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Revealed at Game Awards




Interesting things displayed, the quick rotation of chapters seems to indicate some way to customise your troops' colors, and there seem to be ground-space interactions, perhaps space will act like seas in other TW games?

Edit: As far as faction goes, it seems Orks, Eldars, Marines and the Guard will be present at first, I assume the Eldars will be there going by the trailer's cover and we can see some Imperial Guard units as allies in the brief gameplay shots we have.

Interesting that the planet seems a bit like Planetary Annihilation, deformed and compressed, I just thought the hives were just extending up but that mounting seems oversized but maybe on an alien world it's not.

Disappointed we saw some gameplay only for it to be a few seconds which tell us nothing about how they'll handle things. Because it looks almost like DoW3 both in UI and the "floaty" nature of units. It doesn't look like they worked out how to make something like CoH at a massive scale. I hope not because it suggests the fear, that they'll make the game under pressure to have another big hit without solving the essential problems with a 40k TW game.

TW has always thrived on being immersive but this looks like they've had to sacrifice this either for technical reasons or lacking conceptual ideas to solve the problems. Even more than TK it feels very gamey and full of very gamey UI.

There is also the problem of this being a console release (In the 25th anniversary stream they revealed all games going forward will be on consoles too), handling something like a 40k TW game is difficult enough, if you have to handicap it to work on a controller...

I honestly can't say they allayed my fears and even have me feeling wary in new ways now.

I wonder if that's because it's an alpha/pre-alpha thing, you'll note the Guardsmen's lasguns don't shoot laser so it's obviously unfinished, but it's also a legit concern, something bugs me about the gameplay part and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Edit: The Steam page is up and:

CUSTOMISE YOUR WAR MACHINE

Step into battle with renowned sub-factions and warlords from the Warhammer 40,000 universe - or forge your own custom army with unparalleled set of customisation options that bring tabletop freedom to life.

● Personalise Your Army: Name your warband, choose its sacred colours, and emblazon its regiments with an array of iconography that strikes fear into the hearts of enemies.

● Modify Your Warriors: Tailor your faction’s combat philosophy for both campaign and battle, arming them with your own unique fusion of devastating tactical abilities, signature traits, and arcane wargear.

This is interesting at least, it seems that unlike TWW which was somewhat limited by the setting, you will have more freedom there, perks of 40k having a lot more space to play in, I suppose.

Final Liberation finally getting a sequel after all these years.

I'm keen.

Might actually buy it on release. Which is something I'm pretty sure I haven't done since Dow II.

 Bobthehero wrote:
I wonder if that's because it's an alpha/pre-alpha thing, you'll note the Guardsmen's lasguns don't shoot laser so it's obviously unfinished, but it's also a legit concern, something bugs me about the gameplay part and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Edit: The Steam page is up and:

CUSTOMISE YOUR WAR MACHINE

Step into battle with renowned sub-factions and warlords from the Warhammer 40,000 universe - or forge your own custom army with unparalleled set of customisation options that bring tabletop freedom to life.

● Personalise Your Army: Name your warband, choose its sacred colours, and emblazon its regiments with an array of iconography that strikes fear into the hearts of enemies.

● Modify Your Warriors: Tailor your faction’s combat philosophy for both campaign and battle, arming them with your own unique fusion of devastating tactical abilities, signature traits, and arcane wargear.

This is interesting at least, it seems that unlike TWW which was somewhat limited by the setting, you will have more freedom there, perks of 40k having a lot more space to play in, I suppose.

You mean the fact that console support inevitably neuters strategy games.

Or the fact that the units are really unresponsive and behave wierdly unanimated, bricky, nigh cartony?

Also mid map controllpoint rtw2 launch PTSD.

Or that it looks like a less responsive DoW?

I really like the focus on multi planet battles GW has been pushing lately. Really helps give the setting a sense of place that is often lost through the endlessly repeated small scale environments we usually see the galaxy through.

This one caught my attention more than DoW, but its weird they're doing both.

 Bobthehero wrote:
I wonder if that's because it's an alpha/pre-alpha thing, you'll note the Guardsmen's lasguns don't shoot laser so it's obviously unfinished, but it's also a legit concern, something bugs me about the gameplay part and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Edit: The Steam page is up and:

CUSTOMISE YOUR WAR MACHINE

Step into battle with renowned sub-factions and warlords from the Warhammer 40,000 universe - or forge your own custom army with unparalleled set of customisation options that bring tabletop freedom to life.

● Personalise Your Army: Name your warband, choose its sacred colours, and emblazon its regiments with an array of iconography that strikes fear into the hearts of enemies.

● Modify Your Warriors: Tailor your faction’s combat philosophy for both campaign and battle, arming them with your own unique fusion of devastating tactical abilities, signature traits, and arcane wargear.

This is interesting at least, it seems that unlike TWW which was somewhat limited by the setting, you will have more freedom there, perks of 40k having a lot more space to play in, I suppose.

My guess is that it will work a bit like the Daemon Prince in TWW3, and indeed he is probably the crude prototype. We will still have the set in stone factions. The different canon Marine chapters, guard regiments, Ork Waaaghs, etc...

Then each faction will have the "Insert Custom Character Here" sub-faction which if the player isn't playing them will just be a minor faction in that spot.

I suppose the real question is how the factions will be broken down, or at least Space Marines. Because in TWW3 you have Empire:(insert all Empire Lords here), Warriors of Chaos(insert Chaos Lords here), Daemons:(insert Daemon Lords here), Cathay(Insert Cathay lords here).

Will Space Marines be a single faction with each legendary lord being their chapter master or will each Chapter be a grouped faction of LL. So you'd have the Ultramarine faction with X lords, Black Templars with X lords, Dark Angels with X lords, Customizable Chapter with Custom Lord etc...


Given that now they have the framework for each faction to have completely unique game mechanics it'll probably lead to some good variety. You know, the arrival and implementation of the Primarus Marines would be an interesting equivalent to the Marian Reforms in the Rome Total War games which switch from old Republic legions to Imperial Legions. You start the game as a Marine chapter with First Born only, then at some point in the game Cawl does his thing and you can now recruit Primarus marines and upgrade your old units to Primarus and keep their experience(but maybe at risk of the surgery failing). Or you could have your custom chapter eshew the new Marines and just follow the old ways


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:
I really like the focus on multi planet battles GW has been pushing lately. Really helps give the setting a sense of place that is often lost through the endlessly repeated small scale environments we usually see the galaxy through.

This one caught my attention more than DoW, but its weird they're doing both.

I hope, and I know it probably wont happen, but it would be cool if we had actual space ship combat too. I know it will likely just be handwaived TWW3 style where you just pull a fleet out of thin air and fly between planets and there are no space battles.

But I just wish they would try. Because when TW has done Naval before it was alright. 40k space battles are just 18th century naval battles in space, just reskin Empire Total Wars naval mechanics.

I’m just super excited for this, even over dawn of war.

It also has PS5 support which is super cool!
If they somehow managed to get it on the switch 2 I would absolutely get it for both lol

Otherwise I am just keen to see how it goes, hopefully can customise the leaders a bit. It’s something I really like being able to do a bit of customisation and it is a big part of the hobby that is often missed in the games.
Curious to see if they do diplomacy or just have it super basic, they haven’t really done much with it recently in games and haven’t been anywhere advanced.

I would also like if they do special deployment options. Something missing from so many 40K games is how your army is deployed to the battlefield, this could be super cool if something like drop pods where a specific option over using dropcraft or infiltration onto the battlefield at the start.

I'm pretty sure it would melt a switch 2 trying to run it.

That said honestly I'm very concerned about the console part. Yes it means more customers, but historically every single RTS game that has tried to go console or console/pc hyrbrid - has failed.

Heck the AoS RTS game tried that and flopped hard.


The problem is controllers are just BAD at everything you need for RTS control and, unlike FPS games, you can't just put an "auto aim" feature in to mask it.
It tends to mean you have to cut down keyboard commands a lot to get them to fit into a simple controller setup; you have to cut down trigger spots and make selection and control very simplistic.

I also find you have to slow the game down a lot too cause the controller is slower.


The result is typically a game that's "clunky" in the console world and unsatisfying in the PC sector.




Now turnbased strategy 100% is alive and honestly healthy on console. And in theory TW games are a bit slower than regular RTS experiences because once units slam into each other and lock into combat they are kind of there doing their thing...


But I don't know - its a BIG risk honestly and its VERY easy to mess it up and end up with a game that isn't really satisfying either market.
At least if it fails it will fail early enough that they can abandon the idea for Medieval 3

 Overread wrote:
I'm pretty sure it would melt a switch 2 trying to run it.

That said honestly I'm very concerned about the console part. Yes it means more customers, but historically every single RTS game that has tried to go console or console/pc hyrbrid - has failed.

Heck the AoS RTS game tried that and flopped hard.


The problem is controllers are just BAD at everything you need for RTS control and, unlike FPS games, you can't just put an "auto aim" feature in to mask it.
It tends to mean you have to cut down keyboard commands a lot to get them to fit into a simple controller setup; you have to cut down trigger spots and make selection and control very simplistic.

I also find you have to slow the game down a lot too cause the controller is slower.


The result is typically a game that's "clunky" in the console world and unsatisfying in the PC sector.




Now turnbased strategy 100% is alive and honestly healthy on console. And in theory TW games are a bit slower than regular RTS experiences because once units slam into each other and lock into combat they are kind of there doing their thing...


But I don't know - its a BIG risk honestly and its VERY easy to mess it up and end up with a game that isn't really satisfying either market.
At least if it fails it will fail early enough that they can abandon the idea for Medieval 3

They have been putting more strategy games on the PS5/PS4 without any modifications, I play both Stellaris and crusader kings. And every console on the market now has mouse and keyboard as an option, so they can put down that it plays best on those controls.
To make it work on console it really just needs good key binding, which is where so many fail at.

I use a controller to play StarCraft 2 as modern controllers actually have a lot of key binding options. More than most players will use on a keyboard. Doesn’t mean the devs will do it will, maybe they won’t. But they should be competent enough now too.

And total war games not really ever been fast enough to require a mouse, they Slow, and easy to get around for any competent player I find with even basic controls.

Also PS5 has both a Touch pad and Gyro control. There is plenty of options for controlling the game. Gyro once you used to it can be used just as fast as a mouse.


Edit- seriously auto correct hates me today.