There have been many video games based on Games Workshops 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 doesnt need any wimpy cover system. SuicideGirls spoke with Space Marines 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 whats life actually like for a developer on a game this size in the month before it comes out?
Andy Lang[b/]: Oh my god, dude. [Laughs] As the deadline comes to an end its your time you have to pour in to try to hit that deadline. If youre passionate about anything like this thats really creative, you start just pouring in the hours. The last three or four months youre looking at fifteen or sixteen hour days, six days a week. But its worth it when youre making a game like this. Everybodys really into it and its really exciting. So you throw away your life, basically, for three months, but you end up with this great product on the other end.
KD: Do you feel like youve 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. Thats 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. Its 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 Relics 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 youve developed in-house?
AL: We used our own proprietary technology, but its within the THQ family. We took an early drop of the Darksiders engine and weve [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 dont know or dont 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 youre a big fan of gunplay or swordplay, theres 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 youre getting shot. In our game youre 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 youre 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 youre 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 its 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 theres 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 theyll 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: Weve 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 anyones mind as far as, Well this is what happened the last time we made a game that wasnt about Space Marines.?
AL: Lets have them play the Space Marines next time. [Laughs]
KD: Is it fun to make a game thats 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. Its really been fun. Ive been around since the first Dawn of War game. Its 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 its one Space Marine against a thousand Orks. Its 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: Ive tried reading a lot of them, but the only one Ive really gotten through and enjoyed a lot was the Eisenhorn series. Whats really cool about that book is that you really got a feel for the Chaos Marines and the Space Marines from a human perspective. Thats 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 dont anything apart from kill and sleep.
AL: Yeah. Thats been a challenge to work in the more human side of the Space Marines. If you read the Codexes theyre 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 its not just these killing machines. Which they are, but theyre also people with different personalities who do different things. Thats a little more interesting.
KD: The Imperium in 40K are hardly what youd 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 thats interesting is that when youre walking around on the Forge World -- the giant planet-size factory kind of like Detroit smeared across an entire worlds surface -- you hear the voice on Graia, which is the world, talking, and its like, It doesnt matter that theres this huge war going on, please continue going to work, please keep building machines for the war gods. It is your duty. Thats probably the closest we hint at it. It actually adds a real human perspective to it, because youre 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 thats as close as we touch it.
KD: The life of the average person in that universe is complete shit. [Laughs]
AL: [Laughs] Its 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: Youve 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? Theres a lot of confusion about that on the forums.[Publicity assistant speaks up]: We cant talk about those things right now. We cant 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 cant talk about them in any more depth, unfortunately.
KD: Given Relics longstanding relationship with Games Workshop, are you guys ever privy to forthcoming changes to the tabletop game, and ideas that they have?
AL: I cant 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 well update the unit for our game, and by the time we release [our game] the plastic and pewter models are hitting the store shelves. Thats the only time were really privy to information.
KD: Whats 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 couldnt 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 cant talk about that.
Space Marine will be released on September 6th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
Keith Daniels: So whats life actually like for a developer on a game this size in the month before it comes out?
Andy Lang[b/]: Oh my god, dude. [Laughs] As the deadline comes to an end its your time you have to pour in to try to hit that deadline. If youre passionate about anything like this thats really creative, you start just pouring in the hours. The last three or four months youre looking at fifteen or sixteen hour days, six days a week. But its worth it when youre making a game like this. Everybodys really into it and its really exciting. So you throw away your life, basically, for three months, but you end up with this great product on the other end.
KD: Do you feel like youve 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. Thats 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. Its 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 Relics 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 youve developed in-house?
AL: We used our own proprietary technology, but its within the THQ family. We took an early drop of the Darksiders engine and weve [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 dont know or dont 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 youre a big fan of gunplay or swordplay, theres 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 youre getting shot. In our game youre 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 youre 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 youre 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 its 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 theres 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 theyll 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: Weve 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 anyones mind as far as, Well this is what happened the last time we made a game that wasnt about Space Marines.?
AL: Lets have them play the Space Marines next time. [Laughs]
KD: Is it fun to make a game thats 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. Its really been fun. Ive been around since the first Dawn of War game. Its 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 its one Space Marine against a thousand Orks. Its 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: Ive tried reading a lot of them, but the only one Ive really gotten through and enjoyed a lot was the Eisenhorn series. Whats really cool about that book is that you really got a feel for the Chaos Marines and the Space Marines from a human perspective. Thats 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 dont anything apart from kill and sleep.
AL: Yeah. Thats been a challenge to work in the more human side of the Space Marines. If you read the Codexes theyre 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 its not just these killing machines. Which they are, but theyre also people with different personalities who do different things. Thats a little more interesting.
KD: The Imperium in 40K are hardly what youd 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 thats interesting is that when youre walking around on the Forge World -- the giant planet-size factory kind of like Detroit smeared across an entire worlds surface -- you hear the voice on Graia, which is the world, talking, and its like, It doesnt matter that theres this huge war going on, please continue going to work, please keep building machines for the war gods. It is your duty. Thats probably the closest we hint at it. It actually adds a real human perspective to it, because youre 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 thats as close as we touch it.
KD: The life of the average person in that universe is complete shit. [Laughs]
AL: [Laughs] Its 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: Youve 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? Theres a lot of confusion about that on the forums.[Publicity assistant speaks up]: We cant talk about those things right now. We cant 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 cant talk about them in any more depth, unfortunately.
KD: Given Relics longstanding relationship with Games Workshop, are you guys ever privy to forthcoming changes to the tabletop game, and ideas that they have?
AL: I cant 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 well update the unit for our game, and by the time we release [our game] the plastic and pewter models are hitting the store shelves. Thats the only time were really privy to information.
KD: Whats 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 couldnt 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 cant talk about that.
Space Marine will be released on September 6th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.