In late 2019, we suggested that Star Wars could stand to take a lesson from Warhammer. Specifically, that instead of tying itself to a single big publisher, Disney should give the license to make a Star Wars game to anyone who asks nicely.
“A new Warhammer game is never far away,” Fraser wrote. “Across every platform, the grimdark and fantasy battlefields of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K have been recreated time and time again.”
And in May, it will happen yet again. Slitherine announced today that Black Lab Games, developer of the very good Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, is working on Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector, a new turn-based strategy game in which you’ll help Sergeant Carleon and his allies purge the Tyranid infestation on Baal Secundus in the aftermath of the Devastation of Baal.
(For those who don’t keep up with such things, the Devastation of Baal was the attack on the homeworld of the Blood Angels Chapter of the Space Marines by largest concentration of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan ever encountered by humanity. You can read all about it on the Warhammer 40K Wiki. It is very Warhammer.)
Battlesector will include a singleplayer campaign composed of 20 missions detailing the actions of the Blood Angels (technically the 8th Company of the new Primaris Space Marines, brought to Ball Secundus by Roboute Guilliman’s Indomitus Crusade—you can read all about that here, and again, strap yourself in because it is full-scale grimdark) as they battle the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan. Slaughtering the enemy is obviously a central goal, but you’ll also have the opportunity to earn bonus battlefield rewards and resources by taking on other objectives such as activating comms relays, protecting friendly units, and collecting sacred items.
Units under your command will have special abilities, access to multiple loadouts, and detailed stats that will confer specific strengths and weaknesses in battle, and they’ll carry over from one mission to the next—if they survive, that is—enabling them to be upgraded with new loadouts and abilities. Along with the campaign, Battlesector will also support skirmish missions and live, asynchronous, and hot-seat multiplayer which will let players take control of the Tyranid forces, who have an extensive roster of unit types and special abilities of their own.
The announcement trailer embedded above doesn’t say anything about how the game will actually play, but publisher Slitherine will be showing off more of Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector during a livestream set to take place later today, February 9, on Twitch at 5 pm GMT/12 pm ET/9 am PT. We’ve also got a handful of screens that you can check out below.
