Ideal 40k FPS

[Ritterin Sophia]

Okay, so from what I hear, Fire Warrior was a disaster, and I've heard it complained that it was just used as a way to inflate Tau sales.

So I want to hear from you, the people. What would you like to see in a WH40k FPS or what do you feel would work best?

Personally I think a game based on Stormtroopers or Kasrkin would be best, possibly Inquisitorial Stormtroopers for variation.

[Mr Bean]

A long-term game, IE what Quake-4 could have been. I like the idea, start out as a civilian, impressed into action, Commisar's threating to shoot you because, mm Chaos? Orks? Something big nasty thing is attacking your home world. Lets say left-over Tyranids Hive ship.

Rough-Outline
So there you are, early game, just a human in 40k(IE You are sooo fucked).

Lets start the game doing a boring job in a colony word. The tutorial level can be hidden by you doing your job. (Weld that girder, climb that ladder, jump on that gomba's head!), then your shift ends so you go to the local pub for some story, or since this is 40k you head down to the local firing range to get used to your new civilian issue Laspistol, the local Imperial Guard Commander got his head up his ass about security and now all Civilians are to be armed 24/7 because of some rumors yada yada..

OHSHIT Tyranids! FUCKING FLASHLIGHT RUNNING TIME!
Lets say two levels of escaping, you pick up fallen weapons, a Lasrifle or two, the goal is getting your ass across the city to where reinforcements are landing. Along the way you fall in with some Guardsmen and take the armor of a dead man.

Humor moment, at some point a Commissar snatches your ass, tells you your part of the Guard now son, then his head gets ripped off. You take his fallen Bolt Pistol, it's a great awesome weapon and you have almost no ammo for it... fun!

Third mission hold against Tyranids while transports are incoming, here come the Karskin pull your ass out of the fire. Hit the falling back, hit catching the last transport out of there, Now que a glorius CGI of the local Space forces glassing the planet to prevent Tyranids from spreading.

Everything you know is gone and dead, cue hilarious discovery that your a civilian not a Guardsmen, cut to a Commissar nearly blowing your brains out when he see the inscription on the Bolt Pistol your carring, seems Commissar dead-guy was important. Guess what your in the Guard now son, dieing wish and all.

The rest of the game can be broken up as a member of the Guard, climbing the ranks to end up as Stroomtrooper fighting alongside Space Marines VS Eldar, then holding off waves as Ork's in a dead in the water Leman Russ. Cleansing a Chaos planet. Then coming to the attention of the Kasrkin who offer you a place, prehaps the same group who saved you intially.

Then end the game with a giant set-piece, ridding in tanks to get to the aid off a cut off Chapter of Space Marines who are in danger of being wiped out.
By nasty race X.

Lets say Tyranids to bring things circle.


There's so much good material for a climbing the ranks from suck to awesome in 40k. Not as Space Marines because you go from shit to Space Marine after all. But climbing the ranks of the Guard serving with different regiments and ending up back with the Kasrkin who saved you to begin gives you a nice full circle

[18-Till-I-Die]

You have ready made FPS heroes in the Space Marines.

Any FPS convention--including healing when not under fire, and even the HUD--can be atributed to what the Marines get as enhancements. They're strong and fast enough that the absurd kind of manly stuff Gordon Freeman does would actually seem banal to them, or coming from them, and you get a ready made arsenal of FPS staples:

Bolter=assault rifle

Bolt Pistol=handgun

Plasmagun=Plasma Rifle, ala Doom

Meltagun=flame thrower

Heavy Bolter=chaingun

Rocket Launcher=err, well you get the idea...

It's like they created the Space Marines with an FPS in mind. You can even have a relatively good mechanic, and reason, to use melee weapons like chainswords, lightning claws, thunder hammers etc. And good GOD would a Jump-Pack scene kick ass!

You hardly even need a story. Really. Just some Marines sent to exterminate a Tyranid infestation on some battleship carrying useful info that the Nids may exploit, somehow, or some bullshit like that. Boom, you get corridor crawling, you may even get some open spaces, some of those "lava pools of doom" with cracked plasma lines or whatever...and of course the Nids supply a good, durable, canon enemy that is neither human nor humanoid so the "violence" could be technically low and thus the rating somewhat lower, meaning wider sales.

Really, why they never made a Space Marine FPS before boggles my mind.

[Tasoth]

No space marines, not even in Multiplay. They're way to friggin' unbalanced.

I say you start off in the 'Guard, set it up like in CoD where you play through three different regiment types: Drop, Mounted and then a Heavy Infantry(IIRC, Guard terms means you get nice heavy armor to accompany your flashlight). Training would be after boot where you get trained in the various aspects of the regiments while on a transport ship: You get to free fall through a hole in several decks, the cover system is detailed while training as the H.inf and you hop in a little cogitator simulated vehicle sim. Fun stuff, gives you a feel.

You hit dirtside screaming, lasguns blazing and playing hammer of god against a planet full of rebellious humans. First two missions are up against stock humies with slugthrowers, showing how bad assed a light unit of Droptroops are against PDF forces. End of second mission is when you hit say a dam interior in a raid and kill a bunch of barely humans. 3rd mission starts with you standing around with your squad talking about what all this means when an inquisitor enters, replete with honor guard including one space marine, and swear your entire platoon into service as Inquisitorial stormtroopers. Cue a series of intensely hard battles against mutant cultists and, ultimately, a handful of chaos marines. End Droptroop chapter.

Unfortunately, the vehicle segment would probably ridiculously short, but still, similar start, with chaos vehicles showing up much sooner and it degenerating into the PC having to sneak acrossed enemy lines and detonate a supply dump. PC gets wounded and the last thing he sees as he tries to escape is a CSM gloating above him. End Chapter.

I demand an urban fight at this point for the H.Infantry chapter, probably against the forces of chaos from the get go. NPC space marines should come and go, usually tilting the battle horrible in the PC's favor when they show up unless CSM are on the opposing side. Lots of seek and destroy objects. End of it all should be the discovery of a chaos gate beneath the city and the lights fading out as it comes to life.

MP, and possibly singleplayer, should have skills like in CoD4, but more as a means to define various roles available to play. Custom gear and classes is a definite, especially after playing CoD4. Range from lascarbines, to hellguns, various mods, maybe even allow for a bolt rifle unlock eventually. Mix in vehicles and the various regiment types per map, mainly Guard versus rebels/mutants. SMs need not appear or at least give the team their up against a massive numbers advantage.

[Feil]

Oh, in the name of Zod. 40k is about Space Marines killing people. If you don't like it, find a new franchise.

[Resinence]

Oh, in the name of Zod. 40k is about Space Marines killing people. If you don't like it, find a new franchise.

While this is true, giving the player awesome power at the very start of a game is 100% a terrible idea, there would be no sense of achievement. A game such as that is only fit for 14 year old xbox retards. Speaking of which, a 40k FPS with a space marine as the main character is basically going to be Halo.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I demand an urban fight at this point for the H.Infantry chapter, probably against the forces of chaos from the get go. NPC space marines should come and go, usually tilting the battle horrible in the PC's favor when they show up unless CSM are on the opposing side. Lots of seek and destroy objects. End of it all should be the discovery of a chaos gate beneath the city and the lights fading out as it comes to life.

This sounds fun, especially if you can implement the firefight-from-opposite-side-of-building we've heard of.

Also I agree, Guardsman is the way to go, especially if there's a Krieg level. With the exception of Chaos Space Marines, your typical fluff Battle Brother is capable of taking on a half dozen of everyone elses grunts.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Fire Warrior was almost as bad as the AI in Space Hulk...

sure you could control one guy at a time, seich between them, and be a god until your storm bolter jammed. however the pathfinding and overwatch idn't work on full teams, and the Genestealers just spawned everywhere....

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I've thought about this quite a bit, and one thing I think would be great for any singleplayer campaign is to start the player as a Guardsman facing totally insurmountable odds, say a massive Ork assault on your home planet. After holding the line against whatever foe it happens to be, the Astartes turn up and save the day in the nick of time (as the codex commands) but take heavy casualties in the process.

They desperately need to replenish their numbers, and after seeing your performance they decide to put you through some brutal trials along with others from your PDF, and then recruit you (and maybe some other PDF characters who persist with you throughout the game). You then get to sit through the nice horrifying first person experience of being turned into a Space Marine piece by piece, with lots of blood, screaming, nightmarish operations on your concious body etc...

After this you spend a couple of missions in a new campaign area as an Astartes Scout, then you again are upgraded to a full blown SM for the final campaign. The whole game could span a period of 30 years or more.

Another idea I'm quite partial too is a Battlefield-series style online FPS with air and land vehicles, where two sides face off against each other on the ruined battlefields of the Imperium. The only difficulty with this is finding a developer capable of balancing the massively disproportionate powers of different soldiers (do you want to play a cultist, or a Space Marine? hmm...) but I think it could be done - perhaps even by enforcing a different numbers of players for each team, or maybe having maps "evolve" over the course of play (i.e. the battle starts with Guard vs Cultists, but progresses onto Space Marines vs Chaos Marines).

Also I think a tactical shooter like Republic Commando but with Space Marines could be quite nicely done - especially if you dropped in a good melee combat system to fill out the gory glory of the universe.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Oh, in the name of Zod. 40k is about Space Marines killing people. If you don't like it, find a new franchise.

While this is true, giving the player awesome power at the very start of a game is 100% a terrible idea, there would be no sense of achievement. A game such as that is only fit for 14 year old xbox retards. Speaking of which, a 40k FPS with a space marine as the main character is basically going to be Halo.

Erm, fighting against the orks and the chaos space marines should even the odds a lot much, yes?

[The Yosemite Bear]

mind you the perfect army for endless hoards, the SMs draft PDFs etc, would be nids...

I mean the Ultras sure brought themselves back up after loosing 3+ WHOLE COMPANIES in the span of a year....

[The Grim Squeaker]

Oh, in the name of Zod. 40k is about Space Marines killing people. If you don't like it, find a new franchise.

While this is true, giving the player awesome power at the very start of a game is 100% a terrible idea, there would be no sense of achievement. A game such as that is only fit for 14 year old xbox retards. Speaking of which, a 40k FPS with a space marine as the main character is basically going to be Halo.

Erm, fighting against the orks and the chaos space marines should even the odds a lot much, yes?

Orks, chaos marines, bigger Tyranids, Xenos, tanks & vehicles (corrupt IG), Necrons etc'. The possibilities are endless, 40K really is bloody perfect for a shooter, with the ability to slaughter waves of enemies that can still harm you, massive varieties of enemies and factions and weapons, and bosses galore (Sorry, Champions or War-bosses )

[Ritterin Sophia]

Oh, in the name of Zod. 40k is about Space Marines killing people. If you don't like it, find a new franchise.

While this is true, giving the player awesome power at the very start of a game is 100% a terrible idea, there would be no sense of achievement. A game such as that is only fit for 14 year old xbox retards. Speaking of which, a 40k FPS with a space marine as the main character is basically going to be Halo.

Erm, fighting against the orks and the chaos space marines should even the odds a lot much, yes?

From what I understand, your average fluff Space Marine can take on about half a dozen Boyz, but a single Chaos Marine is going to have the advantage because of experience and the powers and mutations granted to him by the Ruinous Powers. I could be wrong though

[JointStrikeFighter]

Not really an FPS, but Gears of War skin mod. Game Complete.

[Shroom Man 777]

I'd prefer the Guardsmen POV, actually. Space Marines are rather boring.

[weemadando]

Give it to Infinity Ward - I've advocated this since CoD 1.

Have multiple campaigns in the game, a little time as a Space Marine, a little as an Aspect Warrior of some sort, maybe as a few different IG units, maybe even a Kroot section (fuck Tau, Kroot rock)...

It's all about variety within a single plot.

[The Yosemite Bear]

you must carefully tread the paths available to you to avoid loosing your soul traveling too heavily down one of the paths. yes you can wear the suits of the different aspect warriors, the suit of the guardian. however should you spend too long in the form of a single aspect warrior you will become addicted to battle and become trapped as a priest of Khaine. Ultimatly sacrificing your soul to either rivive the war god or to become the newest incarnation of your aspect's pheonix lord. (or try for the ultimate ending and become an Autoarch)

[Coiler]

A well-done Imperial Guard FPS would be awesome to play, but one thing it would have to do is make it seem like the player is just one Guardsman among countless others on just one battlefield. The scale of 40k is important to its appeal, and I would like to see that scale translated into a game.

[Oskuro]

I'm currently playing through Gears of War, and yes, the tactical gameplay, plus the atmosphere, is very 40k-ish..... It could yield a series of campaigns with different characters (like AvP2, but with squads) so you play different 40k races.

The concept I have in my mind right now is an Ork campaign, where players control a Commando squad (actually competent orks), and having one of the squadmates be a gretchin you can toss around, or throw into enemy groups/vents/vehicles (anyone played Evil Dead Regeneration?)

If well done, it would be a blast to play, plus a good laugh.


.... dammit, now I want to go and build this commando squad for my ork miniature army.... waaaaagh!

[Tyrian2000]

Come on guys, Fire Warrior is not thaaaaaaaat bad

The ship hopping part was fun.

[Teebs]

I'd have thought that some sort of inquisitorial basis for the game could work quite well so long as you can take a bit of problem solving being included in the game. It would avoid the whole having to be part of huge battlefields thing and there's plenty of character progression scope for a servant of the inquisition: Grunt->Interrogator->Inquisitor (with all the varying ranks of inquisitor).

On the subject of firewarrior, I just got a copy of the game but every time I try to open the game it comes up with an error message. Anyone have any ideas for why this might be (I'm hoping it's a well known bug). I'm running windows XP.

[Vendetta]

Oh, in the name of Zod. 40k is about Space Marines killing people. If you don't like it, find a new franchise.

While this is true, giving the player awesome power at the very start of a game is 100% a terrible idea, there would be no sense of achievement. A game such as that is only fit for 14 year old xbox retards. Speaking of which, a 40k FPS with a space marine as the main character is basically going to be Halo.

Do it like CoD4. Interleave campaigns with the Imperial Guard and Space Marines.

[Vehrec]

I'm in favor of the Space Marine game, if only because Elite Supersoldiers are the classic FPS guy. Maybe you could play as a marine on detached duty with a Rouge Trader who pulls you out of stasis when he really needs to have his ass rescued, and assigns you missions like 'board that Tau cruiser and slaughter the crew, and be sure to escape before they blow it up.'

Yes you are awesomely powerful right from the start. But there are other things out there, even more awesomely powerful. Hive Tyrants, Lords of Change, and Necron Lords all exist to put you in your place. If you bring back enough Xenotech and Archeotech from your missions however, your friendly local Magos will construct new weapons for you, like a Plasma Gun that never overheats or an inferno pistol. You'll need all of these for the last level, where you board a Tyranid Hive Ship and kill a Norn Queen. If you do that, you get to go back to your monastery and are promoted for it in the outro.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I still say another one if you want to go for the Splinter Cell, or Metalgear path would be a Harliquin based FPS. navigate the webway between missions, and within missions, sneak, start out with a shuricat, and a CCW, upgrade to a kiss, powerblade, fusion gun, shrieker, etc. oh and your job is to defeat servants of chaos.

[[R_H]]

I still say another one if you want to go for the Splinter Cell, or Metalgear path would be a Harliquin based FPS. navigate the webway between missions, and within missions, sneak, start out with a shuricat, and a CCW, upgrade to a kiss, powerblade, fusion gun, shrieker, etc. oh and your job is to defeat servants of chaos.

Or as an Officio Assassinorum assassin. Callidus assassin for infiltration type missions, Culexus and Eversor for fighting Chaos etc.