Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr

by Matt Porter
previewed on PC
Warhammer comes again
There are plenty of Warhammer games in development right now across all sorts of genres. This one, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr, is an action RPG, and is also going for the longest name out of all of them. In it, you play as an Inquisitor of the Imperium of Man, as the title would suggest. Where “martyr” comes into it remains to be seen, but there’s not a lot of mystery in the meaning of the word.
Warhammer 40K fans will of course know all about the Imperium and Inquisitors. The Inquisition is a secret organisation that acts as a sort of secret police, hunting down any threats to the empire, mainly to do with the forces of Chaos. Developer Neocore Games is staying very faithful to the source material, right down to how the environments are decorated and how all the enemies look. This is very much a game for Warhammer fans, but there should be something here to enjoy for everyone else too.
Tactical Action
Neocore has released a trilogy of RPGs in the Van Helsing universe over the past few years, and Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr is following in those footsteps, albeit in big, clunky, iron shoes. The action will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s played those games, or games like Diablo. You click to move your character around the screen, and you’ll use the numbered keys to perform a number of special abilities.
What’s different here is that your set of abilities will change based on which weapon you have equipped at the time. If you’re using a melee weapon, you’ll have a different action bar to if you are using a ranged weapon. You’ll also have access to a number of different weapons within these subtypes. For example, you’ll start off with a bolter, but you may find a plasma weapon which brings a whole new set of powerful abilities with it.
And sometimes you’ll need to use these abilities because enemies can be a bit more tactical than they usually are in games of this type. There are cover mechanics in the game, and enemies will use them to their advantage. All the cover is destructible, though, if you put enough firepower into it. Alternatively you could get up close and personal with a melee weapon and utilise the cover for yourself.
Familiar Sights
There is a main single player campaign which will take you across a large number of levels, but even when these have been completed the game isn’t over. After you finish the main story, the game branches out into an endless sandbox campaign set in the same secluded corner of the universe as the main one. The developers hope that this will be played endlessly, and I hope that there will be enough variety there for that to be true.
Enemies range from cannon fodder right up to gigantic boss creatures, as you might expect. These larger creatures have specific weak points which show up for you. Targeting these will help you out in the battle. For example you might be able to shoot a huge monster’s arms off, or destroy some of its thicker skin flaps to uncover the vulnerable fleshy part beneath. A number of recognisable races from the Warhammer universe will be making appearances, from the evil forces of Chaos to the fiendish Dark Eldar.
Expect the Imperial Inquisition when Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr comes out in 2016.