At first you go in and it’s like Space marines? Fancy armor, with fancy helmets, sometimes aquila designs and wreaths and such, perhaps roman-like helmets, capes on occasion, skulls on different parts, etc.
But then you go down one corridor, and suddenly you’ve been down every corridor: pipes, grates, pipes, grates, pipes, grates.
So the emperor had some really fancy pants ideas for armor but he couldn’t spare a moment to think of the decor?
You go into one European palace and you see golden walls, curtains draped everywhere, chandeliers, beautiful artwork, fancy tables and chairs; but in 40k it’s like they had the decor of every human infested planet or ship designed by the ninja turtles.
Every 40k game makes the levels look like the ones from Necromunda hired gun, except instead of brown they go with grey. They look hideous.
40K art has kind of stagnated, really. Like at it’s heart none of it’s really supposed to be literal and diegetic, and instead it’s about translating vibes and evoking a general sense of inscrutability, decadence, and archaicness. It hinges on this sort of gothic cathedral look to do that, which does convey that vibe, but it really shouldn’t only be relying on that specific aesthetic to do it, and should draw from other old architectural styles too.
For example: the spaceships are figuratively “cathedrals” but probably don’t diegetically look like medieval european cathedrals even though that’s how the art portrays them, so it would be a huge step up if they made them look like ancient temples from other cultures too and just kept it so that core design was standardized but all the aesthetic bits varied by forgeworld or sector to represent how they’re all grandiose and archaic but aren’t literally all just copying specifically 16th century French architecture.
Imagining the ceiling of a mosque battlecruiser
Yeah, I have noticed too. The setting allows for very varied aesthetics with its space feudalism. But even like the legions like the dark angels have been significantly downgraded in terms of aesthetics. Are really that afraid to be more “out there” and creative?
My introduction to Warhmmer in a real, concrete way was Rogue Trader and I thought it looked good? I mean, the budget obviously isn’t at the AAA level, but I liked their decisions on the environmental designs. Maybe it’s just because to me, it’s kind of a whole new thing rather than an interpretation of books, tabletop games, etc that others have played before and their imagination filled in the gaps better.
Rogue Trader does a good job of visiting lots of different 40k environments, from the ostentatiousness of your palace, to the decrepit ornamentation of Footfall, to brutalist imperial outposts and the pipe ridden bowels of the ship. I get what OP means though, a lot of games just restrict themselves to the dingiest parts of the imperium.
I actually had been considering getting rogue trader; I may just have to get it soon if that’s the case. Environments are a very important aspect to me in a game to be honest.
If you like CRPGs at all it’s worth getting. Similar downsides to Wrath of the Righteous, in that levelling can be a bit of a chore sometimes and late game combat seems a bit rocket-tag-,y, but I’m digging into chapter 4 now and really enjoying the story.
Check out some of the level design for Darktide:
spoiler
It won’t let me add more, but also search specifically for Archivum Sycorax
Those actually look pretty well done; I’d avoided getting it because it felt like 40k vermintide (and I got bored of just slash, slash, slash forever) but the locations here look really nice.
That’s fair, it literally is 40k vermintide lol
Fatshark has worked with a lot of the better Warhammer/40k writers for their stuff so it’s generally top tier. They worked with Dan Abnett for Darktide and Andy Law (of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) for Vermintide.
I made it more interesting for myself by taking a laspistol and only going for headshots, and now it feels like RDR
I mostly play Veteran, and have a combat knife / six shooter build that I’ve been using alot recently.
I like the Carnival, I like to vibe in Space Chinatown
Daaaaamn those look good
This is kind of misleading considering like half the maps are just “green hab blocks” lol. The carnival maps added much needed visual diversity, and I hope they can make some more levels in the future. E: Also wish there were more than 2(?) hive exterior levels.
Also, very curious what you mean by the writing being top-tier? Imo by virtue of the genre there’s just not a lot of writing going on.
This is kind of misleading considering like half the maps are just “green hab blocks” lol.
There’s like two maps that go through hab treecko, and only four in chasm terminus overall. That does make it the most common area, though; the torrent also technically has four, but one of those is the special boss mission that isn’t in the normal rotation. All the other areas have three maps each now, except for the ice map and the train map which only have one each.
The carnival maps added much needed visual diversity, and I hope they can make some more levels in the future.
The carnival is some of the best visual design they’ve ever done, yeah. It’s gotten the best music, too, which is saying a lot considering how good Darktide’s soundtrack is in general.
Also wish there were more than 2(?) hive exterior levels.
There are 3, but one of them has been out of rotation for a few months because of some bug with it causing crashes. This also coincided with the studio basically shutting down for a month because everyone was on their annual holiday vacation, and I think they’ve only gotten back into the office and started working again in the past couple of weeks.
I didn’t say writing was top tier, I meant world building or constructing the setting. There’s alot there it’s just not necessarily told to you as part of the story of the game.
Some of it feels too mass effect 3/dragon age veilguard and cement-y
It really sucks, because the books do so much to show that yes, industrial prefab ugly places absolutely exist still, but there is also absolutely gorgeous places they’ve built. Columns of gold, marble floors, high art across the walls(all to be shot down/blown up, at some point).
Even ships can have sections that are highly decorated, even downright ostentatious in their presentation. Not everything is pure brutalist functionality.
Exactly, like there’s some really cool lore from the more creative authors, Dan Abnett’s the one who sticks out the most in my mind, who actually try to do the worldbuilding to make the setting feel realistically varied and weird. It is a shame that then artists then just copy this one narrow style almost exclusively.
Ah, I think I tried to read one book (I think I got through two Ciaphas Cain books aside from the main continuity) but never finished it. It really sucks that this kind of aesthetics in the writing barely if ever gets translated into their games.
While we’re at it, I am sick of regular-ass earth jungles that have been transplanted into space. This is the flora and fauna of a million worlds we’re talking here, give me something weird.
And you’d think a space marine recruiting world would have all kinds of proud cultural art about it, right? Well fuck you and me both then because Calderis looks like a map from a star wars RTS, literally just a desert with one type of adobe building they all share and no painting allowed.
any warhammer content born after 1993 can’t cook… all they know is grimdark, praise they emprah, fascism, release the same game every year, eat processed corn & lie.
But seriously, they’re mostly just eternally rereleasing Vermintide as Space Marine fascist power fantasy games for DOGE interns and their fellow groypers at this point. Feel free to continue ignoring them.
eat processed corn
most people would be a part of some planetary aristocracy if they even got to eat that. 40k Soylens Viridians and Corpse Starch for us hard-working peons and peasants thank you very much. if you don’t like that you can scrape pseudo-lichen off the bulkheads or gamble on finding some delectable out of the tower of Sewer Fats.
Mechanicus is pretty unique in that it’s all weirdo Necron ruins (though the DLC adds some industrial spaceship battles).
Space Marine 2 is also actually pretty good at mixing it up I feel, with the jungle planet, hive city, and
spoiler
shrine/graveyard world turned demon world.
