Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr - WH40K action-RPG from NeocoreGames

[vonAchdorf]

Well, on mobile there is:

 

[Inspectah]

Yeah, but fuck mobile gaming.
Still don't understand how you people can play games without pressing buttons

 

[prodigydancer]

People are excited because its Warhammer but ARPG isn't something you can save by attaching a fancy setting to it. It's all about mechanics. Now I don't know, maybe VH3 is better but I'm playing VH1 right now and it's mediocre to the max. I mean I create a character, look at the skill tree and about the first thing I see is that Forked Lighting "releases splitcount_ smaller bolts" - i.e. the name of a variable instead of its value. Great coding, morons. (It's two years after release and game version is 1.4.)

OK, to hell with it. Let's see how it feels. Aha, balance is nonexistent. I play on Heroic and regular mobs don't do any noticeable damage. Champions, however... here's one example: a pack of extra fast, mana draining, teleporting wolves. You can't cast spells at them because you're mana drained (they are melee but their mana drain is a ranged beam). You can't get out of melee because they teleport. You can't stand and shoot because they swarm you and you go down in under 2 seconds. Oh, and there's 4 of them and each has 2x your HP. Good luck dealing with such encounters when you're level 5 with crappy gear.

I say this as a certified ARPG junkie who played Diablo 2 for like 3 years non-stop in the days of yore and had multiple legit 90+ hardcore characters: Neocore doesn't have a fucking clue about the genre.

 

[Inspectah]

I say this as a certified ARPG junkie who played Diablo 2 for like 3 years non-stop in the days of yore and had multiple legit 90+ hardcore characters.

Are you me?

 

[Suicidal Meat Slapper]

I take it GW had to find some way to make up for the massive amounts of cash they lost due to the newest edition of 40k. Still, I can see potential in Inqusitor as long as it does something not previously seen in ARPG's and can take advantage of the IP.

 

[Helly]

Why is it so hard to make a proper 40k tactic turn based game?
I mean, we even have a wargame(and a pretty good one at that), why not a TBS squad game?

There already is one, brah.

Dat music, too.

 

[Inspectah]

I know, but I want a new one, already played that one to death.
And yeah, the soundtrack is absolutely amazing

 

[groke]

Dat music, too.

Doesn't have anything on Final Liberation:


What I wouldn't give for an open-source rewrite of FL that actually used the Epic ruleset.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamer.com/inquisitor-martyr-is-a-promising-warhammer-40k-action-rpg/

Inquisitor - Martyr is a promising Warhammer 40K action RPG

Warhammer 40,000 ought to be a great setting for a bloody, old-fashioned top-down action RPG. The universe is full of power-armoured individuals cutting swathes through enemies with mad weapons. Chief among these heroes are the Inquisitors: part crazed fanatic, part internal affairs agent, they find corruption everywhere and burn it with flamethrowers. They're judge, jury and executioner in one giant metal suit, with guns that can melt buildings.

Fresh from completing the Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing trilogy, Neocore reckons it can nail the fantasy with Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr. The focus is on weighty, thoughtful fights with clusters of smart enemies. You can blast them from afar with a bolter or rend them with a chainsword at handshake distance while your foes—mostly Chaos heretics so far—work together to avoid a gory death. "They are going to have AI, which means that they are going to have leaders, they are going to send out alerts" says lead writer Viktor Juhasz.

They're going to take cover, too. Like the grandiose stone masonry of the Imperial battleship you fight through, cover can be blown to chunks with bolter fire. "You can use the cover, monsters can use the cover, and sometimes if you try to jump into the middle of a group behind the cover, the monsters might flee and find refuge behind the cover on the other side". From the footage I've seen so far, this leads to longer encounters than you'd expect from Diablo or Torchlight. It works. The Inquisitor is a clanking, loping figure, locked into a holy sarcophagus that doubles as armour; don't expect any dodging backflips.

Your Inquisitor can be upgraded throughout the story campaign. "Well, we are going to use the traditional level-up system, and we are going to use a crafting system, which will be smoothly tied into the 40K lore, and we are going to have various skills tied to various weapons, and we are going to have some skills which are tied to the different classes," Juhasz explains. At one point in the video the Inquisitor picks up a plasma cannon and the skills on his taskbar shift to a new set of abilities. It fires powerful blasts of luminous blue flame, but can overheat when used too often.

The story is largely set aboard an ancient drifting spaceship monastery that "belonged to a very obscure sect of he Inquisition a very, very long time ago". The developers want it to feel like a horror scenario akin to Alien, which is the reason the campaign will only be playable alone. "The sense of exploration, the sense of claustrophobia, is very important, which could be ruined a bit by having, I don’t know, three of your friends swarming all over the place and jumping through the same cutscenes and dialogues."

You will still get to visit open areas set on moons and planets, and there are contained vehicle sections that let you requisition some of the Empire's finest war machines. If you're keen to play with others and explore more open environments Martyr contains an immediately-accessible Inquisitorial Campaign mode. This randomly generates missions spread across an entire sector of space, and is designed to give some context to your crusading. There are various factions to impress, and the sector can suddenly find itself beset by invasion from some of the meaner villains of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

"These events will pretty much just introduce a conflict and it’s up to the players to decide which side they’re going to take. So, for example, one of the sub-sectors is attacked by the Dark Eldar and the other one is attacked by the Orks, and the player is, on a metagame level, going to decide which chains of missions they’re going to embark on, and based on what the majority of the players decided, that’s going to determine what the next event will be."

In addition you can build fortresses that can be invaded by other Inquisitors, adding an indirect PvP element to the sector-wide metagame. As your Inquisitor becomes more powerful, you can fly to new subsectors swarming with fiercer enemies. The Inquisitor Campaign will provide a gradual drip-feed of progress that will hook players for a long time, or so Neocore hopes.

The metagame will be irrelevant if Martyr's core combat isn't up to standard, and it faces some serious competition from Diablo 3. However, it's good to see the game pursuing its own style and pace, which carries right through to boss fights. At the end of the video the Inquisitor fights a towering demon of Nurgle. Large monsters have locational damage systems, which the Inquisitor exploits to blow both of its arms off before putting it out of its misery. It's gory, tactical, and suitably over-the-top. If the combat becomes stompy and satisfying enough, this could be a neat addition to the ever-growing roster of Warhammer games. It's due out next year.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Inquisitors wear power armor?

 

[Jaedar]

Inquisitors wear power armor?

When they feel like it. Human-compatible power armor is not as good as the ones spehs mehrens use though, and because they don't have a black carapace humans can't move around as easily in them.

I really want this game to be good, but its basically a foregone conclusion that it won't be.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Inquisitors wear power armor?

They do:

Ignatus Power Armour

A suit of Ignatus Pattern Power Armour often used by Inquisitors in the field

Although not as durable as the suits of Power Armour worn by the Adeptus Astartes, Ignatus Power Armour is a far step above the patterns of combat armour sold to dilettante Imperial nobles and mercantile cartels. Ignatus Pattern Power Armour is produced by skilled Adeptus Mechanicus artisans for the express purpose of equipping agents of the Inquisition. Many militant Inquisitors equip themselves with Ignatus Armour, girding their bodies with ceramite just as they gird their souls with faith. Like all suits of Power Armour, Ignatus Armour consists of an ingenious merging of thick ceramite protective plates and a complex system of muscle-like, electrically motivated fibrebundles to augment the user's movements and strength. This technology is so miraculous that one wearing Power Armour can move and fight as if he was unencumbered, his suit's augmetic systems compensating entirely for the armour's crushing weight and bulk.

Ignatus Power Armour provides the following benefits to its bearer: The suit’s removable helmet contains the equivalent of integral, high-quality photo-visors (providing the user with darkvision and the ability to see in multiple spectrums of light, as well as making the wearer immune to the effects of photon flash grenades), a Vox micro-bead, and an integral Auspex sensor suite. These devices can be controlled by speaking to the armour's Machine Spirit (Artificial Intelligence), or the wearer can commune with his armour directly if he has a cerebral plug, Mind Impulse Unit, or similar device device implanted within his cerebral cortex. When the helmet is attached, the suit has a self-contained life sustainer that allows the bearer to ignore toxic atmospheres and gasses, and even survive underwater or in a vacuum. The system operates as long as the armour has power.

The suit has an integral backpack power supply that can last for five days of continuous combat operations (if the Power Armour is not being used in combat, its power supply can last for far longer). If the suit becomes unpowered, it becomes a rigid tomb for the wearer, who must make a hellish effort to simply move. The helmet's Machine Spirit does open exterior vents automatically before powering down, so that its wearer does not suffocate.

The first suits of true Power Armour date back to the Emperor's Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy, and many are maintained for centuries or millennia as much religious relics as protective gear. Ignatus Armour is no exception, and it is not uncommon to find suits encrusted with religious iconography, inscribed with holy runes of warding, or inlaid with subtle defensive systems. Ignatus Power Armour is commonly inlaid with Hexagrammic Wards which provide the wearer with a greater ability to resist psychic powers or attacks.

 

[The Nameless Pun]

I can't believe there isn't a proper rpg set in the warhammer 40k universe. GW has always distributed the rights like some kind of joyful clown throwing candies at a birthday party. I don't know if this is some kind of market strategy, in an attempt to raise the probabilities of a decent game being made by letting as many people as possible developing various titles. The fact is, until now the majority of these titles suck and right now there are like five companies developing shit around the world. I've always imagined the role of an inquisitor as a big moral conundrum, having to choose which people to sacrifice and how many for the greater good, an exploration of the edges of the human sense of duty by examining the link between the good of the few and that of the many. Where does duty end and heresy begin, what is the limit of your humanity facing the monstrosities the galaxy throws at you, in order to defend humanity you need to cast yours away and transcend to a higher moral plane, one in which you are no longer bound by the chains of common ethics. These are the questions that a game about inquisitors should address and not how many tyranids you can eviscerate with your chainsword, lol.

 

[Naveen]

These new inquisitors are a bunch of gangstas. I'd do a 'papers, please'-like game where you play like a KGB agent, sending people to gulags and loling when you wrongly condemn a whole world. And this would be you:

Spoiler

 

[lightbane]

There already is one, brah.

There's another one too, quite obscure and unfortunately not very good, but oh well, it's better than nothing:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ds/941429-warhammer-40000-squad-command

Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command features fast, action-packed combat through turn-based strategy and an engaging, authentic single-player storyline. Gamers play as the elite Space Marines of the Ultramarines chapter and strive to combat the encroaching evil of the ruthless and daemonic influenced Chaos Space Marines through 13 cinematically-tied missions. With a robust multiplayer mode featuring 9 unique missions, gamers will team up and go head-to-head with other gamers worldwide as either the Imperium of Man or Chaos Space Marines, ensuring hours of unique replayability. Compelling single player game consisting of 13 unique missions.

Available for DS, PSP and emulators.

 

[The Nameless Pun]

There already is one, brah.

Dat music, too.

Is this game any good? The only warhammer-based game I've ever played is space marine and I'd like to try something a little better. Also, does it have any rpg elements, or is it just straight tactics?

 

[Quatlo]

Is this game any good? The only warhammer-based game I've ever played is space marine and I'd like to try something a little better. Also, does it have any rpg elements, or is it just straight tactics?

You have a set of marines for the whole campaign, they level up but if they die you cannot replace them.
The game is pretty good, first missions are a cakewalk but becomes harder when chaos vehicles and other nasty shit shows up.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Is this game any good? The only warhammer-based game I've ever played is space marine and I'd like to try something a little better. Also, does it have any rpg elements, or is it just straight tactics?

From what Kommissar remembers the Brothas under your command got XP for kills and IRC done missions, raise their atributes like accuracy and got cool nice perks like Crux Terminatus which allows them to use Tactical Dreadnought armor and wield better weapons; you found some loot too again IRC... So yes its TBS/RP hybrid game although there are no dialogues like in DoW2 or even in Warhammer Armageddon where you could choose your answers and from time to time even missions. Here the Campaign is linear but its still great game for fans of WH40K and Turn Based strategies. Go lot more fun than playing newest X-Com to be honest.

 

[Infinitron]

http://gamingbolt.com/warhammer-40k-inquisitor-martyr-interview-killing-monsters-for-years

Warhammer 40K Inquisitor Martyr Interview: Killing Monsters for Years
NeoCore Games talks about its action RPG and plans for constant content.

Pulling off a Warhammer 40K game is hard, especially when a developer has to balance such extensive lore with the mechanics in mind. That being said, there’s more than enough good reason to be giddy for Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor – Martyr, an action RPG from the studio behind The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. Besides its experience with the same (the Van Helsing series overall despite the middling third game is pretty good), NeoCore is also looking to maintain Inquisitor – Martyr with continuous free updates and expansions along with an interesting open ended world for end game battles.

GamingBolt had a chance to speak to lead narrative designer Viktor Juhász and producer Zoltán Pozsonyi who spoke about the various features and story of Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor – Martyr along with how its post-launch content updates would work. If you’re even the least bit excited about the game, then read on.

"It will be your average ARPG length, not counting the open world game mode, called Inquisitorial Campaign, which grants you years of entertainment."

NeoCore Games has achieved quite the level of success with its action RPGs like The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. What was it like to translate that approach to the Warhammer lore?

Viktor Juhász: We’ve learnt a lot during the development of the Van Helsing trilogy. We’re very proud of that project and we loved working on it. It was also a very important lesson for us and we are building on that experience in Inquisitor. There are some things that are essential for an ARPG but can’t be directly translated into the Warhammer universe. In terms of for example the loot system, the character progression and the skills, we’re doing things that nobody has ever done before; simply because nobody has ever had to do it before. It’s a passion project for us, and everyone at Neocore is very excited to be a part of it.

Can you tell us a bit about the story of Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr?

Viktor Juhász: Inquisitor – Martyr tells a classic haunted ship-scenario – with some twists. First of all, it’s set on an ancient spaceship-monastery floating among the stars, which hides something terrible. Secondly, you are an Inquisitor, just as fearsome as the monsters lurking in the empty halls. So the claustrophobic horror story turns into an action-packed, visceral action RPG. It’s all about a mystery with deep roots in the past of the Inquisition – about a terrible discovery and the price one must pay to make the right decision in such a grim universe.

How long will the game last overall? Will it feature a Veteran setting or various levels of difficulty for players wanting a challenge?

Viktor Juhász: It’s way too early to put a number on this one. It will be your average ARPG length, not counting the open world game mode, called Inquisitorial Campaign, which grants you years of entertainment. The story mode difficulty will always be scaled to the players’ current level, but the Inquisitorial Campaign will always pose new challenges for the players. So, when we open up a new subsector within the Caligari Sector, you might not want to go there right away…There will be a couple of heretics there with some nasty surprises in store.

Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr will feature a “persistent sandbox” that will continue the game after the story finishes. Could you provide more details on this? How similar is it to Diablo 3’s Adventure mode in terms of objectives and quests?

Viktor Juhász: In the Inquisitiorial Campaign we will open up an almost unlimited area for you outside of the framework of the story. You will be an Inquisitor with your own ship and your own group of followers, and you are free to wander the Caligari Sector and complete missions. The basic gameplay remains an Action-RPG gameplay, but we wanted to improve the long-term endgame with diversity. A lot of diversity… There will be a huge variety in mission types, the maps are randomly generated, so you won’t see the same maps with the same objectives all over. You can choose any quests you want, you can improve your character and increase your reputation in certain regions.

"Players will meet each other on a meta-game level and they leave their mark on the Caligari Sector which the others will be able to see."

This is a persistent world, where your decisions, actions and reputation matters. The Caligari Sector also has its ongoing storyline which is a composition of many factors. It is influenced by the missions, the balance between the various factions and of course the special Events that have an effect on the entire Sector. These Events generate chains of missions and the outcome of these missions will determine what the next Event will be. We only introduce the conflict, and let the players decide, which side they take in it.

Players will meet each other on a meta-game level and they leave their mark on the Caligari Sector which the others will be able to see. For example if you spend considerable time and effort to purge a whole star system, then you’ll be named as the protector of that territory and the other players will also know that. Until someone else comes along and accomplishes another high-profile mission there, obviously. What makes a world truly persistent is that players can feel that they have an impact on that world, and the world is not adjusted to them.

Warhammer 40,000 is well known for its squad-based scenarios and stories. Will players have a team of soldiers to command or simply fight solo?

Viktor Juhász: The story mode will remain a single-player only experience, but you will have a group of AI controlled followers. Followers in the Inquisitorial Campaign will also help you out, like defending your Inquisitorial Fortress. We know that this is an integral part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and we will talk about this in detail, in the not too distant future.

Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr will be heading to the PS4 and Xbox One alongside PC and Mac when it launches next year. What challenges did you face in developing for consoles and what prompted the decision to go beyond the PC for this release?

Viktor Juhász: Consoles have always been on our radar, as you might have heard The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing trilogy is also coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The new console generation’s architecture is very similar to the PCs and the machines are also powerful enough, so our biggest challenge is to make the controls feel just as intuitive with controllers, as it is with a keyboard and mouse setup.

In both the PC and console versions we wanted to find the balance between being faithful to the lore and to the requirements of a great ARPG. We had to overcome some serious technological challenges when we decided to revamp the engine. We still have a long way to go, like the creation of the persistent open world.

What kind of plans do you have for the “continuous flow of content”? Will there be periodic updates and new areas added to Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr?

Viktor Juhász: Our main goal is to keep the Caligari Sector alive and kickin’ for years and we also want the players to experience what is it like to be a part of an ever changing living universe. We will continously give out free content patches for the game and we will also publish two large standalone expansions. We haven’t made up our minds about smaller payable DLCs yet. Free and continuous content will help to keep the Sector alive.

One of the best things about the Inquisitorial Campaign is that it’s open-ended. We have many different ideas about how to further expand this vast territory with new planet types and enemies and of course we’re eager to hear what our fans want. During the development of the Van Helsing trilogy we built a very special relationship with our players, and their feedback was very important for us. We want to do the same with Inquisitor – Martyr, and ask them what they want to see in the game.


"Direct X 12 is more of a big, structural development that gives the programmers a lot more opportunity by providing them easier access directly to the GPU."

What online features can we expect in Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr? Will there be co-op and matchmaking for players?

Viktor Juhász: In the Inquisitorial Campaign up to for players will be able to play together in cooperative mode. The matchmaking is something that is very important for us, because we want to make it possible for our future Inquisitors to be able to get to together with their friends and kick some heretic ass. We’re still working on the finer details, but I can tell you, that the matchmaking system will be an integral part of the multiplayer experience.

Given the quick turn-around of NeoCore Games when it came to the Van Helsing series, how quickly can we expect Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr in the New Year?

Viktor Juhász: There’s still a long way to go and we want this game to be perfect on Day One. All we’re saying at the moment that Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr will be out in 2016. (And you’re going to love it)

Will Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr run at 1080p and 60fps on both the PS4 and Xbox One?

Zoltán Pozsonyi: This is still very early to talk about frame rates and resolutions. All I can tell you know is that we’re going to do our best to make the game shine on all the available platforms.

NeoCore Games has great experience in developing games for PC. Keeping that in mind what are your thoughts on DirectX12 and how do you think it will speed up and enhance game visuals on PC and Xbox One?

Zoltán Pozsonyi: Direct X 12 is not something that allows you to play around with new shiny effects during the development. It’s more of a big, structural development that gives the programmers a lot more opportunity by providing them easier access directly to the GPU. This means that they’ll have a lot more wiggle room for performance optimization and making the code run faster; if you’re able to squeeze out higher performance out of the GPU, that can be translated into framerate or more beautiful content in the game. DX12 supports asynchronous compute shaders, which for example allows you to use more and better quality special effects and post process stuff, a lot faster (screen space ambient occlusion, screen space reflection, better quality shadow mapping, transculency, tone mapping).


"We’re still in the early phase of the new generation (hence we’re still calling it the “new generation”), so it’s very hard to tell what the future holds for console gaming."

Both the consoles feature 8GB memory which by today’s PC gaming standards is bit below. More and modern PC games require a recommended 16GB memory. Do you think by the end of this console cycle, PS4 and Xbox One will run out of memory?

Zoltán Pozsonyi: There was a time when even 512 MB of RAM made us the happiest people on the planet – actually before that even less seemed to be more than enough. Programs tend to eat up as much RAM as the given hardware has – 5-6 years from now we’ll see hardware requirements which will far exceed the 8GB limit of the current generation of consoles, simply because the high-end PCs will have a lot more than that. At the end of this cycle the 8GB might seem tight, but it won’t have to make such a huge difference between the PC and console versions of a game. The limitation of the GPU-CPU computing speed seems a lot scarier at the moment.

From a developer perspective, do you think there will be another console cycle in PS5 and a successor to Xbox One? Or do you think games will become more of a service rather than limited to a hardware box?

Zoltán Pozsonyi: That’s a really good question. We’re still in the early phase of the new generation (hence we’re still calling it the “new generation”), so it’s very hard to tell what the future holds for console gaming. The industry is changing faster than ever and we’re really just trying to keep up with it. There are some very interesting experiments going on, but I think it will take more than a couple of years to perfect the technology behind it. We all remember the voices that proclaimed the downfall of consoles not too long ago, suggesting that this generation might be the last, but the current numbers don’t seem to support that theory.

It’s slightly similar to our own experience – 10 years ago we were constantly warned about the inevitable decline of PC gaming, and PC gaming still looks fine to us. We think that the decline of both PC and console gaming seems unlikely at the moment, and trends are shaped by gamers and not theoreticians, so we are ready to create games on platforms we have the opportunity to work for and which fit our chosen gameplay.

It’d be great to reach the point where games are not limited by hardware and the periphery, but we won’t think that it will happen very soon. It might be a safe bet to say that until console manufacturers have considerable success with their products, they won’t abandon the idea of a next generation. They base their decisions on financial realities, and as we see it, the sales numbers indicate that gamers clearly love buying consoles.

Is there anything else you want to tell us before I let you go?

Zoltán Pozsonyi: One thing that I think the players will love – and also one of my favorite features in Inquisitor. The Inquisitorial Campaign gives you the opportunity to build your own Inquisitorial Fortress. This will be your safe haven that you can improve and customize… and it will also serve as the way to introduce an indirect PvP mode.

You won’t fight other players directly, but the Inquisition has many Ordos and factions with different agenda and they are working in the same Sector as you. The bitter theological quarrels sometimes lead to clashes: never in public, always in the shadows. Which means that other players can attack your Fortress and you can do the same. The reward is, obviously, valuable loot from others.

 

[Rahdulan]

Inquisitorial Campaign sounds a lot like Adventure Mode from Diablo 3, although I certainly hope it will have more tangible variety. Playing as Inquisitor with your own ship and retinue does sound appealing.



Otherwise there were way too many "can consoles run it?" flavored questions there.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I really like the look of the game, the ARPG less. But I'm a bit concerned that they bite off more than they can chew. Releasing on PC and consoles at the same time and hosting a persistent multiplayer world seems to be very ambitious. NeoCore isn't exactly a huge company and the Van Helsing games didn't really have a successful multiplayer, iirc.
Also I don't see any publisher for the game, will they self-publish the project?

 

[prodigydancer]

the Van Helping games didn't really have a successful multiplayer

ARPG multiplayer is a hoax, unless it's BNet (but Blizzard games are awful for different reasons these days so BNet is just history for all practical purposes). This game will, sadly, go the way of Hellgate: London.

 

[Beowulf]

Some new footage:

 

[vonAchdorf]

Some cool concept art.

No level scaling in the open world game.

All races in the open world sandbox.

 

[LESS T_T]

Destructible environments.