Eternal Crusade Preview

What is Eternal Crusade?

Eternal Crusade is a class-based third person shooter with some RPG elements thrown into the mix to keep it fresh. set in the Warhammer 40k universe, because in the grim darkness of the future there is only war, It plans on incorporating four of the major races from the setting; the Space Marines, The Chaos Space Marines, The Orks and finally the Eldar. The game itself is situated on a single world named Arkhona of the Kharon System. With the races fighting over the ruined planet, some for resources, some to colonise, others for mysterious reasons and the rest have just come to fight.

The Eternal Crusade is a heavily work-in-progress title that intends to include a rather diverse and almost overwhelming variety of features, Including unique abilities, weapons and characters between the four playable races. These features will include customisation of weapons, characters and potentially abilities. There are still a few rumours floating around the internet; such as a player-based hero system where a player’s character can ascend into becoming a named hero available to all players! There is also quiet whispers about what “heavy” classes will be available for each faction; the terminator however is almost certainly on its way for the armies of Chaos and the Space Marines. The game currently features a suitable class system with limited options of weapons, but on the flip side we have been promised countless more, so that single bolter available to you at the start? It will have countless different patterns! The Mars Pattern and abilities to go with it! Perhaps even specialist jetpacks for the Raptors and maybe even different marks of the chaos gods for the Chaos Marines. This company seems like they will fulfil their promises and give us what we all desire! More weapons! More Armour! More enemies! More Orkz! More Dakka! Waaarrrrrggghhhh!!
…. Ahem.

To be honest? To me it feels like one of the most playable Early Access titles I have seen in a long time. Most early access titles are fleshed out with features that do this, that and the other but don’t really seem to add playability to the game. However, before they released it to Early Access they made sure that the player could actually play the game! Match-making takes mere moments unlike a certain AAA title, where the six in its title is how many hours you will end up waiting until you finally find a game.

But regardless the battles are interesting, each match is fun and everyone is mostly friendly to one another. However there are a few more balance issues, as the slaves of the false emperor seem to outnumber those that have been blessed by the dark gods!
…. Ahem..

But the point remains, from what I have seen there needs to be more of an advantage for playing in the underplayed factions. Whilst there are currently only two of the promised factions playable at the moment; the Space Marines and the Chaos Space Marines. The Chaos space marines frequently find themselves outnumbered, whilst in the long run this doesn’t change outcomes for certain game modes but it can easily result in one team getting completely annihilated just because of a four man difference in the teams!
With each team having their own base classes with different abilities it does make balancing an issue, however the company clearly does listen to their customers as they have recently pulled an item out and made it unusable whilst they configure the balance for it, however all of us warriors of chaos do miss that delightful mark of nurgle.
With balancing actually occurring I found faith in the game and I believe that with enough support the game will go the distance and become something fantastic. Whilst I am normally not a fan of third-person shooters I will make an exception for this game, playing a Space Marine in first person would take a lot of effort as everyone moves around you at incredible speeds making melee rather hard! Atop of that, most of the gunplay consists of very rarely using the cover mechanics and mostly firing wildly whilst you charge towards the enemy screaming your praise to Khrone!

Despite being a shooter game, the melee is rather rewarding if not fairly simple. You only need to know two buttons, which one is to hit and which one is to defensive bash. You can charge up your melee attacks to deal more damage but if someone bashes you then you become stunned, making you a rather easy kill. Once downed you can execute your opponents, something I take great pleasure in doing despite how time consuming the executions can be! But! It gives you that little experience bonus, so it is a risk for reward situation! A risk I always take.

With immersion is a key part of this game, even early on they have taken the effort to make sure that each faction and even each sub faction has its own taunts and warcries; however this does raise the issue where I struggle not to abuse my soundboard and blurt out praises to Khrone whilst on TeamSpeak. The large amount of attention to detail really effectively showcases just how much they care about their own game and how they want to make something great rather than to just drain our wallets.
With more races coming in the near future, one can only be excited about what they have to offer.

As mentioned for an early access game this title is extremely playable and enjoyable, however it is not as fleshed out as it could be. With only a limited choice of options I feel that the sooner they expand on this the better. Also the other issue is that they have hinted at the possibility of the final game being nothing like the alpha which worries me, I fear they may travel down that dark road which is the Free2Play MMORPG genre. Once they have travelled down that road there is no coming back and returning to a fast paced PvP game. But there is hope! Hope that they might follow a Planetside 2 route instead! Featuring massive zones full of players fighting for their factions and proving their loyalty to their fellow comrades.

For an Alpha game I am deeply impressed, and I find it hard to be impressed by Early Access titles. As Eternal Crusade currently is I will more than happily sink countless more hours into the game! I will be submitting a preview as it enters a beta phase and a possibly a review as it enters its final phase so you can keep track of my opinions!
Now go out there! Fight for the dark gods and slay the servants of the false emperor