Publisher Frontier Foundry and developer Complex Games today revealed more about how Bloom mechanics work in Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters while talking more about the strategy game’s antagonists, and teasing the presence of one particular Daemon Primarch.
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters sees your squad of Grey Knights battling against Nurgle’s minions, including the Death Guard, as you try to combat the spread of a plague called the Bloom.
Seemingly spread through corrupted seeds carried by the Chaos God’s forces, the plague’s presence is easy to notice thanks to corrupted growths called Bloomspawn, which gradually take over planets, seeking to consume all life.
As you fight your way across Bloom-infected planets, you’ll begin to see that the plague allows Nurgle to actively interfere with your missions. Warp surges can do a number of things, including summon new enemy reinforcements, restrict your Grey Knight’s abilities, but also grant your enemies powerful boons and mutations.
“One planet may be infected with the Strain of Pain, which tends to give enemies higher damage mutations,” Senior Programmer Dave Reimer noted. “Others may be infected with the Strain of Death, which tends to give enemies the ability to sap your Knight’s willpower.”
The longer the Bloom is allowed to spread across a planet, the more you’ll have to deal with Nurgle’s influence while fighting on it.
Players will have to manage this outbreak at the strategic level using limited resources, which can upgrading their units’ strength – through Stratagems and Purity Seals – or their Strike Cruiser – The Baleful Edict –, allowing it to respond sooner to combat missions and suppress the Bloom’s corruption.
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters ties the abilities and designs of its units to the tabletop miniatures, however, Lead Designer Peter Schnabl said that “because our game mechanics are very different from the tabletop experience, we were able to pitch some tweaks and totally novel abilities for all the units.”
The campaign will pit your squad of Grey Knight against bigger foes like Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes that “represent a massive obstacle to defeat.”
They can hurl your units through walls, crush them underfoot, and collapse “whole sections of levels.” Each of these Lords of the Bloom uses different strategies and defeating them requires putting all your skills to use.
Towards the end of the game’s second diary, Mortarion himself was more or less confirmed to make an appearance. Although we don’t know how much of an influence he’ll have during the campaign, Primarchs tend to be rare sights in Warhammer 40K video games, so it’s definitely cool to have him present.
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters is set to arrive on PC next year.
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