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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine First Look

Relic unveils its next Warhammer 40K game with this action RPG stunner.

In the future, there is only war. And that's a very good thing in Relic's upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The developer, best known as a creator of real-time strategy games and, in 40K circles, as the minds behind the two Dawn of War games, is stretching its development muscles with Space Marine, which will be an action role-playing game that aims to give players an immediate and action-soaked look at the Warhammer universe.

Today, behind closed doors, Relic developers showed a four-and-a-half-minute trailer of Space Marine. Although no concrete gameplay was shown, producers made a point of saying that all of the footage shown in the trailer came from in-engine action, which was impressive, considering the visual quality on display.

The high-level story of Space Marine will follow your character as he and his fellow power-suited badasses try to stem the tide of an invasion by the green-skinned Orks on a forge planet (the planetary factories where space marine weaponry is created). Beyond that overview, we don't know much else about the story in the game.But, honestly, when the rest of the trailer was filled with action-packed shots of Space Marines and Orks mixing it up in glorious fashion, who really cares about the story?

Combat will be one of the key factors in Space Marine, and though the specific control mechanics are still under wraps, Relic reps told us that they intend every button to be capable of a violent action. We're not quite certain if means that you'll be able to decapitate your foe with a press of the select button, but we get the point.

One thing we do know is that your space marine will have access to plenty of different weapons at hand, including energy swords, chain blades, and huge, electrical hammers that will be effective for dealing with swarming enemies. There will also be ranged weapons, of course; we saw one marine picking off Orks with a pistol, and another spraying bullets out of a belt-fed machine gun. Choosing which weapons you wield will be only part of the customization options in Space Marine; the footage also showed some leveling aspects, wherein the player will be able to upgrade attributes such as strength, attack, and defense.

So far, only space marines and Orks have been confirmed to be in the game but, given that the game is early in development, there's always the possibility that could change in the future. From the demo, the Orks look to be ferocious (and slightly stupid) enemies, perfectly in keeping with their "chop first, never ask questions" approach to battle. Relic is also being tight-lipped about online options in the game, but hinted that they look to do justice to the Warhammer universe's tradition as a shared experience.

We can't wait to see how Space Marine shapes up, particularly with regard to the customization elements of your space marine, which has always been a 40K hallmark. No release date has even been hinted at yet, but here's hoping the hard-hitting combat that 40K tabletop players have always envisioned in their mind's eye will be brought to life in the game. Stay tuned for more Space Marine coverage in the coming months.

103 Comments

  • Mustangooos

    Posted Oct 16, 2010 4:08 pm GMT

    Cool Warhammer for the PS3

  • OverLord1228

    Posted Jun 22, 2010 3:50 pm GMT

    Also to prevent a ''hah ur wrong''from anyone DOW2 storyline is just for the game not the lore so big chance it wont appear in ''space marine'' but then again it is relic we r talking about do we have to remeber tales of valor(direct fire mode wtf is that useless crap) so we have to keep our fingers crossed that relic will keep off the beer and drugs like they did on dark crusade(best expansion on oringinal seris) and the oringinal DOW so they can do a good job and give us sum good old fashion blood splattering fun.

  • OverLord1228

    Posted Jun 22, 2010 3:38 pm GMT

    @Gelugon baat
    he blood ravens are indeed a splinter fraction and most u speak is true. However i dont think due to the fact SPOILER ALERT that chapter master kyras from chaos rising is corrupt. Blood ravens apperaring in the campaign would be out of stroy for DOW2. Plus the space marines dont consider the emperor a god but the trillions (and more) do consider him a god. the new codexs r alright but the old ones r best. have the first codex of all races(costed me a fourtune but worth it) and they r truly everything u expect from gamesworkshop.The new ones stray away a little from the fiction itself but still satisfactory.

    p.s the comics r awe inspiring too and i know u fixed the mistake from the trailer just wanted to let u know the other info.

    p.s.s Any info on anything about warhammer can be found on wikipedia EVERYTHING.

  • OverLord1228

    Posted Jun 22, 2010 3:22 pm GMT

    For years Warhammer one of the greatist seris of games is moving into a different genre and concoles. this is a chance to spread this pc beloved to other systems making this game world wide and if good make it more infamous than halo or gears. Multiplayer would be awesome for like ( almost and i mean almost ) like a star wars battlefront or like fear 2 multi. custimize your space marine based on ur rank for unlocks and modes like a race fighting another like orks fighting chaos so the multi wont dry too much.SO much potential should not be ruined when this game can dominate servers on 360 and PS3. For the emperors sake dot mess this up.

  • raith616

    Posted Apr 4, 2010 1:28 pm GMT

    oops my bad make that next march

  • raith616

    Posted Apr 4, 2010 1:25 pm GMT

    @digital-reaver
    if you check play.com for this its listed as quarter 4 this year for a release, looks good enough to giveKratos a run foe his money cant help but wonder if they'll do loads of dlc, doin it from an ork point of view or better still chaos marines!!!!!!!!!

  • digital_reaver

    Posted Mar 29, 2010 11:47 pm GMT

    why havent we heard anything for almost a year now? Is this title still in development?

  • lifeoncrime

    Posted Mar 24, 2010 7:21 am GMT

    control a space marine is my dream. Impressiveeeeeeeee!!!!

  • killangrathor31

    Posted Mar 20, 2010 11:09 am GMT

    man i hope they dont mess this up, ive been asking for a game like this for years cant wait!

  • papajroche

    Posted Mar 17, 2010 8:40 pm GMT

    I'm excited. This promises to be amazing.

  • ASSASSIN0009

    Posted Mar 1, 2010 1:48 pm GMT

    pls make it on PC too

  • DJslinky

    Posted Feb 25, 2010 10:04 am GMT

    i agree this could b wikid so long as u dont have to play as ultramarines haha fingers crossed

  • madmoose7

    Posted Jan 8, 2010 4:04 pm GMT

    i wounder if relic will put an army painter in like they have on DoW, that would pretty cool, if not im more then happy playing as the ultramarines

  • markrhodes

    Posted Dec 29, 2009 4:22 am GMT

    to Gelugon_baat, the blood ravens are a splinter of the thousand sons. Its the reason that they have the large amount librarians and have an obsesion with knowledge. This game seems realy cool, cant wait. its also rumoured that you can play as any chapter you want, nothing against the boys in blue, i just prefer the imperial fists. I cant wait for multiplayer in this game. ITS GOING TO BE EPIC!!!

  • bad_ass12

    Posted Dec 26, 2009 1:21 am GMT

    where can i find the leaked trailer i dont see any tyranids in the released one and its irking me...............for anyone who reads the novels ....they should know the story is going to be good.............i never really read before i got into warhammer and never could reaelly find anything that interested me to get to read but man turn of the TV read a book and youll see the light the imagination is one of the best gifts of all

  • bigZmanship

    Posted Dec 15, 2009 9:10 am GMT

    ... yeah.. these dudes are the original Space Marines (DOOM/Marathon counterpoints not withstanding) -- FFS Blizzard why the hell isnt there a Starcraft EPIC FPS MMO yet?!?!?!!

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Oct 13, 2009 7:06 pm GMT

    To acepilotmra:

    And yeah, the Sons of Russ are a very inspiring and amusing bunch. Have you, perchance, gotten the new Space Wolves codex, 5th edition? Great new things in there, though some are derivations from the Dwarf Codex of Warhammer fantasy. And there are Fenrisian wolves the size of small tanks.

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Oct 13, 2009 7:05 pm GMT

    To acepilotmra:

    My mistake - the Marines in the trailer are Sons of Ultramar. I don't know how I could have been mistaken even after seeing those clear insignias of lyres and the ultramarine color, but I think it was because I had a preconception that Relic would be hell bent on using only Blood Ravens, considering that they jointly developed this Chapter with Games Workshop and thus own most of this joint IP. It would appear that Relic has won some permission to use more than just Blood Ravens when portraying any Astartes chapter.

    But again, this doesn't change the fact that the guy in the trailer referred to the Emperor as a "God", when all loyalist chapters consider him as an exceptional man, but no more than a mortal.

    As for the Blood Ravens, my best conjecture is that they were loyalists of the Luna Wolves, a.k.a. Sons of Horus, later to become the Black Legion after Abaddon shed his emotional attachment to Horus. As for the Thousand Sons assertion, I think that's a misconception borne of the fact that they have many Librarians. I believe it's more of a cultural trait that they have. They are eager to learn their past, and they seek so much knowledge - and have so much in their archives - that the usual 'standard' number of Librarians for a Chapter is just not enough.

  • acepilotmra

    Posted Oct 13, 2009 1:49 pm GMT

    @Gelugon_baat: That isn't necessarily a "Blood Raven" in talking in the trailer. If anything it doesn't sound from his tone and perspective to even be a space marine. The Space Marines in the trailer are of the Ultramarine chapter, not Blood Ravens. The Blood Ravens anyway are a splinter chapter to begin with. There are hints they were either once part of the Black Legion Chaos SM chapter or the Thousand Sons Chaos SM chapter.

    BTW - Gimme my Space Wolves!