Necromunda: Hired Gun. (W40K FPS announced)

[LarsWestergren]

As long as you get a lot of the great W40K setting I’m in.

[BillButNotBen]

Needs more skulls. Good codpiece though.

[zagibu]

Finally. I’ve wanted a Necromunda FPS basically since the first time I’ve played the tabletop game.

[LexW]

I like the idea and the Doom-like approach but this screams “We built this game THEN got a Warhammer licence” to me.

Literally none of the weapons he uses is a recognisable Warhammer 40K weapon, and only one adversary is even using one (and that appears to be in a cutscene).

AFAICT, he uses a modern-day assault rifle, what looks like maybe an SMG, a revolver, a double-barrelled shotgun, possibly an LMG, a knife, and some kind of weapon which shoots a green bolt, which like, y’d think would be a plasma gun, but sure as hell doesn’t look like a plasma gun (it’s the wrong shape and too big to be a plasma gun or plasma pistol, but too small to be a heavy plasma gun). There’s also a gun which looks like maybe a meltagun or hand flamer but he doesn’t fire it.

He does refer to the assault rifle as an “autogun” which is on-brand for 40K, but the weirdly 21st-century-specific sights and rails and stuff make it all look really weird.

It’s like, where are the bolters? The lasguns? Where are the definitely 40K weapons? Where are the exotic Necromunda weapons? From the main picture the knife is some kind of “power knife”, but that’s like… lame… why isn’t it a power sword or something?

The dog and grappling hook seem like fun mechanics (though also like they don’t really work together), but again seem pretty like some other game which has been retrofitted to Warhammer.

[zagibu]

It makes sense that he wouldn’t have standard issue military weapons.

[BillButNotBen]

Except it’s by Streum On and they seem like such massive 40k fanboys that everything they do feels like a 40k game, even when it’s not.

I never played Necromunda, so I don’t know what weapons were available to the player. But it was about gangs, right? So I’d assume they’d mostly have more basic weapons like knives and autoguns, rather than bolters or plasma weapons.

Does the dog have a grappling hook too? Or does he grab hold of your foot when you grapple up?

[LexW]

It makes sense that he wouldn’t have standard issue military weapons.

This is Necromunda. I’m guessing from you saying that you never played Necromunda, but I did. There are bolters, laspistols, plasma pistols, flamers and so on all over the place. Autoguns are the “default” but any Necromunda gang is going to have people with better weapons.

And this guy supposedly predates upon Necromunda gangers, so would have access to anything they’d have. He even has a cyberdog and cyberware beyond what a Necromunda ganger could expect.

So I’d assume they’d mostly have more basic weapons like knives and autoguns, rather than bolters or plasma weapons.

And that’s a bad assumption. The basic people tend to have autoguns, but every gang has people with better weapons:

List of Weapons Used on Necromunda

Notice how bolt/las/plasma weapons are in “common” weapons alongside autoguns and the like.

It’s particularly bizarre that this guy is talking about his trusty autogun because if there’s one thing autoguns aren’t, it’s trusty.

[zagibu]

I was talking about how the weapons look. I’m pretty sure he has access to advanced weapons like lasguns and plasma pistols etc., but they won’t be the “recognizable” standard issue military models. They will look different.

The first pistol you can see in the video could for example be a bolt pistol. Also the first Escher chick you see has a pretty typically looking Plasma rifle, so not sure your point is even that real.

[LexW]

The first pistol you can see in the video could for example be a bolt pistol. Also the first Escher chick you see has a pretty typically looking Plasma rifle, so not sure your point is even that real.

I’m hoping I’m wrong or that because they maybe didn’t design it 40K the whole time they’re still adding 40K stuff. Like the art shows him with a bolt pistol at his hip and a power knife in his hand, but there’s no weapon that looks like that bolt pistol in the video.

Also if any of the weapons were Las or Bolt we’d see when they were fired - but not all of them are fired I guess.

I mentioned the Escher chick, but there’s no indication whether we could take a plasma rifle for example.

[zagibu]

On the main website, there is a slideshow with weapons that might calm you down a bit: https://www.focus-home.com/en-us/games/necromunda-hired-gun

[LexW]

Yeah that looks solid. Interesting that several weapons in the trailer aren’t in the list of weapons there, but it explains what the bulky-as-hell green-bolt shooting thing was - a graviton gun, that’s certain exotic AF.

Also pleased and surprised to see you can choose your character’s appearance and gender. Wasn’t expecting that.

Plus it has a full upgrade tree and so on, I guess Doom does too though.

Let’s hope it doesn’t suck gameplay-wise!

[LarsWestergren]

My main worry is they are going to feel forced to use low budget gameplay-time padding tricks. You know, backtracking over the same areas several times with tiny variations in enemies and things like that.

I like shorter games, but there are too many “lol only 20 hours to finish what garbage” reviews.

[zagibu]

Well, you are a bounty hunter, so it’s kind of expected that you are going back to the same regions over and over again. I don’t mind that at all, if they can mix up the tactical situations.

But yeah, if it ends up being a rather straightforward affair, it could get repetitive very quickly.

[LexW]

If it’s sufficiently fun blasting people in the face, it may be my kind of jank even if it’s kind of janky.

[Zephro]

While I love Necromunda and I love Doom Eternal I’m not sure that the 2 are meant to mix.

Necromunda is not a game of wallrunning and grappling hooks so it kinda screams “We pasted some 40K set dressing over another game which we made”. Also some of the models are incredibly literal translations of miniatures in production which doesn’t fill me with confidence. As the level of detail and scale on 28mm miniatures is waaaaay different.

[zagibu]

I don’t know, it doesn’t seem too far fetched to imagine underhive parkour being used by a successful bounty hunter. It’s certainly not the groove of the tabletop game, but I usually like spin-offs, if they are well done and still fit within the original lore.

But yeah, it could easily go in the wrong direction. Well, I’m not the preordering type. Not even the buy on release day type anymore. I’m the buy the first time it’s 75% off type nowadays. Too many games, too little time for adding new stuff to the backlog.

[BillButNotBen]

Necromunda is not a game of wallrunning and grappling hooks

Surely all games should be games of wallrunning and grappling hooks?

I was hoping for something similar to that old Prey Trailer that never got made - free running bounty hunting in a cyber city. But in this case bounty hunting in a gothic underhive.
The trailer was a bit too fast paced to be sure, but this looks more straight up combat though. Might still be cool, and probably much more achievable by a non AAA studio.

[Zephro]

It’s nothing against those things on their own. It just screams of a dev going “whats hot in FPS right now?”, goes off and plays Doom Eternal, Titanfall 2, Apex Legend, copies them and then just slaps some 40K on it. A lot of GW based games have trodden that path of seemingly just reskinning something else and being a bit shit for it.

Also apropo of nothing I think I’d have gone more Deus Ex/Immersive Sim for any 40K game.

[BillButNotBen]

All true. I suspect budget comes into it though.

Most 40k games are being made by smaller studios and I think something Immersive Simmy is probably out of scope for most of their budgets… unless it is very ambitious but janky. Which is kinda what we got from their first game ( E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy was apparently basically an attempt at a 40k Deus Ex that was very janky).

The ‘stick a 40k skin on it’ thing worked well for Space Marine at least. Probably a handful of others, though there are so many 40k games these days that I haven’t played most of them. Vermintide as well, though that’s not 40k flavor.

Not really related to this game, but a proper high-budget 40k X-Com seems like a no-brainer.

[Bowak]

I really want a 40k Mass Effect.

You already have soldiers, psykers and tech specialists as your main classes. Swap Spectres for an Inquisitor & retinue, make the light/dark choices more of an orthodox/heretic split and it’s ready to go.