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.
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.