Like many of you, I have been playing the new Warhammer 40K 6th Edition these past few weeks. While the tabletop game goes through changes, it got me thinking about the work being done over at Vigil Studios. THQ had announced Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium a while back and it got everyone excited. Until that is, things ran astray for the MMO. Back in March the company announced that they were taking Dark Millennium in a new direction. The game would be launched as a single player game with multiplayer gameplay as side feature. Does this still count as an MMO style game? Not really. It almost sounds like a computer game with optional battlefields to join up and fight in. Not the worst thing to have for 40K fans, and in many ways this could be awesome. However, it does not qualify as an MMORPG.
So what happens now? The question becomes who owns the rights to a Warhammer 40,000 MMO? Well for the sake of hopes and dreams, let’s do some brainstorming here on who we would want to see make the game? If Games Workshop is shopping around the idea of a Warhammer 40,000 MMORPG then what game studios do you think would do it justice? Here are five I wouldn’t mind seeing take the reins.
5. Relic Entertainment
You have to hand it to Relic for getting the Dawn of War series into the stratosphere of awesome. The RTS games really are amazing and the company gets 40K like no one else. They make the list just because of the sheer greatness they have given to the IP over the years. However, still being a THQ studio the chances of this project working out would be slim to none. Besides, they are working on Dawn of War 3…
4. ZeniMax Online
This one is my pure wish list entry! The team at ZeniMax is already working on a monster project: Elder Scrolls Online. However, based on the folks we know there and their skill sets I would love to see this team take a crack at 40K. With the originators of epic PvP, the amazing stylings of the staff and the pure veteran status of most of their developers this team really is a wish to make a 40K game. We can dream right?
3. Blizzard
Yeah, that is right I said it! For those of you who may not know, most of Blizzard’s staff are huge Games Workshop fans. Several Games Workshop folks have gone over to work at Blizzard through the years. Many of their top developers are also 40K players. So this really is another dream entry but it is true. I think the game made by Blizzard would be the most true to the franchise if they could open their minds to a multi-faction system rather than a dual faction setup. I think they would get every detail right. However, I think we will never in 40,000 years see this happen. It’s just a pie in the sky sort of hope.
2. CCP Games
Ok, this one is not outside of reality, this could actually happen. The company that gave us EVE Online and does outer space very well could be the perfect candidate for a 40K MMO. Even though they have DUST 514 in the works and World of Darkness on deck, it still is a remote possibility that they would come to some kind of an agreement with Games Workshop on a 40K MMORPG. It may take a long time in the process but I do know a ton of 40K fans who work at CCP. I really believe this would be a match made in the Warp, as CCP definitely gets what a dark future is all about.
1. Vigil Games
You have the material and I say finish the game you want to make. If the game had to be scaled back from an MMO that is understandable. However, there are some amazing MMO hybrids out right now. If you look at games like FireFall and even some of the MOBA games there is a lot of potential for this type of mash-up to take shape in an amazing way. I just hope we hear more about it in the coming months as THQ continues to rebuild. From a business standpoint, it looks like they are starting to get back on their feet so more than anything they deserve the chance to build an amazing Warhammer 40,000 Online game.
Overall, the real hope here is that we start to see some kind of movement on the 40K universe in digital form again. Space Marine was fun, but I’d like to do some more adventuring with a Chaos Marine on a battlefield with some serious doses of awesome thrown in.
