Frontier Foundry has released the first in a series of developer diaries for Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, the upcoming turn-based strategy RPG by Complex Games.
Previously, a gameplay trailer has teased what to expect: The White Knights chapter of the Space Marines fighting Chaos and alluded that Nurgle- one of the four Chaos gods- is behind the looming plague the White Knights are fighting against.
The first dev diary video for Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters essentially confirmed this, mentioning ol’ papa Nurgle by name.
The dev diary explains the two main gameplay systems for Daemonhunters, the tactical combat where you control each White Knight on the battlefield in turn-based combat, as well as the strategic management aspect where you customise your Space Marines, research tech and repair your battle cruiser named “The Baleful Edict”.
Each of your White Knight is customisable with various cosmetic armour pieces and various weaponry. They can use blades, warhammers (of course), bolters and staves. Each White Knight is also a psyker, so they can all use psychic abilities in battle.
Daemonhunters pretty much looks like Warhammer 40K XCOM so far, and the XCOM series is the de-facto bar most players are expecting of a quality strategy tactics/tactical-RPG.
But creative director Noah Decter-Jackson assures that effort is being made to bring fresh ideas and not replicate the XCOM formula wholesale, quirks and all.
“We knew it was going to be a huge challenge to balance a classic tactical RPG with the unstoppable force of the Grey Knights,” Decter-Jackson said in the dev diary video. “It just wasn’t going to be true to the universe if you can manoeuvre your Knight around a corner and into an instakill or take a shot at point-blank range at 99% and miss.
“We needed to re-engineer this genre from the ground-up, to keep that ruthless tactical challenge that we’re all looking for.”
Destroying parts of the environment looks to be a core element of the tactical combat, from breaking pillars to blowing up bridges. This is a sign of hopefully many more meaningful tweaks to the formula that will colour the gameplay of Daemonhunters.
The dev diary also addresses why Complex Games wanted to bring back Chaos Gate. The original Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate was first released in 1998.
We will have to wait until 2022 for the return of Chaos Gate. Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters is coming to PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.