Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Features
By published

Time to roll for damage?

It’s almost a year since the first footage of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine escaped Relic’s offices, but what a difference twelve months can make. Originally pitched as a melée-heavy Gears of War with a speed boost (ranged weapons subdue enemies but you need to get close and trigger one of the ‘cinemaction executions’ to finish ‘em off) it’s now an action RPG with hand-to-hand combat.

Underneath this action lives a system of leveling up, gear upgrades and ability modification. The main focus may lie in beheading and disemboweling Orks with fisticuffs, but Space Marine is proud of its stat-crunching underbelly which brings more thought into the button-mulching action. Ready for war sometime in early 2010, this could be one to watch. No, really! Nobody knows how to make Warhammer games quite like Relic Entertainment, but the lack of experience outside PC RTS games – middling launch game The Outfit notwithstanding – is, we’ll admit, a tiny bit worrying.

Jul 16, 2009

Matthew Pellett
Matthew Pellett
Matt is former editor of Official PlayStation Magazine, his favourite games include Skyrim, Final Fantasy VII, Braid, Shadow Of The Colossus and Puggsy, and when he's not grinding away in Destiny you'll often find him talking about WWE or NFL (go Seahawks!).