If you could make a 40k based video game...

[Mabbz]

There's been quite a few video games set in the 41st millenium (Space Marine, Dawn of War, Fire Warrior, etc.) and I recently started thinking: If you could make a video game for 40k, what would it be?

My idea was a shooter where you play a series of one-off mission in the Imperial Guard. So one mission would see you in the role of a random guardsman having to survive a pitched battle for 20 minutes (killing the enemy is optional because the battle is too big for you to really make a difference, but commissars will attack you if you don't get stuck in), while another has you drive around in a Leman Russ or Hellhound grinding over enemies that would destroy you if you were on foot, and another has you playing as a commissar, shooting fleeing allies to keep morale up.

No overarching story; the missions are basically unrelated since the average guardsman wouldn't know why they're fighting anyway. I'd want the game to be pretty hard; a guardsman shouldn't be able to kill a space marine one on one without a lot of luck. As such, no regenerating health (find a medic or techpriest), lasguns are as weak as they should be (aim for the head if you actually want to kill something quickly) while other weapons are as strong as they should be (meltaguns insta kill most things) and some enemies are straight up unkillable (your squad is attacked by a daemon prince. Your objective: die for the Emperor). Then you get the vehicle sections where you can have some revenge.

Any ways, how about your ideas?

[Narric]

I personally think that jumping from character to character is a bad idea. It makes it so the player doesn't get invested, and so can rob the player of any real investment and immersion.

Keeping to Guard, I'd like to see a guardsmen rise up through the ranks. In a way it could go like Spore. Each rank introduces new elements. But instead of eaqch rank being just another level in game, in can be part of a contuing story. so you have a full game at a certain rank, and then that can lead straight on into the next game at the next (or maybe a later) rank. This could allow for missions expansions at each level, and can be considered as just that, extra missions.

I think something genuinely from the pont of veiw of the Tyranids would be intreresting. With a Hive Mind, you could technically eleminate respawn time, and the "Character" could essentially be similar to the "Named" creatures the Nids currently employ, such as the Swarmlord.
not sure if I explained that one very well

[Chris]

Complete ressurrection, but I'm guessing that is ok.

I'd go for something akin to Star Wars Battlefront. I loved those games! You play as a nameless soldier in battles. The simple idea is to win the battle. either kill everyone, or hold the strategic objectives for x amount of time. On a campaign mode, the over arching storyline tells you the meaning for each battle, but at the same time, you're no one remarkable.
Vehicles can be incorporated in the same manner as SWBF or perhaps as kill perks as per CoD.

Would be sweet I reckon!

[Narric]

Complete ressurrection, but I'm guessing that is ok.

I'd go for something akin to Star Wars Battlefront. I loved those games! You play as a nameless soldier in battles. The simple idea is to win the battle. either kill everyone, or hold the strategic objectives for x amount of time. On a campaign mode, the over arching storyline tells you the meaning for each battle, but at the same time, you're no one remarkable.
Vehicles can be incorporated in the same manner as SWBF or perhaps as kill perks as per CoD.

Would be sweet I reckon!

This does makes sense, but can be difficult to balance.

You would end up having to have IG as the basic Troops, and space Marines in place of the Jedi or Special Droids/characters.
Horde Factions such as Tyranids and Orks would need to field large numbers,  but me easy to overpower 1-2-1 (depending on what Nid/Ork you're fighting).
Tau would basically be a race of snipers, though Battlesuits would be a whole different kettle of fish, perhaps more inline with Tau-only vehicles.

Also, though you'd have a larger number of factions to play with, you'd probably end up playing the same battlefield multiple times, with often little change to the objective, which is what made SWBF kind of a repeatitive slog for me at times.

Vs. Mode was an absolute blast though And I'm sure one of the SWBF games combined Vs. Mode wqith Campaign, meaning constant butt kicking of your friends

[Chris]

I think you're right on all counts... I guess if we were to cover all factions, Marines would be a very small force. You could overcome this issue simply by the amount of reinforcements you're team got.
If I remember rightly, SWBF had like 250 men for each side (what with rebels and empire being well balanced against each other really). Perhaps SM would be just 50 (but NAILS hard) whilst Tyrannids would have 500 (or some other appropriate number)

Tau Suits, I would see as taking the role of the scout vehicle... perhaps (again like SWBF where you could use the xwings on standard battles) on the larger maps you could have access to pirannahs, otherwise suits would be the ATST equivilant...

It's all down to a matter of scale.
You could release various different story driven campaign via download each with various new maps which are compatible with all races...
make sense?

[Narric]

Does make sense and is how I'd adapt the SWBF system also.

Thing is we're very much pasting 40k onto a pre-existing game system, which could potential rob Warhammer Battlefront game of much uniqueness, beyond the varying reinforcement sizes.

I liked the Stand-alone nature of Fire Warrior, and Space Marine was decent enough when I finally got the hang of the combat system.
Though I haven't played DoW 2, DoW1 and its expansions did a fairly alrght job of translating the 40k factions into an RTS medium.

Thinking of different styles of games, I could easily imagine a Rogue Trader-esque game with pint & click mechanics. Maybe an Undercover Inquisitor searching for corruption on a planet?

Then there is the old Ork tabletop racing game that could potentially be remasteredinto a proper Racing game with combat mechanics controlled by either AIs or additional players.

[Scout Sergeant Mkoll]

I would personally say similar to Gaunt's Ghosts. Do it sort of like the original Killzone game where you have a small squad for backup as you go about your mission, swapping between characters for certain skills, Larkin for sniping, Mkoll for stealth, Bragg for heavy weapons and Rawne for demolitions and hand to hand combat. Not those books of course as it would never do them justice, but that kind of game.

[Marauder]

I would love a turn based game of warhammer 40k, basically the miniture game done on the computer with campaigns and buildiable missions. 

To many time I miss the chance to game and would love to load up a game on the PC and play

[Narric]

I would love a turn based game of warhammer 40k, basically the miniture game done on the computer with campaigns and buildiable missions. 

To many time I miss the chance to game and would love to load up a game on the PC and play

Vassal worked well for just that, but iirc GW shut it down.

If GW ever made its own version, I'm sure people would use it.