Owlcat on Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy’s Moral Grey Areas and Investigations — cRPGs Built to Make Even Their Creators Want to Play

The developers drew on lessons from their work on Rogue Trader.

Owlcat Games continues to showcase the Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy cRPG across multiple platforms. Recently, executive producer Anatoly Shestov spoke with reporters.

He addressed the setting’s moral ambiguity:

“Conventional stories usually come with a predefined set of actions labeled as either good or evil. Someone before you decided that certain deeds will push your worldview toward light or darkness, and the world reacts accordingly. What makes Warhammer unique is that these lines are so tangled that no one truly knows what is right or wrong. We’re crafting a story where you don’t simply pick between good and evil — you determine what counts as good or bad. Perhaps killing those innocents is the right choice in the moment; perhaps punishing that villain is wrong, because in the future that same villain might save millions whom the innocents would ruin.”

In Dark Heresy the team will introduce investigative gameplay. Shestov outlined their approach — they don’t intend to limit the player:

“The system doesn’t force you to become a detective. From a narrative standpoint it unfolds naturally. We realized the investigative layer allows us to engage players on a different level. It’s not merely a vehicle for facts — you could always open an encyclopedia and read them. It’s not only about private experiences — you could open a dialogue and read it. Instead, it becomes woven into its own, independent story.”

The producer also added: “We’re still ambitious and a little mad — we’re building the game we’d want to play.”

Add Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy to your Steam wishlist using this link.

Source: iXBT.games