Forever Winter, an upcoming co-op multiplayer survival horror shooter set in the ruins of an apocalyptic sci-fi war, will release into Steam early access on September 24. While we don’t envy the chances of any game that releases in the same month as Space Marine 2, it looks set to capture the grimdark vibes of the Warhammer 40k universe even better than the officially licensed videogame.
Make no mistake: we’re incredibly hyped about Space Marine 2 here in fort Wargamer. Our most recent Space Marine 2 preview loudly declares that it “can’t come out soon enough”, and we think it has a chance to finally knock the original Dawn of War off the top spot on our guide to the best Warhammer 40k games ever made.
Despite being massively bombastic, Space Marine 2 still only plays with one tiny corner of the 40k setting and a handful of Warhammer 40k factions. It’s dialled in at the power level of the Space Marines – specifically, Space Marines as they’re depicted in Warhammer 40k books, where a single Marine can kill twenty aliens without breaking a sweat.
But Warhammer 40k is also defined by the poor sods at the opposite end of the power scale. For every Space Marine, the Imperium of Man has a million weird, miserable, mutilated, mad little people creeping through the shadows of war-wracked cityscape, cowering from awful, soul-devouring warmachines.
It’s the aesthetic of the pathetic, which GW’s former art master, John Blanche, scribbled into every nook and cranny of decades of concept art, and it’s a huge part of the appeal of Warhammer 40k.
Forever Winter goes hard on just that grimdark aesthetic. This is a world where autonomous weapon factories constantly churn out sentient killing machines beneath the rubble of a doomed city, while cyborgs stalk the night, harvesting the bodies of the dead (and almost dead) for parts.
It’s a setting that has super soldiers, but they’re the enemies, not the heroes. You play as the rats in the wreckage, hopelessly outmatched, scrabbling for supplies and enough water to live another day.
Developer and publisher Fun Dog Studios announced its Early Access plans on Thursday, in the ‘Declaration of War’ trailer below. The base game will be available at $27, with an optional special edition with soundtrack that will cost extra.
The roadmap promises new maps every quarter, and comes with a pledge that any gameplay additions will be provided to players for free – though there will be paid cosmetics.
Could this actually outshine Space Marine 2? Probably not, but stranger things have happened. Helldivers 2 came out of nowhere to become a colossal multiplayer hit, at least until Sony poured water on fan enthusiasm by restricting the territories the game is playable in. If Space Marine 2’s coop multiplayer lands poorly, it might come and go like most AAA singleplayer releases – a big bang that quickly dissipates.
That said, as Saber Interactive has already revealed a promising roadmap of post-launch content, it looks pretty safe. But we’re very intrigued by Forever Winter, and if you are too, check out our first article, which has more details about the gameplay and narrative.
Source: Wargamer
