Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr @ Gamescom 2016

Let’s get one thing straight before we even talk about this game: The title is way too long, and I will only refer to it as Martyr from here on out. Okay, now that this is settled, Martyr is an action-RPG using the Warhammer 40K license. If you don’t know anything about the setting here’s a brief and imprecise explanation of it: Warhammer 40K takes place in a far science fiction future where spaceman, space orcs, space elves, evil spacemen and more fight each other for some reason or another. You are playing a member of the Inquisition which is part of the Imperium of Man; that’s the spacemen. It’s your task to roam the galaxy and spread love in the name of the God-Emperor – with your chainsaw sword.

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• Developer: NeocoreGames
• Publisher: NeocoreGames
• Reviewed on: PC
• Also Available On: Xbox One, PlayStation 4
• Release Date: 2017

From what we’ve seen Martyr is a classic ARPG in the vein of series like Diablo and Torchlight. The player controls a hero faced with hordes of enemies and kills every last one of them for experience points and shiny new loot. There are three different classes to choose from: the Inquisitor Crusader, Inquisitor Assassin and a yet unannounced class. These characters might have fancy sci-fi names, but they are essentially a warrior and thief respectively. Developer Neocore hinted strongly at the third class being magic based. This would make sense and complete the trifecta of typical RPG archetypes.

W40K Inquisitor #2

A departure from other titles in the genre is the aiming system in the game. It will be possible to aim at different parts of the enemies. This way the player can disable enemies more tactically. During the presentation a Hellbrute was fought, a big enemy with gun-arms. The aiming system could be used to disable both arms and force it to charge at the player and use weaker melee attacks. Personally, I’m excited to see what the developer does with this system! Other features to make Martyr a bit more tactical than other ARPGs are the cover system and the destructible environments. Enemies can hide from the player’s attacks by hiding behind cover. Now, you could walk around the cover and damage them from there, but what fun would that be? It’s way easier and fun to just shoot up the cover and blow your foes away with it.

You won’t have to deal with all these pesky enemies all by yourself! The game will feature different kinds of missions, some playable with friends. First, there is the singleplayer campaign which revolves around the player exploring an abandoned spaced ship called Martyr. It will feature its story, different NPCs to meet, cutscenes to watch and everything else you expect from a standard campaign. However, these won’t be the only missions to play. Martyr will have lots of stand-alone missions – a randomly generated map you load into with at least one objective to accomplish. No story, just hacking, slashing and shooting fun. Other missions will only unlock if the player finds clues hidden in other levels. Lastly, there will be mini campaigns – some missions connected by a little story. Everything, except for the singleplayer campaign, will be playable with up to three other players.

W40K Inquisitor #4

The main part of the presentation given to us was about the content developer Neocore plans to release post-launch. As the games take place in one sector, namely the Caligari sector, divided into smaller subsectors, it is the developer’s goal to fill it with more life even after release. This will be achieved through different content updates called seasons. Each one will introduce additional content, new missions, more story and new enemies. These timed events will run for a certain amount of time, and the decisions made within them will change the story of the Caligari sector over time.

After the presentation, we played a demo with two available levels in it. Each featuring a different objective and a different playable class. Both were not part of the larger campaign; they were randomly generated one-off missions. The first one had the player control an Inquisitor Crusader tasked with defeating a Hellbrute in an abandoned space station. The playable hero had two different sets of weapons with their skills each. The first loadout was the iconic chainsaw sword and gun, the second a two-handed laser rifle. Both sets of gear felt distinct, but the skills they facilitated were quite similar. Both weapons had a normal shot option and an aimed attack. The latter whoever did only do a bit more damage and did not look different visually. Hopefully, this is just in the early versions and will be improved in the finished game.

W40K Inquisitor #1

The second mission had us playing an Inquisitor Assassin tasked with killing everyone in the level. In the demo, she used either two swords or a sniper rifle. Using the rifle felt quite similar to playing the Crusader. When using the swords however, she was a bit more fun as she could use a forward slashing skill to damage enemies in front of her. As it is a game with the Warhammer 40K license all combat is incredibly gory and bloody.

To finish up this preview I can only say that I am looking forward to Martyr. The developer Neocore have a proven track record regarding ARPGs, and the Warhammer 40K setting is a great fit for the genre. I’m excited to see how the planned post-launch updates will work out and how varied the gameplay will be.

Official Game Site

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