The grimdark future of Warhammer 40K is a great setting for all kinds of games. Shooters ? Check. Real-time strategy ? Sure. 2,000-year-old board game? Uh, maybe. That's what Warhammer 40,000: Chess – Regicide has planned: a thematic mash-up of the classic strategic game and huge, burly space marines. The Emperor will be pleased.

From the sounds of it, Regicide will feel a whole lot like Battle Chess. “The game honors the sheer brutality of the Warhammer 40,000 universe,” Cathrin Machin, project lead at developer Hammerfall, wrote in a press release. “It features a multitude of merciless kill and death animations that were created in a state-of-the-art motion capture studio, utilizing military trained fight and stunt choreographers. The game combines these exciting features along with environments, weapons, and upgradeable characters which have been meticulously crafted by some of the industry's leading artists.”

The game will also include a campaign mode that promises a “totally new concept of chess” and an original storyline following the Blood Angels legion of the Space Marines. How involved these extra modes are remains to be seen, but it's a safe bet that the main chunk of the game will be a Warhammer-themed remake of chess. I love Warhammer as much as—maybe more than—the next guy, but do I love chess enough to buy in? Hmm.

The way we play with war has changed, but it's interesting that the oldest game on Earth and the most far-flung imagining of our future are both steeped in conflict. In the recesses of human imagination, there is only war. Check out the devlog at the Warhammer 40K site for updates on development.