Big announcement in the gaming world as Games Workshop and Behaviour Interactive announced a 40K MMOG.
This is both exciting and daunting, as few MMOGs actually make it. Even the Star Wars version has struggled. Star Trek online had to go from a pay model to a free model (and is thriving now). You can check it out here.
So here was the announcement:
Behaviour Interactive and Games Workshop® proudly announce a new online game in theWarhammer® 40,000® universe: Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade. Behaviour
Interactive has obtained the rights to create a wholly new MMORPG
persistent war experience for PC, PS4 and Xbox One set in Games
Workshop's universe of the 41stMillennium. In the game, players choose a Warhammer 40,000 race
and fight directly as one of their warriors in massive conflicts for
territory. It will be up to each faction's community to determine their
own destiny as they vie for control of an entire planet.
"I am thrilled to announce what will finally be the first MMORPG based on the Warhammer 40,000 license," said Miguel Caron, Head of Studio, Online at Behaviour Interactive. "Eternal Crusade's team are all MMO development veterans and with the support of Behaviour's 20+ years of experience this is going to be the online Warhammer 40,000 universe game that fans have been dreaming of for years!"
"Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is the second milestone in Behaviours
new online strategic positioning after last year's Star Citizen
Announcement." said Rémi Racine, President and Executive Producer of
Behaviour. "We are very happy with the progress of the online studio and
you should expect more similar announcements to come."
"The depth, breadth and sheer level of detail that the Warhammer 40,000
universe has after 26 years of continuous development makes it one of
the great fantasy settings of our times." said Jon Gillard, Head of
Licensing at Games Workshop. "Experiencing the thrill of first hand
combat in this world of eternal conflict, with thousands of other
players beside you, will be fantastic."
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is currently in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One and will release in late 2015.
Main features of the game include:
- Experience the gameworld with 3rd-person, behind the shoulder action featuring precision gunplay and brutal melee combat with excruciating finishers;
- Participate in a persistent online war to conquer the planet, its fate completely in the hands of the players;
- Become a warrior from one of four initial factions, each unique and opposed to one another: Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Orks and Eldar.
- Participate in truly massive conflicts that simultaneously bring thousands of players to bear over territories and other strategic resources.
- Get behind the controls of Space Marine Rhinos, Predators, Ork Battlewagons and other iconic vehicles of the 41st millennium;
- Hack through genuinely challenging procedural content alongside your battle-brothers and never have the same experience twice;
- Earn the right to customize your builds in a deep progression system drawing on the rich Warhammer 40,000 universe.
- Found a Battle Squad with friends and prepare for conflict from your customized shared space in orbit - then drop down to the planet together and seek out glory!
About Behaviour Interactive
Based in Montreal, Quebec, Behaviour Interactive (www.bhvr.com)
is an independent world leader in the video game industry, employing
275 talented people in Montreal, Quebec, and Santiago, Chile. Since
1992, the company has developed over 140 fun games for everyone on all
major platforms. Today, the studio specializes in creating engaging and
reward entertainment built with market and platform in mind, through
mobile, online and console games. Behaviour works with the industry's
best media companies, including 505 Games, Activision Blizzard,
Bethesda, Disney, EA, Eidos, Games Workshop, Konami, Majesco, Microsoft,
Nickelodeon, Paramount, Sony, THQ, Ubisoft and Warner.
I will certainly sign up and I can't wait to see what the game has to offer. What is your take?
Loken
listen....i'm all for this, however Behaviour has done nothing but pump out shitty movie games over the years and had no practical experience in making a succesfull MMO....like ever. So although i am very excited to see this multi year dream become reality, the fact that they have literally just pumped out shitty games over the last X amount of years doesn't really fill me with alot of hope for an amazing game. Would liked to have seen Bioware or THQ done it instead.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the fact THQ doesn't actually exist anymore, hence why these guys have the license...
ReplyDeleteAlso, it took World of Warcraft 200 miilion $, 900 employees working directly on the project, and 4 years to develop the foundation for its success. Here, this company only got 275 employees, with an announced budget, with only a 2 1/2 year timeframe. Now assuming that this companies bread and butter is in low cost high volume game movies, as seen from their website and past exploits, atleast 1/3 of their workforce is going to be developing other games. Leaving about 175 employees to work on the W40K game. I would have much more faith if all of those people were MMO vets like the 900 employees who made WoW but the reality is that they are not. So the Economics of this doesnt really look good on the surface.
ReplyDeleteHowever, on the positive side, a W40K MMO might allow this production team the ability to carve out a niche for themselves and break themselves into another genre, and exceed our expectations. Also, hopefully the THQ liscence they bought had a good foundation of the work done for them, so that the team can flesh out the skeleton framework of THQ's prior work and production hours. All we can do is hope at this point..........
but any game is better than no game, and regardless of what its like i'll definitely play the damn thing anyway because W40k is my crack.....so there's that
ReplyDelete"Hack through genuinely challenging procedural content"
ReplyDeleteIs that supposed to entice me? Procedural content?
If it looks good near/on release, of course I'll be there trying it (Eldar woot woot)... But i agree with other comments that I'm a trifle skeptical about the MMORPG model (particularly across 3 platforms--which is my biggest worry of all that this is more cash-grab than a legitimate attempt at a sustainable MMORPG).
Cheers.
When are we going to hear more about GW taking away your dream of owning a gamestore? What happened???
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the chap from Wing Commander going for a company that couldn't meet his expectations with Star Citizen.
ReplyDeleteAs for 200mil on WoW? not in the beginning, SWTOR cost 150mil before release and was the most expensive game ever made.
There is also no way 900+ experienced MMO dev's helped make WoW before release as well, as there was very few MMO's in exsistence(EQ, DAOC, AO and WWII online are the only one's that spring to mind.
I do understand what you're saying about small teams and MMO's though, but Mortal online was far smaller then this and they had a bloody good crack at it, they just failed to keep their original vision intact with all the player influence.
There's hope Jim, but not as we know it.
Trev
Honestly, reading this reminded me of the 'Dark Millennium' MMO that was attempted and then dropped. I suspect that is exactly what engine they are using, and considering how...dull it looked to play, I have low hopes for it.
ReplyDeleteWould been som much happier if a mmo-experienced studio got the licence. Like Turbine for example.
ReplyDeleteWoW offers patches. If this game is going across multiple platforms, how are they going to fix problems when the arise? Sell you another copy for your Xbox?
ReplyDelete