Space Marine: Andy Lang
Tags: gamers, video game, warhammer, pc, spacemarine, andy lang, THQ
There have been many video games based on Games Workshop’s venerable Warhammer universe, but thus far none save Canadian developer Relic Entertainment and their Dawn of War PC strategy franchise seem able to do it right. Now, with the forthcoming multiplatform third-person action game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, Relic are trying to make lightning strike twice with a completely different platform and style of game. Space Marine looks like a mix of Darksiders and Gears of War, with the player taking on the role of one of the titular walking tanks so heavily armored that he doesn’t need any wimpy cover system. SuicideGirls spoke with Space Marine’s producer Andy Lang about the Warhammer 40,000 [AKA “40K”] universe, Nobs, and what life is like during crunch time for a game developer.
Keith Daniels: So what’s life actually like for a developer on a game this size in the month before it comes out?
KD:
Do you feel like you’ve been in a time machine and your family has to fill you in on everything that happened in those months besides the game?
AL:
[Laughs] Exactly. That’s exactly how it feels. You hang up your life for three months and then you come back out of it and go, “What happened?”
KD:
This is the first shooter that Relic has done in years, since The Outfit, and the first console game that you guys have done in a while. What has changed in the intervening years and how is it different from doing an RTS?
AL:
I was on The Outfit and many of the RTS games. It’s like anything. Once you get into developing it you start learning all those small little details that make the games different. One thing we did differently from The Outfit is we actually hired a team that had experience building these kinds of games. Then you combine that with Relic’s passion and pedigree and knowledge on how to file and polish with a really strong team where we blend in our pals from the RTS team with the console people. So, really, it was about getting the right people to bring that knowledge to Relic and show us how to build one of these games.
KD:
Does Space Marine use a third-party engine or is it something you’ve developed in-house?
AL:
We used our own proprietary technology, but it’s within the THQ family. We took an early drop of the Darksiders engine and we’ve [been] adding and modifying our technology [to that], like our own animation system, our own effects system, and built upon their really solid base for a third-person action game. We just built on top of that.
KD:
For people who don’t know or don’t care about the Warhammer universe, what sets this game apart from other third-person shooters?
AL:
One of the big differences is the core combat model. If you’re a big fan of gunplay or swordplay, there’s an advantage to mixing the two of them together. One of the sweetest things to do is... if I see a group of Orks, instead of hiding behind some cover and taking potshots at them... In typical [third-person shooter] games you die quite quickly if you’re getting shot. In our game you’re heavily armored and we play up on that. We encourage the player to charge into battle. You can use an ability called Bull Rush that launches the Orks back. Then, as you’re pushing them back, you pop your gun and start killing a bunch of Orks, then seamlessly bounce back to your swordplay and clear out the group. A typical encounter will involve about ten to fifteen Orks when you’re running into it, so it has a very different feel than your typical shooter or action game. We really tried to blend the two [genres] of them, and it’s actually worked out really well.
KD:
As fun as it to mow down dozens of mobs, are there also plenty of heavier enemies that will present more of a challenge?
AL:
Yep. Just within the Ork race there’s a mixture of your basic grunt. Orks are kind of a funny race: the bigger they get the higher ranking they get, so you end up fighting these...
KD:
Nobs.
AL:
Nobs. You know your 40K. [Laughs] These guys present more of a challenge. If you just sit there and shoot them they’ll close the [inaudible] on you and kill you. So you have to use your other moves like Evade and really engage them with aggressive melee and try and stun them so you can take them out with a finishing move. There are about... oh... fifteen different [types of] Orks with different puzzles to them that our game designers mix-and-match to create challenges for the players to solve.
KD:
We’ve also seen Chaos in some of the trailers. Is the game fairly evenly split between the two factions?
AL:
About a 60-40 split. The first half of the game is heavily focused on the Orks, then we kind of have both together for a while, then the endgame is more about Chaos.
KD:
Why focus on the Ultramarines instead of some of the more exotic chapters?
AL:
Spoken like a true fan. [Laughs] Look, the Ultramarines are just the iconic Space Marines, and we thought if we were going to launch the first ever third-person game ever done in this IP we wanted to start with the most iconic race. So that was the Ultramarines.
KD:
Is what happened with Fire Warrior in the back of anyone’s mind as far as, “Well this is what happened the last time we made a game that wasn’t about Space Marines.”?
AL:
“Let’s have them play the Space Marines next time.” [Laughs]
KD:
Is it fun to make a game that’s more true to the 40K fluff regarding the Space Marines, as opposed to the ones in Dawn of War that can be killed by half a dozen Orks?
AL:
Yeah. It’s really been fun. I’ve been around since the first Dawn of War game. It’s really been cool, instead of exploring the tabletop side of the game which is what the Dawn of War series is about, to really dig into the fluff and the fantasy you always read about in the books: how it’s one Space Marine against a thousand Orks. It’s been really fun to explore that and develop a brand new take on the 40K fiction to create an action game like this.
KD:
Have you read a lot of the Black Library books, Dan Abnett and all that?
AL:
I’ve tried reading a lot of them, but the only one I’ve really gotten through and enjoyed a lot was the Eisenhorn series. What’s really cool about that book is that you really got a feel for the Chaos Marines and the Space Marines from a human perspective. That’s quite interesting. I had our narrative writers read that book just to gain that perspective on the Space Marines.
KD:
Yeah, because if you look at them casually it seems like they don’t anything apart from kill and sleep.
AL:
Yeah. That’s been a challenge to work in the more human side of the Space Marines. If you read the Codexes they’re very rigid, while the books tend to loosen them up a bit and really try to weave in a human side to the story so it’s not just these killing machines. Which they are, but they’re also people with different personalities who do different things. That’s a little more interesting.
KD:
The Imperium in 40K are hardly what you’d call the “good guys”. Are there any hints of their brutality in this game?
AL:
Mmm, no. We kind of stay away from that. The one thing that’s interesting is that when you’re walking around on the Forge World -- the giant planet-size factory kind of like Detroit smeared across an entire world’s surface -- you hear the voice on Graia, which is the world, talking, and it’s like, ‘It doesn’t matter that there’s this huge war going on, please continue going to work, please keep building machines for the war gods. It is your duty.’ That’s probably the closest we hint at it. It actually adds a real human perspective to it, because you’re like, “Oh my god. These people have to go to work in the middle of a war? That makes no sense.” ‘Zero attendance today in X factory.’ It makes for a nice flavor, but that’s as close as we touch it.
KD:
The life of the average person in that universe is complete shit. [Laughs]
AL:
[Laughs] It’s totally depressing.
KD:
Will there be anything like the Last Stand mode from Dawn of War in Space Marine?
AL:
No, we have the multiplayer and then our main campaign.
KD:
What about dedicated servers on the PC?
AL:
No, we use a peer-to-peer system for our multiplayer.
KD:
You’ve announced that the ability to play co-op through the campaign will be released as DLC about a month after launch. Is that going to be free for everybody? There’s a lot of confusion about that on the forums.
[Publicity assistant speaks up]: We can’t talk about those things right now. We can’t talk about co-op. But we will be providing answers to those things very soon and very clear information about what those features are and the structure of how you get them and all those things. But right now we can’t talk about them in any more depth, unfortunately.
KD:
Given Relic’s longstanding relationship with Games Workshop, are you guys ever privy to forthcoming changes to the tabletop game, and ideas that they have?
AL:
I can’t really talk about that. [Laughs]
KD:
[Laughs] I dont mean specific changes. What I mean is: does that happen?
AL:
The only thing that happens for us is that a new unit might be coming out during production, and we’ll update the unit for our game, and by the time we release [our game] the plastic and pewter models are hitting the store shelves. That’s the only time we’re really privy to information.
KD:
What’s your personal favorite army on the tabletop?
AL:
[Groans] I used to be a Chaos man. I had a Chaos army being built, and then when we started building Dawn of War it switched over to building a Blood Ravens army. I like my Space Marines and my Chaos Marines.
KD:
Was Warhammer something you grew up with or something you were introduced to later?
AL:
I couldn’t really afford it as a kid, so it was something that was really only introduced to me when I came to Relic and there were a whole bunch of people who were passionate about it. Before even Dawn of War there were people who used to play quite a bit here.
KD:
Last question, and it has nothing to do with Space Marine: is there ever going to be a Homeworld 3?
AL:
[Laughs] I can’t talk about that.
Space Marine will be released on September 6th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
Space Marine will be released on September 6th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
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