Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade offers combat on an insane scale

Warhammer 40K is a massive series, and Behaviour Interactive promises to deliver an MMO experience on a similar scale.  Miguel Caron sat down with Gaming Trend to talk about Behaviour Interactive’s Warhammer 40K Eternal Crusade.

It’s hard to talk about Eternal Crusade without just vomiting out a long list of promising features.  Right down to the purchasing model, Behaviour Interactive’s MMO action game is different than anything else in the genre.  Players can buy a Founders Pack for 40 USD, which comes with the full game and a 40,000 points to use in the Rogue Trader store, which Caron said would contain cosmetic upgrades as well as weapons and armor that is balanced with the rest of the equipment found in the game.

But the interesting catch is, Warhammer 40K has a free-to-play option as well.  Anyone familiar with the Warhammer universe, knows that the Orks make up for their lack of brain with a large number of troops, and the Eternal Crusade team has decided to make a free-to-play Ork class in order to simulate that.  This method of play, which Caron referred to as “Free to WAAAGH!” not only fits the lore of the game, but also balances out the amount of players in each race — on the Eternal Crusade forum, 40 percent of players said they would choose to play as Space Marines. There will also be premium Ork classes available to players who buy the Founders pack.

In our meeting, a lot of focus was put on the skill-based aspect of Eternal Crusade.  According to Caron, a new player can come in and take down a veteran based on skill alone because instead of stat-based combat, the game will rely on dodging, taking cover, rolling, and a lot of chainsaw clashing.

The scale of battles will be huge, with continents spanning hundreds of kilometers and battles involving “thousands of players” due to company MuchDifferent’s server technology, which recently broke the world record for most players in a shooter simultaneously battling on one server.

There will be no quest-giving NPC’s in Eternal Crusade.  Instead, players will be elected to be in charge of squads of 10, squads will elect strike force commanders to be in charge of 10 squads, and there will be a strike council which will be in charge of an entire faction.  The players in charge will place markers and objectives for their squads to take on, which can build towards taking over a fortress or gathering resources.

To be honest, the team at Behaviour Interactive gave my favorite presentation of E3, and I’ve never seen a team so animated and energetic about their project.  Caron was jumping up, air-chainsawing enemies in half as he explained the game’s mechanics to me and my crew.  Hopefully Caron and his team can deliver on their obvious passion.

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