In the world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000, where bleakness and brutality reign and armies die by the millions, The Horus Heresy ranks as one of the most devastating and important moments of the science fiction universe’s lore, and the first game based on it is under development by Canadian studio Complex Games.
Titled The Horus Heresy: Drop Assault, the game is being developed for mobile devices and will be initially released on the iTunes App Store and Google Play this fall.
In Warhammer 40k lore, The Horus Heresy takes place in the 31st millennium of the universe timeline, thus acting as a prequel that shapes much of the world seen in 40k. To sum it up, Horus Lupercal, one of the most respected primarchs to the Emperor of Man, is put in charge of vast armies to lead the Imperium of Man on a galactic conquest. He eventually becomes corrupted by the forces of Chaos and winds up betraying the Emperor and all of man, leading his loyal army in a devastating civil war against Man that causes trillions of deaths.
Drop Assault will allow players to choose between Horus’s corrupted army or Pro-Emperor Loyalists who, as far as the canon goes, eventually defeat Horus’s incursion, albeit at great cost. Players will be able to build their own chapters with their friends and challenge other players in territorial warfare around the game world. Much like the Dawn of War series, Drop Assault is a real time top-down strategy game on a tactical scale.
Jon Gillard, the Head of Games Workshop Licensing, spoke of their partnering with Complex Games:
The Horus Heresy is an iconic and seminal part of our IP that describes the dark period in the Imperium’s history that ultimately led to the way the Warhammer 40,000 universe looks now. As a setting it has been the basis for numerous New York Times best-selling novels, card games, and more recently some amazing models from our Forge World division. The dark treachery and over the top battles of this epic civil war make it perfect for the game Complex are making and aficionados of our worlds will be very excited about this legendary setting being brought to life as a video game for the first time.
Similiarly, Noah Decter-Jackson, CEO of Complex Games, said:
We are thrilled to be working with Games Workshop on the first videogame set in the Horus Heresy. We have been dedicated Warhammer 40,000 gamers since we first started playing games, and we are confident that the tactical experience we are bringing to mobile will satisfy what 40K fans have been craving.
Still, news that the first game set in the beloved Horus Heresy campaign will be a mobile one is not sitting particularly well with gamers, who have been weaned on a number of successful Triple A releases based on the universe such as Dawn of War and Space Marine. The official Youtube trailer of Drop Assault has 39 dislikes and 49 likes, with dozens of angry comments such as “I appreciate that you’re wanting to make the first ever game set during the Horus Heresy but I think you direly need to port this to the PC for it to get any playerbase at all. The mobile platform just isn’t something to make a serious game on ever,” and “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.”
More information on The Horus Heresy: Drop Assault is available on the official site.