WH40K: Inquisitor – Martyr - New game announced

[Ishagu]

Diablo 3 on console is fantastic, truly.

[StraightSilver]

As somebody who rarely plays computer games anymore and doesn't play online will this be worth getting (on console) for somebody who only wants to play single player?

I had heard some of the missions require you to team up to complete them but I'm not a fan of co-op games and also prefer not to play online.

I really want to play this but probably won't get it if it needs to be played co-op.

[Ishagu]

It will still be worth it as a single player. It's an action RPG with loot.

[StraightSilver]

It will still be worth it as a single player. It's an action RPG with loot.

 

Cool, I loved Diablo 3 on console and played that single player so was hoping this would be along similar lines.

 

I realise now though that I sound like a right Billy no mates....... lol.

[Brother Casman]

Since this has been released on PC, I've moved this thread to the Other Games forum.

[Captain Idaho]

If it's like Diablo 3 then it'll be direct control rather than point and command. Which is what I'd prefer.

[Joe]

 

Whew boy. You should probably read the reviews before buying, boys. It hasn't turned out all that well.

[Ishagu]

Anyone remember Armored Core?

 

It never had good reviews but was an amazing game.

Also pc games are often not up to par with console releases that are more stable and polished.

[Captain Idaho]

I'll still buy it and probably enjoy it. Damn the reviews lol (40K nerd here)

 

@ Chapter Master Varlak - so matey, have you any insider news on the controls for consoles? This is crucial for me.

[klisof]

Just received my latest order from FW (damn LCTB :( ), and there was a flyer in the box with a 15% discount code for this game plus a code for some DLC missions on steam.

Going to take a look this weekend to decide if i want to buy this game on PC or wait for the PS4 version.

 

I would guess the codes will be in any order from GW or FW.

[Doghouse]

I know it's getting mixed reviews but I am quite enjoying this game at the moment. I ended up going with the assassin because of her speed and mobility mainly because I'm playing solo right now. Well that and I prefer ranged game play.

 

I can see where people are coming from with the game reviews, it is very atmospheric but can feel very repetitive at times. I think the best mentality for playing is look at long term goals and take full advantage of the events as they happen. That aspect does interest me quite a bit, I think the first one is on the 15th. 

 

I've not really had too much of a challenge so far but for what I paid for it I think it's good.

[N1SB]

A friend gave me a coupon code (which stacks on top of the current discount) and the rest of our 40k group egged me on to try Inquisitor: Martyr out, so I did. After 20+ hours in the past week, I'm still really enjoying it, but I think I understand the cause of the Mixed reviews. I'm just replying to give a balanced view, because it is a very fun game, but with some important caveats before purchasing now.

If I had to sum up in 1 line: it's a very uneven game now, a diamond in the rough, perhaps wait for a few patches before purchase.

I'll speak broadly to avoid spoilers, because I think this game is something many Fraters may pick up at some point in the future.

+++ Performance & technical Issues...which are gradually being fixed +++

There seems to be some actual performance & technical issues at THIS moment, which affects the reviews coming out (rightly so).

Performance (frame rate issues, drops) affects the entire experience. I think it has a bigger impact on reviews than people want to say, because no one wants to be accused of having an inferior PC. I have a good rig that I put together myself in the name of the Omnissiah, that run current generation fighting games seamlessly (because there, you can feel if things are a frame/fraction of a second off), but even with Inquisitor: Martyr I noticed sudden drops.

And I think it's both a technical issue (like optimisation) and a design issue (like aesthetic choices). For example, while fighting on a mission, members of your retinue outside the theatre will video-call you on this overlay screen in the corner. It happens whenever 1 of them calls, I've noticed sudden frame dips...and it mainly seems to be just that 1 person. I basically have to stop what I'm doing, wait for this person to finish talking, then move on. It causes a lull in the action and can even disrupt a fight. If they just improved that character's animation or make the video-call screen something you can turn off, it'd solve that problem.

The unevenness of the performance during those sudden frame drops is worse than consistently mediocre performance, because I have to lower my graphics settings JUST to deal with those spikes, rather than adjust my settings to how it should be able to run.

That's just 1 problem, as there are many other little kinks to work out. Here's another minor but hilarious one:

"Acolyte, this is how I hold a pistol. It's called the Caligari Grip."

There's weird bugs here and there that doesn't affect gameplay, but maybe suggests perhaps the game needs a bit more polish.

Now, if you're playing for the single-player story, this is all very forgiveable, because I can overlook these issues due to its many other positive qualities. However, if you're intending to primarily play this as a multi-player action roleplaying game, like a rogue-like Diablo game where performance is really a major issue, this can be a showstopper.

Thus, I really understand why this game got Mixed reviews due to what people's understndable expectations, which leads to...

+++ The game reminded me as much of Dawn of War II as it does Diablo +++

Every game is different, but people almost universally compared this to Diablo...and I'm not sure that's even the closest parallel.

Beyond performance issues, I noticed people saying the game is slow, boring, puts them to sleep, etc. I was having a blast! And then I realised it's because people wanted purely a Diablo-style gameplay with mad loot drops, but this game also plays like a tactical real-time strategy game with roleplaying elements like Dawn of War II's story mode.

Inquisitor: Martyr has a cover system that enemies will use, positioning themselves (perhaps set up by the map designers) behind barricades to catch you in the crossfire, so you have to consider that before most fights. They actually use some rudimentary tactics against you. You set your gear before and after missions, not during, so you can't try the new piece of gear an enemy boss just dropped right there. In fact, you have briefings before a battle to preview the enemies you are expected to face, to change your gear accordingly. Sometimes you are better served with melee, other times with ranged (and you can set up your loadout to switch between 2 sets of options, so I usually have a 2-handed blade and a rifle or some sort, to be versatile). This is all very Dawn of War-like.

While playing Inquisitor: Martyr, I realised I was playing it like Dawn of War II's single-player story on highest difficulty, where I relied heavily on the Force Commander's jump pack melee and the Scout Sgt Cyrus's sniping. You can set up your character to play like either style, and switch between them. That's really fun for me, and it was great finding my own playstyle and very personal weapon preferences, to make my character truly my own.

Thus, it's a different hybrid. Unlike the performance issues, this is actually what makes Inquisitor: Martyr really interesting to me. However, if people are expecting a pure Diablo game (for legit reasons), they might be disappointed, thus the Mixed reviews.

+++ Even the character classes are very uneven +++

The 3 character classes are quite different, so much so whichever a player started with could've affected his review score IMHO.

1st, you could be a Psyker. Plays like a typical spellcaster with a neat Perils of the Warp mechanic, but nothing too remarkable.

2nd, you could play a Crusader. Power-armoured, tough, very impressive, big weapons. And slow. Cooldowns on weapon attacks are a mechanic, so the Crusader could swing a big thunderhammer, but has noticeable yet deliberate lag time between attacks. That is By Design to give him a sense of gravitas and is a trade-off between damage and speed...which people may see as dull. It's actually very calculated, so you save your big swings on a boss, then while the attack cools down while you swat away his minions around him. With this being a 40k game, I think this power-armoured archetype is the default choice, and I think that really affected review scores.

3rd is the Assassin and (like Doghouse above) I found this the most fun by far. She is both more offensive and defensive than the others with a mechanic that I wish was in Diablo and Dawn of War II. In those games, you mainly use the mouse to control your character's movement and attacks, while the keyboard is just for additional powers or items. In Inquisitor: Martyr, you could also use the keyboard to make the character do a tumble roll up/down/left/right, in addition to controlling her with the mouse. For example, you can kite enemies with a sniper rifle by moving into range, firing an aimed shot, then roll back out of range. This makes the Assassin so much more enjoyable than not just the other 2 classes, but the other 2 games I mentioned.

Why is this unevenness between classes an issue? It's because I noticed some reviews came from players who had about 5 hours of gameplay. 5 hours was just about the time it took me to get really comfortable with the Assassin class (due to all the weapon combinations that affect how you play even 1 class), then I tested other classes. If they chose the Crusader...they probably had a bad initial impression.

The unevenness between classes isn't just bad for a player review, but also affects actual replay value. I think it'll be fixed over time.

+++ Its sheer 40kness is very consistent and pervasive throughout, however +++

"How's the story? Is it...immersive?" When talking about a RPG, I like to divide story into plot, people, places.

The single-player plot is fine, in fact it's a great yarn with twists & turns. It's very much an Inquisitional mystery.

The people and places, however, are not just great, but go so far as to remind me what it felt like when I 1st played the Dark Heresy tabletop RPG. As my Gamemaster once told me, 40k the game doesn't do a great job telling me how people live (just how they die on the battlefield), and Dark Heresy fills in those blanks, to give a better feel of the setting.

Characters make off-hand comments about what it's like to work within the Imperium bureaucracy, the internal political squabbles between Inquisitors, what a Machine Spirit actually is (as an Iron Hands and Mechanicum player, this is something I really had to learn), what people trying to make a living have to go through, what it's like to be a Guardsman, what it's like to live on a spaceship.

It's not merely in conversations and textual clues. It's even in the terrain design.

In the opening tutorial, I saw an insignia on the ground that I thought shouldn't be there. I honestly thought it was a developer just using 40k iconography excessively because they got the license. It turns out, just that insignia looking out of place WAS a piece of evidence. I was supposed to notice it, and relates to the story...the plot, the people, and I was at the place. It never drew attention to itself. It was just there as part of the setting.

Even game mechanics are affected. You know how a lasgun and an autogun are basically equivalents in a 40k game? In Inquisitor: Martyr, they have different firing methods and ammo systems. For example, the lasgun is better for single targets and has a cooling mechanic, whereas the autogun is better for spraying an area and needs to reload clips. It suddenly occurred to me why Guardsmen, with officers giving orders to "First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire" would prefer lasguns, because they overcome the cooling issue by coordinating their fire. A combatant more used to fighting solo, however, might prefer an autogun, so it makes sense Gangers or Cultists actually prefer it given the option. My Assassin actually prefers an autogun herself as her secondary weapon.

NOTE - 1 thing I did notice was the game excessively uses teleportation technology to get you to enter missions, as waypoints, etc. That's a little beyond Imperial norms, but it can be rationalised as just how your Inquisitor character prefers to operate. It's just there to streamline gameplay.

One enemy group you encounter in the course of the storyline so reminds me of a 7th ed Formation, that I figured at least one of the developers must have a 40k army that uses it. It's like seeing that Formation have a life behind-the-scenes and it amused me.

Whereas many of the game's elements are uneven, I think the developers got the feel of 40k right. It's a little bit their own interpretation and takes place in their own space sector, but its consistent with other lore and is ingrained in all parts of the game.

+++ For a game called Inquisitor...you DO plot like an Inquisitor +++

Again, this isn't just a Diablo clone where it happens your characters have the title of Inquisitor. You ARE an Inquisitor.

If you played Dark Heresy's sister tabletop RPG, Rogue Trader, you actually strategise and manage your retinue to execute plans on your behalf. You would make a skill roll like Trade and it won't necessarily be your character bartering, instead it would represent him organising a delegation of merchants to represent you and negotiate the deal for you to sign.

Inquisitor: Martyr has something like this as a lead up to a certain type of mission (don't worry, non-spoilers, this was a random one):

This will lead into an actual combat component with you leading a team or infiltrating solo, but just reading the options they give you to investigate heresies are often really creative and hilarious. To explain, here you're trying to find a cult and you can:

- use holy symbols as reverse-bait (this is I think the Radical vs. Puritan option, as shown by the flame icon there)

- do the generic library use option

- do a fake Cult rally by paying money, I've seen variations of this on several missions

I think you can play whole game as these sorts of missions, with the plotting 1st then combat after. I've really not seen this much discussed, because people focus on just the rogue-like Diablo-style gameplay, so I mention it here.

+++ Conclusions and my recommendation to others +++

Inquisitor: Martyr is a really neat game, unfortunately with some unevenness issues, and the biggest one of which is it's not consistent with Diablo-like games with which it's compared to. I'm not handwaving it with "every game is different" as I understand where people are coming from, but as mentioned above it feels as much like Dawn of War II to me.

I would recommend people not to be turned off by the Mixed reviews. It might have been a rushed title, so it deserved those because people graded it on what they got at release, but in this age of Steam games things get updated.

I think it might even be worth putting the game on your Steam Wishlist for when it has its inevitable Steam sale, which should stack with whatever coupon codes you got from a White Dwarf, etc. It did for me. When the sale comes, the game will probably be more polished, perhaps check out the discussions then.

[Marshal Rohr]

N1SB, thank you for that awesome review. I’ll definitely be picking it up as themperformance issues are patched!

[PeteySödes]

Waiting for console here but im 100% picking this up. Thanks for taking the time to write that up N1SB!

[Sete]

Games pretty good.

[Krakendoomcool]

I've been a bit taken with that cinematic trailer and started doing this...

 

[PeteySödes]

Noooo not you KDC!

 

*spits on the ground

[Chapter Master Valrak]

Since the Inquisitor Martyr has nearly been out for a month, I wanted to make a video about how the game is, what I've enjoyed and not enjoyed, what needs improving and what needs to be added to make it a more enjoyable game.

 

[Dulahan]

Anyone been able to sit down with the Console Couch Coop on this game yet?  Ideally on PS4?

 

Still waiting to be sure two of my friends and I can play it together before I bite the bullet.  And that it'll be fun as such.