Yesterday, I was ushered into a small room for a ten minute cinematic trailer for Relic's upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. While it was, technically, completely cinematic, the entire clip was said to be rendered in-engine, and many shots certainly looked like they were in-game, or at least target renders. It was also filled with quick clips and cuts that hinted at the game's story and possible gameplay clues. Despite the game's producer refusing to go into detail on anything that wasn't shown in the footage, there was plenty to see in the Space Marine trailer, and plenty to be excited for.


Space Marine is, for lack of a better comparison, Dawn of War's Command & Conquer: Renegade. Players will control a single unit, fighting for the God Emperor against enemy Orkz and defending planets from their attacks. During several moments, it certainly looked like I was seeing in-game combat. The Marine was running towards a massive group of enemies, eventually sliding in and slashing them apart. It had a certain God of War vibe to it, but goes even farther. Since it's based in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, players will likely have many more tools at their disposal than Kratos, and a few were shown off in the trailer. For a split second, an equipment menu was even shown, before disappearing immediately.



During the trailer, Marines used jet boosters, chainguns, and other weapons to take down the Ork foes. At a few times, it appeared that players were locked in pre-rendered duels with larger enemies, which might give a hint that the game will have quick-time events for finishing moves. While they weren't able to talk at all about the possibility of multiplayer, the trailer certainly alluded to the idea of four-player cooperative play. At several times, four Space Marines were fighting back to back, fighting waves and waves of Orkz (as a lone Tyranid's silhouette appeared in the background, shhh).

The graphics looked fantastic and the scale was massive, but there's no way to know how the game will actually look when it's released in 2010. Hopefully Relic is able to meet the level of quality seen in the render and give Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 action fans more to be excited about in the near future.