Reviewing books, films, video games and all things science fiction.
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
Eisenhorn: Xenos Interview
For all the varied video games depicting the nightmare future Warhammer 40,000 universe, few take the time to examine anything beyond the frontlines. Every title from the methodically slow-paced Space Hulk to Dawn of War’s high speed RTS action have focused more upon killing Orks with bolters than secret shadow wars fought between ancient powers. At least until now. Adapted from the first book of Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn trilogy, Xenos follows the career of Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn of the Ordo Xenos. Tasked with exterminating alien influences from across the Imperium’s worlds, the story depicts Eisenhorn’s efforts to annihilate a powerful cult and his own slow journey towards damnation.
It interests me that they're following the book exactly and not even taking advantage of spaces where they could potentially fill a gap. I can see why they're doing it and I think I'd still be interested despite the lack of new content as such (speaking as someone who has the Eisenhorn Omnibus on his shelf right in front of him). That they're actively implementing Eisenhorn's psychic powers, but trying to avoid it being an I Win Button is pretty good too. I'll be interested to see how they handle the encounters with Cherubael that Eisenhorn has in Xenos.
ReplyDeleteA 40k game which isn't just bolter porn of some description is a pretty fun idea if I'm honest. I like Dawn of War (II), Space Marine and Space Hulk as much as the next fan, but a look at something other than the battlefields of the 41st Millennium should hopefully be as interesting as the developers say. Plus with Abnett's superb story to back it up, all they need to do is capture the visual style right and make the mechanics engaging enough to compensate for the fact that chances are people who're interested in this have read the books and know Eisenhorn's story already.
This still has me a little worried, it seems like they have good ideas, I'm just worried about the implementation, but at least their heart's in the right place, and I'm not dreading it's release any more like I was when I thought it was only coming out on Mobile devices.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, there's something weird with the older articles, I can write comments on them, but upon hitting the "publish" button, instead of being greeted with the Captcha my comment just vanishes, do you still get those comments?
At the very least they have shown that they are taking the game seriously and are fans of the source material. I'd rather it were someone like that working on this game than someone who would throw the lore and story to the wind, then do their own thing without paying true attention to the license.
DeleteI get them, I just need to approve them before they show up. That said, i've not had anything from you on older articles of late. May I ask what device you were using when writing these comments, was it a different one from usual?
That's very true, after thinking it over a bit more I'll be willing to put faith in them as they seem actually earnest in making the game stick to the source material rather than just put out something with a big name on it to make easy money.
DeleteI'm still writing using my laptop, I've written several replies but it looks like you've gotten them, I was just curious why the captcha doesn't show up a few times and worried that the comments vanished as at least one of them was really long and I didn't want to retype them.