14 DAY TRIAL // What we know
Space Marine is a video game that is developed by Relic Entertainment and will be published by THQ, aiming to translate the world of Warhammer 40,000 as created by Games Workshop into a third-person based action title.
The player will take on the role of a Space Marine captain named Titus who needs to defend a Forge World, one of the most important manufacturing centers of the Imperium, from an invasion of war hungry Orks before reinforcements can arrive.
It’s not clear whether the main Space Marine characters will come from the Blood Ravens chapter or from another one and what other races from the fictional universe will make appearances.
The game will mix ranged combat, with bolters taking front stage, with close quarters engagements with powers swords and axes.
The players controlled characters are set to lead a squad of four, with the others filling specialized tactical roles.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is set to launch on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC at some point during the summer of this year.
Why it matters
Recently the Warhammer 40,000 universe has been well explored by Relic in its first Dawn of War strategy series, with its four expansion, and now in Dawn of War II, which with Retribution seems to be aiming for the same level of coverage, but the experience has always been one which keeps its distance from the battlefield.
Space Marine is the project which allows gamers to get right into the action, down and dirty, close to the actual battle, using their genetically enhanced power and their awesome tools of destruction to actually take on the enemies of the Imperium and turn them into dust.
The challenge for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is to actually make the player feel more powerful than he has ever felt in a third-person shooter and to imbue him with that special feeling of fanaticism that seems to be the corner stone for the development of a good Space Marine.
Initial screenshots and reports about the game sound good, but Relic has only proven its pedigree as a strategy developers so far and it remains to be seen whether it can also deliver an outstanding third-person experience.