Interview: Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade

Interview: Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade

I remember life without Warhammer 40k: I had money, I never knew I wanted to be in the Astra Militarum, and I cared about silly things like women. Then a good friend of mine introduced me to the wonders of buying an army, assembling them, painting them, learning strategies and then meeting up with friends to duke it out! While the table top game was a blast, I craved being able to not just buy plastic models and bring them to my friend’s house but to be able to control the actions of my own personal character and explore the exotic worlds of the 41st century. Dawn of War I/II were wonderful and Space Marine was awesome but I wanted an MMO so that my friends and I could form up and go on adventures together.

Well battle brothers and sisters, the Emperor has answered our prayers! Since Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade was announced it has been nothing but great news after even greater news as the Behaviour Interactive crew kept the community informed every single step of the way with coverage of their developments by streaming on Friday afternoons. They have gone through various changes in the time they started but have done such a good job that it gathered the praise of of Warhammer fans both small and large like Angry Joe who not only talked about the game not once but twice! All the while they never shy away from answering questions about their process, being transparent is their style and many fans appreciate it!

Now that they have released the game to closed alpha, I had to reach out to them for the chance they would answer a few of our humble questions and sure enough, Chaos Goddess Katie came out from the warp and blessed us with answers from the team.

Without further ado, here is my interview with Behaviour Interactive on Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade:

The Geek Lyfe: Although I am a huge fan of both the Warhammer 40k universe and Eternal Crusade, a few of our readers might not be familiar with either, would you be able to introduce them both?

Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade: An enormous universe. That’s my best description of the Warhammer 40,000 since it is so vast and endless that the part we’re covering is only one of millions of planets. As they say about it though, “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war” and that sums it up. It is Sci-fi Fantasy where factions vie for the control of all the universe.

And part of that universe is a lot of mysterious backstory where the Eternal Crusade comes in. We are a third-person massively online shooter, which focuses on territorial control between some of the factions. The universe is about war, and a shooter depicts that setting very well.

TGL: It comes as no surprise that Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines were added to the game, however I was glad to see Orks and Eldar were added as well. How did you decide on which factions to add?

EC:Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. They are eternal enemies but they are also simply pragmatic to start out with. The other factions were also in there because they haven’t been a playable faction in a shooter before, so there is a lot of excitement about that. Why Orks and Eldar? They are very iconic and they have a reason to be on the planet, Arkhona, where our theater of war takes place.

TGL: Looking at the in game footage over this year and last, Eternal Crusade looks similar to another game whose title rhymes with JanetFried Blue. This in no way, shape, or form a bad decision but rather refreshing and despite only being in closed alpha it has many differences. I, along with many other Warhammer fans, first assumed Eternal Crusade was going to be another attempt at an MMORPG like Dark Millennium Online was supposed to be, what inspired your team to choose this style of game play?

EC: We certainly have a lot of similarities to certain … other shooters out there and the reason is simply that they are doing great things. I can also say that in the beginning we were going to be a more open-world “Skyrim-meets-online-Shooters-meets-MMORPGs” but today, that is an immense task which we simply deemed to complex to achieve right now. So we went through and asked ourselves, what is our core gameplay and that is the shooter.
We then starting building on top of that the world and theater of war, as well as character progression, visual customization and so on and we’re very much a hybrid of a full MMO and an online shooter. We’re just less “RPG”.

TGL: It’s my understanding that Tyranids will be in the game but not as a playable faction. Would you be able to explain their role in Eternal Crusade and which Tyranid units we might encounter on Arkhona?

EC: We haven’t determined the final Tyranids that will appear but yes they are the NPC faction on the planet Arkhona. Suffice to say, you will have enough of a challenge to not get eaten, impaled or torn apart. Their role though is part of the mystery of Arkhona, so those aren’t the aliens you’re looking for.

TGL: While Eternal Crusade looks fantastic, the game play is robust, and everything down to even the environment itself looks wonderful, in my humble opinion what makes your team outstanding is the fact that you are so close to your fan base. I have been a loyal viewer of your Friday Twitch streams since the beginning and you guys have never given up your loyalty to providing the community with up to date information,  answer questions, and gather our feedback. It’s never 80% with you nor is it even 100% but you choose to go 150% when it comes to the fans. How did you come to the conclusion that this is the way you would interact with the community and why?

EC: This was decided early on, as first we’re very much an independent developer so transparency is important. It’s also about our Founders and their participation in developing the game, the more they know the more they can give us feedback on where to go. So it was an easy choice.
That being said, it’s one of the most difficult ways of developing a game. Everybody remembers everything and if there is something which very few know about game development, it is that everything constantly changes. So if there is transparency and everything constantly changing, there is often situations where old discussions are brought up. We try our best though and believe that maintaining transparency to get feedback despite the drawbacks is better for us and the game than starting to close down.

TGL: I have preached Eternal Crusade far and wide to my friends and have even convinced a few to join up! However certain friends, many of whom are female, and don’t know the Warhammer 40k lore too well are shocked to find out three of the four factions do not have females as a playable option. While this issue is not of your own accord, it seems to turn away some gamers who are accustomed to gender options in most modern games. Is there a solution you have up your sleeve to accommodate these gamers? If so, could you explain what details you can? If you plan on staying true to the lore, what advice do you have for gamers new to Warhammer to help them overcome their disappointment?

EC: It’s actually a very big thing but something we knew we couldn’t change when we went this way. The only faction we have which has female characters are the Eldar. There are lesser used factions, even simply the Imperium of Man but they were ruled out quite early.
Fighting as a human against super-humans puts you at a sever advantage. In the future we have opportunities to use other factions and that will help us balance this, because we want to and it’s important to us. But going against the lore of a licensed universe is not possible.

TGL: As of right now, Eternal Crusade is in closed alpha, giving access to select gamers. Would you be able to explain more about what Closed Alpha has available and how gamers can get access to it?

EC: Closed Alpha has been a great opportunity for us and the Founders to develop the core “shooter” of the “massively online shooter” part of the game. You get access by being a Founder but you also get to become part of where we go as a Founder. You’re not exactly sitting beside me as Founder but there is a closed Alpha forum where we now have more than 20,000 message of feedback which gets processed.

So far it’s been great and we were of course scared shitless starting the Alpha despite how confident we were that it would be a pretty decent experience but we were proven wrong and people loved it, we see that on the forums, first impressions gathering and surveys to alpha players.

TGL: Blink twice if a statue and voice pack of Katie, Chaos Goddess, will be included in the official launch of Eternal Crusade.

EC: I don’t blink as I’m always making sure the angels don’t get me. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be blinking right now.

TGL: We’ve seen Eternal Crusade begin with the humble Tactical Marines, and then witnessed Apothecaries, Assault Marines, and Chaos Sorcerers all added to the game and even some vehicles such as Rhinos and Vindicators. Every few months the game play seems to escalate. If you had to make a guess, what do you think would be the top tier unit/vehicle to help crush rival factions when launch comes around? Terminators? Dreadnoughts? Predators? Gunships? Orbital Bombardment? Exterminatus?

EC: Predators and variants of it, as well as the other factions counterparts will be dominant but also of course the capabilities of warlords, heroes and veterans which can range from small special abilities to calling in orbital bombardment. Terminators and Dreadnoughts won’t make it at launch but they are part of our free expansions.

We don’t believe that a social online game should charge your friends to not play with you through DLCs separate you. So our expansions are free. Sure, we have something akin to DLCs but they are actually just bundles of store items at a great price, it isn’t maps or anything like that, they are all free.

TGL: This is without a doubt the most important question that comes to mind. What customization options can we look forward to? Frost Wolves are going to be a playable sub faction, can we expect glorious beards in Eternal Crusade?

EC: Beards are actually being experimented on right now as we speak! The entire extent of visual customization in fact but how far that will go remains to be seen. We have huge combat situations to think of where adding a lot of visual customization will impair the experience and performance so it’s not just a technical solution, it’s about bang for the bucks. But visual customization is very important in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and it’s very important to us. Also, beards.

A huge thank you thank you to the entire Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade team for taking the time to answer our questions and for making such a beautiful game! It’s currently in closed alpha, only released to founders who support the game financially. If you are a fan of Warhammer 40k and want an MMO, I highly recommend buying at least the standard Warrior Pack at  https://www.eternalcrusade.com/ Be sure to also follow Eternal Crusade on Twitch so you can be informed on what your money is getting you and you can interact with the team making it!