Warhammer 40000: Inquisitor – Martyr

It's a more linear Diablo with maps from point A to point B simple as that. Maps are a little bit linear, but it's still pretty fun. It takes a while to figure it out the math of the loot, but once you get it is a ton of fun to use the combinations. There's no much to say, all the factions of chaos will show up here SLANEESH, TZEENCH, KHORNE, NURGLE, all of them, since Inquisitors are investigators in Warhammer 40lk. You gonna have the main campaign plus a bazillion of extra content and extra side stories with meaning to complete. All the seasons are available from the get go. You can choose and begin to enjoy. There's no timed seasons, you can choose whatever you like and you don't need to be afraid to someday the game shutting down the servers, there's a total offline mode. You can choose right away before launching. To me Its 8/10

If you want a 'Perfect 7/10' this is it.
There is an Offline mode. You can chose to play through any of the previous seasons and earn their respective awards. There are 3.5 campaigns -with another on the way- all with some great 40K lore and it captures the vibes really well. Large, straightforward skill tree but dont expect to make your flamer also shoot plasma orbs. Flat out the best crafting system in an ARPG. The cover mechanics takes some getting used to and can often be ignored however, using it properly opens up more builds on higher difficulties. No real end game besides get stronger to do harder missions but there is a fair bit of options between which stronger missions you are doing. Tile sets are fairly limited and maps pretty straightforward but for the most part you are on battleships in space so straight kind of makes sense. The vibe is achieved.
I can promise you, even if it ends up not being your cup of tea, you WILL walk away with quite a few features and systems that you wish other ARPGs would adopt.
If you are having visual issues you are struggling to pin down, I recommend turning off any client side post process and enabling AA and what have you in your GPUs control panel. The "full screen" is fake full screen and the game released before frame generation existed so be sure to turn off any frame gen for the game profile while you are in there. I am pretty sure the npcs death explosions were animated in 30fps and kind of stick out. Turning the "physics objects" slider down in the config makes that less obvious.
Ragna van Wynter can get it

This game took me by surprise.

I am a major fan of the Warhammer franchise of video games and this one in particular did not hit with me at first.

When i booted up the game and since the start, you are hit with a multiple of information overload that will take a lot of people back at first. However, once I took the time to get it together, learn the mechanics, look what all these stats did and what the de-buffs and buffs did, it all came together to start to become a fantastic experience I cannot put down.

Lets go over pros and cons...

Pros!

Game play - The game play is SOLID and fun and a ARPG style video game. The game play loop is addicting and satisfying. The classes feel varied and run. The weapons truly alter your game play style and you will start to pick your favorites relatively quickly as you explore the different weapons available to you (there is a lot to choose from). You can also alternate weapons with weapon set I and II allowing for diverse game play depending on the situation at hand. This game gets very addicting very quickly and I loved every second of it.

Story And Voice Acting - The story is actually very interesting and the available DLC's do expand on it in a meaningful way. The voice acting is pretty top notch with most characters personalities shining through well. Usually in ARPG's i consider the stories to be fairly forgettable and you tend to focus more on the grind but this game I was interested in knowing what was going to happen next. You also have branching paths you can take choosing between a radical and a puritan thus altering the story and what you will experience based on your actions.

The Loot - The gear you can find in this game is awesome and while confusing at first, you start to understand it very well. Once you do, the combinations are endless. The gear itself is fun and has varied levels of rarity and you also have crafting mechanics and gear upgrading available to you. Overall this game has a super solid gear system and it will keep you playing for a very long time.

The Cons!

Graphics - If you care about graphics in ANY way, you will not find it here. The graphics are nice...but just that. Nice is the best way to describe it. Not great in any way. The character screen will show you more graphically than the actual game play will. The cinematics are BEAUTIFULLY well done, but its not game play graphics at all. Overall this is a very simplistic game graphically speaking.

Combat Jank - The game has some combat jank where sometimes you may or may not use a skill you intend to use randomly, thus resulting in having to wait for a cool down. The animations feel clunky and overall simple, not flashy in any way (at least for melee). There isn't much jank to the game, but the jank that is there is noticeable.

Overall Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor Martyr is a fantastic entry in the Warhammer franchise that was recommended to me on my YouTube channel. As a fan of ARPG's and Warhammer games, i found it to be a very solid entry and is a video game that will keep you hooked for hours on end. I have 42 hours in this game so far and I will easily reach 100+ in due time.

Thank you for reading this review!

TL;DR: An action-intensive narrative dungeon crawler in a well-expressed dilapidated world. Not the type of game that is associated with a favorite game, but fun and well built narrative. Voice-Acting can sometimes be inconsistent in tone.

you should
. prefer action
. like some customization
. be able to deal with inventory management
. like a good narrative that focuses on plot and lore
. can stomach corpses and other gore being frequently used as environmental props

+ Gameplay around intensity raising tasks, which raise the difficulty somewhat, so it becomes more intense, but never to the point of becoming very difficult.
+ Decent build customization options, with a number of useful random enchantments and some curated special socket-based skills and lots of trash loot.
+ Some visual customization options.
? Medium Immersion with options for roleplay (or so I've heard, I don't care much for escapism)
+ Missions paint the picture of a narrative feeling like the events are important to its world, but all hidden away from the general populace
? Mission structure: the game is separated into missions with maps that may even be hand-built



+: denotes an IMO positive point
-: denotes an IMO negative point
?: denotes an informational point



Feel
I'll best express this with what types of builds I know are possible (if you do not want to play one of these roles search for a different game) and how gameplay valid they are in my opinion:
+ High-Shield Steamroller: takes time to build shield and various stacks of buffs, but becomes fast and decently powerful. Looses stacks and shield quickly, so this type of character has to move fairly quickly from combat encounter to combat encounter. Also inconsistent, sometimes a mission is just not going well and does not give the required stacks for this build type to become good. Perfectly game play valid.
+ Hazard Berserker: utilizes various damage boosting mechanics and stacks of risk like low-life or high "Warp Heat" (which is a special resource, that spawns random hazards and can drain life if 100%, only available for the Psyker class), dies fast, kills fast. Somewhat risky fun and also game play valid.
+ Twin Stick Shooter Tank (also possible with Melee Weapons): Takes heavy armament, wears armor, shoots stuff, fairly straightforward. Game play valid.
? Infiltrator Bounty Hunter: utilizes lighter pistols paired with movement skills. Haven't played this one much, because I like the weightier weapon options and psychic spells, no idea about validity
+ DoT-Heal Assassin: squishy but sustained by constant heal per hit / crit / kill, have only managed to build it around DoT and somewhat inconsistent due to inherent squishiness, is fun due to speed of movement, a bit weaker than the other options, but still valid
- Glory-Kill Hunter: the Executions System is unfinished and does not work very well, never tried this build.

Narrative
+ you're a member of a secret religiously militant government organization, solving various cases of heresy by killing a bunch of enemies
+ uses intriguing-anomaly tropes akin to timetravel (timetravel is a placeholder here, not a spoiler)

Builds
+ not locked into a specific build due to RNG
? useful drops and lucky enchantment rolls can give a boost, but are not required for people going after a specific playstyle
- fairly low build variety

Missions
+ different types of mission chains
? all missions draw from the same fairly large pool of mission objectives
- different mission objectives can sometimes feel samey
+ some mission chain types are fully hand-built
+ some missions involve NPC allies

Worldbuilding
+ interesting world
+ every mission is in disfunctional environments with props like corpses, biohazards, skulls, shelves with scrolls. Some are in wastelands of ice and snow or toxic goo. Some are in planet-cities. Some in spaceships.
+ generally beautiful environments, oftentimes gory or cyberpunk-esque (without being Cyberpunk, it's more Steampunk)
? set in a supposedly functioning civilization, but every mission is encounters with hostile forces
+ somewhat varied types of hostiles from demons, aliens to insects and even robots, which I encountered in one specific mission (although I have not seen everything)
? lore accuracy: I'm not that deep into Warhammer 40k, it's interesting that it has that lore and I have the Warhammer 40k wiki open in my Steam-Overlay browser for the game, but no idea how accurate it is

Base game classes
+ I find all of the base game classes enjoyable
? fully equipped characters have 4 weapon skills or spells, a belt ability (grenades / mines / shields / wildcards (see: Psyker below)), an armor ability (movement / breaker / damage output / wildcard (see: Psyker below)) and a healing ability with limited uses per mission
+ Crusader: a warrior type character (can use ranged and/or melee)
+ Assassin: a rogue type character
+ Psyker: a mage type character, where use of this "magic" is tied to hazard spawns, lots of repositioning, sometimes even when not in combat, has a special system that allows placement of spells into the wildcard skill slots of weapons, belts and armors

DLC
? don't have any

I have never been more 'meh' on a game in my life. On the one hand, it is Diablo/POE with a Warhammer 40k coat of paint. Which, if you are like me and love all of those things, sounds amazing. In execution, the game feels bland and takes that idea and doesn't do anything new or interesting. It functions ok, it is executed ok, it plays ok. Do you want an 'OK' Warhammer top down action game? Play this. Just don't expect anything here to blow you away.

Playable completely offline, the amount of content of an MMO and the style and substance of an AARPG. This game is amazing. You fight various factions, there's plenty of story, there are lots of locations including on planet and in stations/ships. There's armor and weapon customization once you unlock the adeptus mechanicus (hopefully saying that right idk) guy in your command bridge on your ship. Just an awesome game so far and it feels like it's designed for the long run with an end game and stuff. Its fun.

Warhammer 40000 Inquisitor – Martyr (bundled with Prophecies in the definitive edition, which I would highly recommend) is a hack and slash game. The game is set in the Warhammer 40K universe, and does it justice, both in visuals, and in general tone.

There is an offline version of the game, I chose that right from the start. In the online part you can play together with others, there are guilds and season characters – all of which I ignored in my offline play. Season characters get unique rewards, I missed out on those. Since the online and offline versions are hermetically sealed, you should decide right from the start which you want to play. The advantage of the offline is that you won’t lose the loot from the last run, or in extreme case your whole progress if there is an issue with connecting to the servers.

The gameplay will be clearing maps of enemies, of which there will be quite a varied selection. The scripted stories from the base game and DLCs took me around 50 hours to finish the first time. The base campaign (i.e. the first five chapters) was almost 30 hours. Various mechanisms are unlocked through the campaign, so you should play it till chapter 4 even if not interested in the story. The vendor and storage for example will appear only after finishing the relatively short Chapter1 (i.e. tutorial).

There are several classes to choose from, but for the first play don’t choose a tech priest. That will have a different tutorial scenario, happening in parallel towards the end of the base campaign. Then it will continue with Chapter 6 of the main storyline, skipping all the previous parts. In fact, the tech priest can be played through the standalone prophecies extension too (it is a separate entry in the gamelist), but you should play it in the main game instead. I played through the base campaign with a crusader, but the tutorial Chapter 1 can be quickly played with all the possible classes, and then you can choose your favorite.

There are two map types : corridor based and open field. Most of the maps will be corridor based. There will be some variety of the goals on the map, but in the end it is mostly just how many enemies you can ignore completing the goal. Killing everything is always an option, and sometimes the required task. A special case is when you must protect someone. There are only a few such campaign occasions, but then if the person dies, the map is failed. Otherwise, dying on a campaign map has no consequence, you just respawn nearby, keeping the progress and loot. In fact in the final map I just kept doing suicide runs on the final boss, eventually killing it (and unlocking a perk because of the number of times I died on maps as a crusader).

There is a large skill tree. Some entries are class specific, but most of them are shared between characters. At first most shared entries will be disabled, but by playing the game eventually they will be unlocked through fulfilling the requirements for them. Generally you should focus on the class based skills first. Soon enough the cost of total respecing will be trivial enough. The same is not true though for your gear, that is much harder to re-orient for a completely different build.

Early on you will be selling your loot, as the only option to get rid of the junk, or even relics, but by Chapter 3 you will unlock the ability to break them down for materials, which I did after that point. There are always some high value drops, like intelligence, which can be sold to vendors, those will be enough source of money, besides what you gather directly on the maps. A small storage is shared by all characters.

The music of the game is good, though it mostly melds into the background during the missions. The sound effects are very satisfying, the sound of weapons and attacks are fitting, and the enemies die with satisfying sound (and visual) feedback. Your character is fully voice acted, and so are the members of your crew, and a few quest givers. The voice actors generally do a great job.

The graphics of the game are good enough. With all the DLC’s there will be a lot of enemy variations (though there will be only 1-2 factions on a given mission map), with varied animations – and ways of fight. The backgrounds are reasonably detailed too.

There is no save system, aside from autosave after the end of a map. Generally the maps don’t take much time, some are shorter than 10 minutes.

The game can be played with keyboard and mouse, or with a controller. The game won’t switch seamlessly between K&M and controller, you have to do it in the options menu, and perhaps restart the game. Not that it mattered, I played with K&M, the game seems to be with that in mind.

There are a few game modes, prolonging the lifetime of the game after finishing all the main and DLC campaigns. Probably the oldest one is a warzone, a set of predetermined missions starting from level 50 and progressing till level 100. Another option are the randomly generated missions, out of the few archetype missions. There are a few priority missions, as purchasable DLCs. They have a meager written background story, and you can make a few decisions during them. In the end, one priority mission storyline can be completed in around an hour, and some will reward you with cosmetic rewards the first time you complete them.

By far the most interesting option is however the void crusades. These are journeys through some predetermined graphs with nodes and available paths. They have a start point and several end points. By traveling through the available paths, you reach nodes. You can see only the effect of the immediately available nodes, though the setup and end nodes location will be clearly visible. The catch is that some nodes will permanently increase the difficulty. Most with only +1, but some by +2. But you must progress through some of them to reach the exit. For example, having a +4 difficulty will increase the received damage by around 200%, and reduces the dealt damage by around 80%. The more nodes you travel through, the higher end rewards there will be – if you ever reach a final exit. Still, merely completing a node will reward you with some random rewards too, so even failing to reach the end isn’t a total failure. Some maps have keys hidden in them, collecting those will allow to open more from the final reward chests. All in all it is a nice risk versus reward adventure, and probably the end game content for most offline players.

There is a card system, to increase difficulty – and to receive specific rewards along. Things like more XP, or more chance for relics. The effect of the cards can be upgraded, but for that you must collect a specific currency. Not sure how to obtain it, but eventually I collected a few. Not that it matters, as they can be used only to increase one random card by 1 fraction. There are around 40 cards, each with 10 fractions, so even after close to 100h I wasn’t in the situation to upgrade even a single card. Supposedly each card can be upgraded multiple times.

While I bought the definitive edition, one DLC was still unavailable – the hierophant. Granted, I didn’t even finish the story with the all the base classes. My tech priest was level 75, my crusader 51, my battle sister 37, the rest of the classes 7. The hierophant seems similar to the tech priest, but using other human characters instead of constructs.

There are 3 weekly mission opportunities. Those increase the standing with the 3 ordos factions, unlocking various permanent bonuses. Those weekly missions reset on Sunday, but due to a bug I could only play them after Tuesday, leaving a total of around 5 days instead a full weak. Not that it matters, a mission takes around 15 minutes or less.

The offline game was stable, it didn’t crash for me – though the online version might act differently if the mandatory connection to the servers fails.