64 support? Yeah I doubt I missed anything.

Then why would you want Owlcat to have any connection with DoW when all their games are collection of bugs and glitches for at least 1 year?

 

[The Nameless One]

space marines, krootoxen

are these niggas making dark heresy or dawn of war

Wouldn't complain if we had both.

Maybe you missed recent news about DoW Definitive Edition?

Free stutter and glitches in 4k with dubious x64 support? Yeah I doubt I missed anything.

Then why would you want Owlcat to have any connection with DoW when all their games are collection of bugs and glitches for at least 1 year?

Anything's better than what they did with Relic and DoW 3, even owlcunt.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

https://www.thegamer.com/warhammer-40k-dark-heresy-gritty-dark/
> No Reused Assets
> They basically confirmed a Mechanicus Companion.
> They ''fought'' for this Mechanicus Companion to be romanceable.,
> Working alongside Aaron Dembski-Bowden to nail the writing for The Night Lords
Rejoice, Fucking Toasters add to Dark heresy.

More Gritty, More Dark, And More Intimate”: How Owlcat Games Is Ripping Up The CRPG Rulebook For Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy​

By Ben Sledge
Published 7 hours ago

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Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy​

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Innocence proves nothing. The taint of the Dark Gods can fall upon anyone, anywhere. Under the accursed glow of the Tyrant Star, it’s the Inquisition’s job to purge the seeds of heresy before they can bloom. Your will is absolute and judgment final. No interrogation technique is off the table. The ends justify the means. No, this isn’t the US government, it’s the darker side of the Warhammer 40K universe.
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Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy borrows its name from a tabletop RPG, but the similarities don’t run much deeper than the Inquisitorial focus of both games. Despite that, Owlcat Games still aims “to bring the feeling of playing the tabletop game”, executive producer Anatoly Shestov tells me over video call. This is a grittier, more grimdark entry into the Warhammer 40,000 canon, a far cry from the heroics of our plucky Rogue Traders in Owlcat’s previous excursion to the far future.

“First and foremost, we are aiming to tell more gritty, more dark, and more intimate stories and speak in a more serious and less heroic language with the players about the things going on in the Imperium,” Shestov explains.
The murky Inquisition are the perfect stars for this grisly excursion, being the Imperium’s equivalent to a secret police, sniffing out heretics in every corner of the universe. In the Calixis Sector, they’ll have their work cut out for them, with abhumans, xenos creatures, and the bureaucratic machinations of their own organisation standing in their way.
Shestov wants Dark Heresy to be a step up from Rogue Trader in every feasible manner. Full voice acting is already confirmed, but the developers want to deliver a “less buggy, more polished gaming experience” this time around. Despite Rogue Trader earning plaudits from Warhammer fans and CRPG players alike, Owlcat is starting afresh for its next game in that universe.

Starting Over​

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“We will be redoing everything from scratch,” he tells me. “Even the design things, mechanical things, abilities, options, role-playing systems. There will be changes even in the basic stats. There will be changes in ways the player can itemise [things] and there will be significant changes in the tone of the story and the way that we tell this particular story.”
No assets will be reused, but Dark Heresy does have some links to Rogue Trader. Most notably, a lot of the ideas for the CRPG came from the prior game’s cutting room floor. “By the middle of the production of Rogue Trader, there were already a bunch of story hooks, interesting thoughts that we felt would be interesting to explore,” Shestov explains.

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It’s not easy to just switch the protagonist from intergalactic salesman to a member of the Imperium’s secret police, so the gameplay has shifted significantly to match. “We decided that the whole story would be smaller in scale, but wider in a variety of the ways you can react [to it]. Not just in terms of a story, but in terms of level design, in terms of combat design, in terms of alliances. Every bit of the things that we are making, we are making for the Dark Heresy with variety as one of the cornerstone design principles.”
At this early stage, it seems one of the most important new mechanics will be the investigation tool. Shestov immediately references the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Pepe Silvia meme – connecting the threads of evidence, interviewing suspects, and figuring out who’s a heretic and who’s not.
Or you’ll just execute the first person you come across. It’s up to you. That planetary officer showed you disrespect? Heretic. Someone doesn’t do their job right? Heretic. Who’s going to question the Inquisition?

The Good, The Bad, And The Inquisition​

As well as a deep investigation mechanic, combat is being completely reworked in order to be more satisfying. It now uses a morale system so your interrogations can assist you in (or even completely surpass the need for) fighting.
From the trailer, it’s clear that your primary foes will be the Night Lords, which were chosen thanks to a bunch of “hardcore Night Lords fans” in the team – think tattoos, lore quotes on demand, etc. But Owlcat is going the extra mile to portray the sadistic Space Marines as three-dimensional characters rather than cartoon baddies.

“We spent quite an effort to make them not just the bad boys,” Shestov says. “We're working with [Black Library author] Aaron Dembski-Bowden to flesh them out as proper Night Lords. We are spending resources for the Nostraman language to appear inside the game and to be a serious thing.
“We want to depict the Night Lords not just as regular Space Marines who landed on your roof and started to shoot things. We are aiming to express a full-scale operation of the Night Lords with all the countermeasures that the local government is putting to prevent this, with all the investigations that Inquisition launches to understand what's happening.”

Enemies, Lovers, And Robot Smoochers​

I tried pushing Shestov on any other races we’d see in the game – antagonists or otherwise – but he kept his cards close to his chest. Other than the Tyrant Star, a mysterious stellar anomaly that can’t be fought by traditional means, he confirmed that fans will come face to face with an unusual cast on their travels in the Calixis Sector.
“There are some abhumans in our setting that are tolerated inside the Imperium. And there are not just abhumans that are being somehow tolerated inside the Imperium. And there are some xenos that are being tolerated in the borders of the Imperium. And we will be introducing all of them.”
We know there’s an Ogryn in the game already – a tolerated abhuman – but there’s plenty of space to play in this regard. I wonder if our Kroot companion could lead to some interactions with T’au, or other xenos species affiliated with the Greater Good. It’s a stretch, and we’re more likely to be seeing the Leagues of Votann roll up, but I want to see my psychic space bears. Whatever aliens turn up in the final game, Owlcat is rooting down the back of the sofa to find the species that even the most ardent Warhammer fan has long forgotten.

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The developer is also pushing the boundaries of romance. Shestov acknowledges that a “main fault” of Rogue Trader was the unromanceable Mechanicus companion, Pasqal. Rejoice, robot lovers, because that’s changing this time around. “We are fighting hard to make this particular companion, the Mechanicus one, romanceable,” he says. “And it would be the craziest romance I've ever encountered in a role-playing game.”
On that note, it’s time to sing a canticle to the machine spirit and ensure my PC is up to the task of some serious mechadendrite-on-mechadendrite action. In the meantime, we’ve got at least three more pieces of Rogue Trader DLC to look forward to. We’ll have more from Shestov on that next week, but what if I told you that you’ve only seen half the pets that are being added in the Lex Imperialis update?
https://www.thegamer.com/warhammer-40k-emperors-children-flawless-blades-iron-hands-conversion/

 

[Trithne]

The developer is also pushing the boundaries of romance. Shestov acknowledges that a “main fault” of Rogue Trader was the unromanceable Mechanicus companion

 

[Tyranicon]

Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Isn't this guy considered controversial?

I don't know much about post 2015 40k, but I get the sense that some people don't like him.

 

[ArchAngel]

The developer is also pushing the boundaries of romance. Shestov acknowledges that a “main fault” of Rogue Trader was the unromanceable Mechanicus companion

Yea, everyone knows that honor belongs to sister Argenta.