Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online Interview

Rock, Paper, Shotgun had the chance to sit down with Vigil Games' Tim Campbell during last week's GamesCom and quiz the executive producer about Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online.
RPS: I feel like the 40K universe distinguishes itself with a degree of. not maturity, but violence and depression. Bleakness. It doesn't seem to be on the same wavelength as most MMOs, which strive to be accessible to absolutely everybody.

TC: Personally, I feel there's a difference between accessibility of gameplay and accessibility of content. I've played 40K for 25 years. It's daunting at first to sit down with someone and show them the universe, but there are a lot of accessible, acceptable, identifiable themes in 40K.

A lot of sci-fi can be weird, with no points of reference. But 40K has loads of points of reference. You've seen it in pop culture all over the place- it's fantasy, it's sci-fi, it's horror, but it's not unidentifiable fantasy-sci-fi. The idea of a Space Marine isn't weird. Fighting demons isn't weird. You've seen it in a bunch of fantasy games. I think Games Workshop's great at producing a ton of fantasy content that resonates really easily.

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RPS: Okay. And will the shooting be skill based? Do you aim with the mouse?

TC: Ah. I will say it's more action oriented. One thing we wanted to make clear is that it's not hardcore shooting. The weird analogy that I always give is that on one end of the melee combat spectrum you have WoW, and on the other end you have Devil May Cry. But there's stuff in the middle, like Diablo. It's not WoW, but it's not Devil May Cry. Translate that to ranged combat and you can maybe start to see what we're doing here.