THQ have finally made it official. The publisher has just announced Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, however, it's not the positive news that we were all hoping for. The game turns out to be in development at Relic (a studio who has worked on other Warhammer titles), and it seems to have passed on from the hands of local studio, THQ Studio Australia.
An early build of the game was seen via leaked footage late last year when THQ Australia were working on it, showing off some inspiration from the God of War series of action games. Eurogamer.net have just published a preview on the new Space Marine game, and from their description, it appears to have the same assets from the game THQ Australia were working on. Gameindustry.biz claims it is a different game entirely...
Although it shares the same name, the game is not the same project as the leaked footage seen online last September. Although the footage of what appeared to be a more straightforward action game was received positively by fans, the action title was being developed by THQ Studio Australia. It is unclear what the fate of that game might be and whether it will be repurposed for another title.
Head on over to Eurogamer for the preview of Warhammer 40k: Space Marine.
Bummer!
I would hazard a guess the motive behind moving Space Marines over to Relic was due to the fact they have been making Warhammer 40K games for a number of years now. From a business standpoint and with THQs recent financial troubles [although they have been recovering since the start of this year.] it would make sense to put a 40k title under a studio that's had half of it's total resources into the franchise. It would look good on the press release anyway...
This being said however, the version we've seen by THQ Studio Australia was a strong and developed concept. Given time and some benefit of the doubt by the powers that be there would be no reason why it wouldn't do well, as they seemed to have the core of the game fleshed out.
As long as Relics include
As long as Relics include all the Cinemation code that THQ Oz made, I'd be happy.
Kotaku
Kotaku has some interesting updates on what happened to the locally developed title... Sources have told us that the original action title was cancelled, but that THQ thought some parts were worth salvaging, and handed the leftovers over to Relic to turn into this action RPG.
http://kotaku.com/5271667/40k-space-marine-finally-officially-announced…
I thought the leaked footage looked awesome, btw...
How long was Studio Aus
How long was Studio Aus working on the project before it got canned?