It might not openly be about spaceships which listen to The Sisters of Mercy, but I think the spirit’s there. I wrote only yesterday that the darkly cute Dawn of War aesthetic seems to be the de facto look for Warhammer 40,000 games, and now here’s Battlefleet Gothic proving me wrong, and trying to look like the sort of ornate and broody artwork (think ‘powersuited murder-Catholicism”) we see on the front of Games Workshop sourcebooks. This is the game in which Warhammer 40,000’s eternal battle goes galactic, as the 40K universe’s biggest hitters send a few thousand tonnes of extremely spiky flying steel to blow holes in each other. We’ve known about Armada [official site], Tindalos Interactive’s PC adaptation of the tabletop game, for a year now, and the thing’s out in March.

Here’s a new story trailer, stitched out cutscenes, demonstrating the well-worn Imperium vs Chaos tale as well as showing off planetary-scale destruction. Appropriate end-of-the-universe soundtrack, too.



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If you want to know what all that apocalyptic space-war looks like in practice, here’s in-game footage:



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And there’s also this, showcasing the old-but-gold ships of Imperium:



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It’s due out March – no specific day’s been named yet – and if you’re heretical enough to pre-order it without having read any OPINIONS first, you’ll get early access to a multiplayer beta and an additional Space Marines fleet. Fortunately/sensibly, said fleet will also be given to anyone who buys the game within two months of release. The Emperor of Man would approve. Actually he’d just slump inertly on his life support machine and then someone would pretend to interpret it as a psychic directive to go blow up someone’s planet, but that’s beside the point.