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Complex Games is announcing today that it will make The Horus Heresy: Drop Assault, a mobile game based on the Warhammer 40,000 sci-fi universe. The game will test how well a franchise born with miniature wargame pieces in the 1980s will carry on in the modern digital gaming era.
The tactical strategy game will hit iOS and Android devices this fall. Winnipeg, Canada-based Complex Games will develop the game in partnership with tabletop war game maker Games Workshop, which owns the franchise, and Japanese mobile game publisher Crooz.
Complex Games has been making titles for 12 years, and it has its Multiplex Engine, which can be used to make real-time synchronous multiplayer strategy and action games for smartphones and tablets. Making synchronous games is not an easy task on mobile platforms.
The title is the first time a video game will be based in the universe’s Horus Heresy setting. In the title, players can choose a side in the intense civil war that erupted among the Emperor’s Space Marine Legions in the 31st Millennium. Players will be able to build and customise bases, muster armies, and break their enemies’ strongholds in intense tactical battles. Different factions will fight to dominate territories.
“We are thrilled to be working with Games Workshop on the first videogame set in the Horus Heresy”, said Noah Decter-Jackson, CEO of Complex Games, in a statement. “We have been dedicated Warhammer 40,000 gamers since we first started playing games, and we are confident that the tactical experience we are bringing to mobile will satisfy what 40K fans have been craving.”
Games Workshop has more than 400 “hobby center” retail stores where it sells is Warhammer and Warhammer miniatures and other games. That should help with marketing the new mobile title.
Meanwhile, Jon Gillard, head of Games Workshop Licensing, said, ““The Horus Heresy is an iconic and seminal part of our IP that describes the dark period in the Imperium’s history that ultimately led to the way the Warhammer 40,000 universe looks now. As a setting it has been the basis for numerous New York Times best-selling novels, card games, and more recently some amazing models from our Forge World division. The dark treachery and over the top battles of this epic civil war make it perfect for the game Complex are making and aficionados of our worlds will be very excited about this legendary setting being brought to life as a video game for the first time.”
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/07/18 08:40:03
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
The game will test how well a franchise born with miniature wargame pieces in the 1980s will carry on in the modern digital gaming era.
Didn't the likes of Final Liberation, Shadow of the Horned Rat, Dawn of War and Space Marine administer this test?
I was working in GW about the time Dawn of War came out. I lost count of the number of times over the following year or so that guys in their 20's and 30's came in who had been players in their teenage years and had their interest in 40k piqued again by playing Dawn of War. Sold quite a few starter sets off the back of that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/07/18 09:44:10
"And if we've learnt anything over the past 1000 mile retreat it's that Russian agriculture is in dire need of mechanisation!"
For a company supposedly obsessed with preserving the worth and integrity of their IP, they do seem to like to lay it down and then squat over it when it comes to licensing games
If they wanted to make a game people would buy then they need another Dawn of War and a Warhammer Fantasy Total War.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/07/18 12:38:38
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
A Town Called Malus wrote: For a company supposedly obsessed with preserving the worth and integrity of their IP, they do seem to like to lay it down and then squat over it when it comes to licensing games
If they wanted to make a game people would buy then they need another Dawn of War and a Warhammer Fantasy Total War.
Careful what you wish for.
Your last point is especially laughable and comical, because not only the 7th ed Valkyrie shown dumber things (like being able to throw the troopers without parachutes out of its hatches, no harm done) - Irbis
I'm very optimistic about 40k stuff, but this game looks pretty dreadful. A Horus Heresy strategy game is a no-brainer, but it looks pretty awful and shallow. Seems like it will be on par with the Red Alert iOs game, which is pretty mediocre and lacks any real strategy beyond attack moving everything in your way.
That said, I'm still looking forward to the Slitherine Armageddon game, but this one in particular looks pretty dire.
No madam, 40,000 is the year that this game is set in. Not how much it costs. Though you may have a point. - GW Fulchester The Gatling Guns have flamethrowers on them because this is 40k - DOW III
Looks a lot like Starcraft. The original version. Only I can't imagine this could be as much fun, since part of the game was your timing on the keyboard.
Like clash of clans, but different and not as fun ...
Now, we like big books. (And we cannot lie. You other readers can’t deny, a book flops open with an itty-bitty font, and a map that’s in your face, you get—sorry! Sorry!)
The trailer makes it look sort of OK if a little bland, but we all know based on the format it's going to be clash of clans with bolters, and I can't say that interests me - if it did I'd likely already be playing clash of clans, which makes the whole thing seem a bit misbegotten.
GW is doing a good job of breaking whatever hold the setting has over me by going for this trash repeatedly, rather than good games from good studios like Dawn of War from Relic.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Ah yes, from the makers of Skipping Stones and Monkey Poo. Another company with a fine pedigree.
With a name like Monkey Poo I had to check their website to see if this was hyperbole or not. It's not. :/
Meanwhile, while GW is taking the "monkey poo" approach (in more ways than one), Privateer Press raised 1.5 mil from their fans to help develop a real game that a lot of people are excited to play.
Really - as someone who owns all three Dawn of War II games (and who started painted minis as a result of playing Dawn of War: Soulstorm) GW is running the risk of finally releasing a quality game at some point and having people go "God, more Space Marine shovelware - pass" before they even look at it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/07/19 04:58:07
The recent tide of shovelware is a really good indication that all is not well with GW financially. In the past GW have been quite picky about who they license their IP to but in the last couple of years they seemingly give the OK to anyone who asks.
There are a couple of interesting possiblities (Slitherines TBS game, Warhammer:Total War and possibly Mordheim) but everything else just looks like gak.
RegalPhantom wrote: If your fluff doesn't fit, change your fluff until it does
The prefect example of someone missing the point.
Do not underestimate the Squats. They survived for millenia cut off from the Imperium and assailed on all sides. Their determination and resilience is an example to us all.
-Leman Russ, Meditations on Imperial Command book XVI (AKA the RT era White Dwarf Commpendium).
Its just a shame that they couldn't fight off Andy Chambers.
Warzone Plog
Honestly the most promising to be is Regicide. For starters it's hard to feth up chess, and the idea of Battlechess 40K is appealing at the most basic level. But then they can add to it with new game-modes.
if this game is cheap, i'll play...
i think it will be fun to have HH Marines, and all their awesome tanks and jetbikes, battling it out on my iPad...
i don't ask for much...
Kirasu wrote: It's pretty amazing they can't find any decent game companies to make another solid game using an IP that is 20+ years old..
Then again, GW puts 0 effort into everything they do nowadays
I'm not sure I understand your comments.
If you mean they didn't put any effort into creating a minimum standard for companies to meet then I agree.
If you mean they didn't help make the assets look good or the game play feel fun, then that's not their job as the publisher. The publisher just makes sure the game is progressing on time and meets the technical requirements (TCR requirements, game playthroughs, vertical slice deadlines, IP restrictions, etc...). Some companies like Capcom have a little more hands on approach of dictating what they want in the game but most don't; producers don't create, they manage.
~4100
~1660
Renegades - 
No madam, 40,000 is the year that this game is set in. Not how much it costs. Though you may have a point. - GW Fulchester 
The Gatling Guns have flamethrowers on them because this is 40k 
