Review: Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor â€“ Martyr

Title: Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor â€“ Martyr
Platform: PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Xbox One, PC.
Developer: NeocoreGames
Publisher: NeocoreGames
Price: PC/Steam Â£35/$40, PS4/XB1 Â£50/$55
Release date: Out Now
TL;DR: Space priests with outrageous weapons.
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Inquisitor – Martyr is set in the world of Warhammer 40K in the dystopian 41st millennium. Itâ€™s a grim future where humans have become worshipers of the Emperor and divided into religious sects, all part of the greater Imperium empire. However, keeping on the straight and narrow in a heavily religious universe isnâ€™t that easy, so it falls to the Inquisitors to reign order and justice down on any heretics that have the audacity to break away from the norm.

Touted as an open-world action RPG, Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor â€“ Martyr places us in the holy shoes of an Inquisitor; a fearsome and legendary secret agent of the Imperium with unique skills, huge influence and firepower to match. Heralding from diverse backgrounds theÂ Inquisitors specialise in different areas, which is what gives us a nice range of classes and sub-classes to choose from.

When creating our character, we are gifted with three backgrounds for the Inquisitor. The Crusader, a mighty holy warrior of the Adeptus Ministorum; the Psyker, a disdained yet sanctioned mutant of the Imperium who can wield power from the Warp to shape reality with their mind, and lastly, the Assassin, who serves the Imperium as part of a Death Cult, by culling heretics, mutants and traitors to the Emperor.

These classes each have three sub-classes, for a total of nine playable roles. The sub-classes give a different playstyle for each class, offering melee combat, close quarters weapons, heavy weapons, snipers, and ranged magic. The three main classes have different armour with attributes like blink teleportation, stealth, artillery, or heavy shielding from damage. There is a lot of diversity, so you will need to have a good read through the character notes and pick what you think may fit your playstyle.

Set in the Caligari sector of space, the single-player campaign starts with you investigating an ancient, derelict Monastery-class spaceship. Upon attempting to board the vessel the action instantly begins as your transport ship comes under fire from the monasteryâ€™s defence weaponry. Being a battled hardened Inquisitor, this doesnâ€™t phase you, and you begin the task at hand, and go about starting to find clues to unravel the mystery surrounding the ships sudden reappearance.

The campaign is quite the drawn-out investigation, with clues found on each mission giving you a little hint as to what this ship is, and what the intentions are for the people who wish to procure it. Now I donâ€™t want to give away any spoilers, so I canâ€™t go into too much detail about what you find on the first few starting missions, but reading the ships corrupted logs made me think of the brilliant sci-fi horror film, Event Horizon; this definitely piqued the interest, and had me squeezing in a lot more missions to try and find out more about the plot.

While going about your adventures, you are in constant contact with the captain of your commandeered transport ship, being an Inquisitor gives you such high authority in the Warhammer universe that captains must surrender their ship to you if you so require, and although our captain isnâ€™t terribly happy about the situation, she does her best to assist you on your missions. Playing on the PlayStation 4 has the unique feature of having all communicator chat coming through the PlayStation’s controller speaker, which is a very nice touch and does add a little to the immersion.

The campaign’s characters are all fully voice acted and pop-up on the transport ship (your mission hub) as well as all the missions and worlds you visit. I canâ€™t stress enough how this really enhances the story and atmosphere of Inquisitor â€“ Martyr; to get into such a historic and detailed universe without prior knowledge of the subject matter is incredibly difficult, and just having that little extra to help craft the world around you, really pays off. It wasnâ€™t long before all the church-inspired vocabulary made me feel like I was fluent in Latin.

The missions themselves have a little variety with regards to what you need to do, whether it’s pick up X number of clues, defeat all enemies, or capture an enemy for interrogation. You also get the option on some missions to choose what type of style you would like to undertake to complete the objective, which again, is a nice touch. This adds a lot of replayability to the game, especially when co-op opens up, and you start playing online or with friends.

Maps and worlds have been created with exceptional detail to Warhammer lore and aesthetics, with ships and space stations looking like futuristic cathedrals. Gore and chaos are ramped-up to the max, with splattered bodies and the remains of mutated abominations littering the floors and corridors of complexes. My only complaint is that the interiors of ships and space stations feel a little too copy-and-pasted and not diverse enough, which makes missions feel a little repetitive.

There areÂ numerous enemies to vanquish, each with differing abilities and attacks – using the environment and strategies to take them down is one of Inquisitor â€“ Martyrs strong points, although I did sometimes find issues with the number of foes on-screen at one time. I noted a few instances where there were large frame dips when 12 or more enemies were running about, and spell effects were in full swing,Â meaning that attacking swarms of enemies didnâ€™t really feel that â€œswarmyâ€.

Progression in Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor – Martyr is accomplished though levelling-up your character by completing campaigns and missions. You also unlock skills from milestone achievements relating to weapons, types of attacks, and the number of things killed. There is a lot of customisation in how you build your character. Couple this, with a Diablo-type loot system, and you are constantly comparing pieces of gear, to see what can improve your character’s damage output or survivability.

There is a lot planned for Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor â€“ Martyr, with promised free content updates and a persistent universe with special mini-campaigns and a storyline influenced by community feedback. Which I hope will lead to a long and successful adventure for players. So, to all heretics, mutants, treacherous xenomorphs and the daemons of the chaos gods, beware, for my mission is to purge the unclean and protect the Imperium from your corruption. Praise the Emperor.