Over the last couple of years, Games Workshop has been steadily releasing a wide range of games set in the world of Warhammer 40,000. Recently, players were able to once again put themselves in the shoes of Titus as he fights off a Tyranid invasion, alongside the forces of Chaos in Space Marine 2. In addition to that, they’ve also been able to explore vast areas of the Koronus Expanse in Rogue Trader and defend Atoma Prime in Dark Tide. In a pleasant surprise, Games Workshop recently announced that it had partnered with SNEG GAMES to bring back a lot of its classic titles.
Some of these titles include Space Hulk, Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior, Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War, and Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate. What’s great is that not all of them are limited to Warhammer 40,000, and its fantasy counterparts received some love with titles like Man O’ War Corsair and Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, all coming back.
Shortly after all these titles were re-released, MonsterVine sat down with the co-founders of SNEG GAMES, Artem Shchuiko and Oleg Klapovskiy, to discuss the importance of game preservation and their favorite Warhammer factions/stories.
MonsterVine: Can you talk about the process of how you all picked the list of games that ended up getting remastered?
Klapovskiy: There was no special process. We’re all players, both us on the team and at Games Workshop. We just enjoyed playing many of those games when we were younger. This is how we made the list. It was a nice and fun discussion going through all these titles, about our memories of these games, and that’s how we made this list.
There were more games that we wanted to bring that didn’t make the list. There were a lot of fantastic Space Hulk games from 1993 to 1995 that were published by EA at the time. We were not able to bring them, but never say never, because we are still hoping to one day bring them.
Shchuiko: All of that is true, but we also had to think about what truly was a classic and what resonates with people. Warhammer has a huge catalog of games that were released throughout the years. But it’s hard to argue that games like Dark Omen are not instrumental in building their games’ legacy. We had to be extremely intentional in terms of which games we really want to get and fight for.
MonsterVine: What are some challenges of bringing back these older games and making them playable, and do you ever need to change them to meet modern standards?
Shchuiko: Memory is a funny thing for those who played the originals. It plays tricks on us. In your head, it’s all ray-traced even though you played it twenty years ago. But the reality is, if you play it today, you’ll say, “Oh, it’s missing this convenience or the controls are clunky,” and you have to fight through it. So it ends up with the following set-up: we need to preserve the core of it, but we need to bring as much and as much convenience as we can. Unless the friction is intentional and part of the design.
Klapovskiy: There are two different types of communities. The guys who played these games and replay them on a regular basis. I believe these guys will kill us if we change something design-wise, and frankly speaking, I’d kill myself if we decide to change something design-wise. We’re not the original developers, we’re not the masterminds behind it. So we want to make sure the game is exactly as envisioned by those great masterminds at the time.
At the same time, over ten years have passed, and we want to make sure it’s playable. We want to ensure almost every gamer can launch it and play. Yes, some mechanics can be super hard and unplayable. I remember playing Shadow of the Horned Rat when I was young. At that time, it was hard but okay. But right now I failed, I was looking at how the QA team was going through the game, I was like, “Guys, I played for two hours. I was struggling, it was super painful, and I gave up.” Still, it’s a fun experience. Trust me, Bloodborne is nothing, Dark Souls is nothing. Try to play Shadow of the Horned Rat, that’s a pain.
MonsterVine: More and more, we’re seeing studios bring older games back. Why do you feel like it’s important to preserve them?
Klapovskiy: The first thing that comes to mind is that people want to play these games. If you can’t find a source where you can download it and launch it without extra dark magic that you need to apply to make it work on an operating system or console, obviously, it means something. You need to work to bring it back.
Another thing, at least for me, that’s a bit more philosophical, and I think Artem shares the same opinion as me. There are too many modern games that are following one trend. If there’s a trend of survival, everyone starts making survival games. Many companies were developing games using the same template for years. I think it’s visible that innovation and creativity have left many publishers and developers.
That’s why we see so many fantastic games from smaller indie developers because these guys are not afraid to experiment. They’re not afraid to be creative, they’re not afraid to take risks. These older titles can be a fantastic source of inspiration, because a lot of machines used in these games are long forgotten. Everyone went more mainstream. My dream is to have these games inspire the younger generation of devs who have never played those games.
Shchuiko: Also, when you say that you want to play old games, it’s telling you that you want a different experience. Games back then were built differently. It had an original flavor, a certain length, and a different structure for production value. They would do CG render trailers for the beginning and the end. That smell of the era is also important and worth revisiting from a cultural experience as well.
MonsterVine: When you’re working on bringing back older games, can you talk about the kind of tools you use, and why they aren’t on console?
Shchuiko: When it comes to the technology, we try to reach out to the original publishers and see if there’s any access to the original source code or materials on how they made it. Because that helps us to work with a game. If none of that is available, we’ll try to use any available tool to remedy any issues we may have.
Klapovskiy: Consoles are definitely a platform where we should be present. It takes more time, effort, and resources to bring the game there. While the PC is an open environment, consoles are just more complicated to work with. That said, we believe we need to be wherever players are ideally, and games should be available for all of them.
MonsterVine: I know there are a lot of games that you all brought back. Were there any other Warhammer titles that you all would love to work on?
Shchuiko: The original Space Hulks. We would love to add these two games if we can secure the rights.
Klapovskiy: I think there would be a lot of people who would love to support us if we could bring Warhammer Online back.
MonsterVine: I noticed Space Hulk got a lot of love. Why do you all think Space Hulk is so beloved within the community?
Shchuiko: I think it’s because of how close it is to the board game.
Klapovskiy: It’s iconic; everyone wants to be a Space Hulk. When you look at the tabletop, everyone wants to fight a Genestealer. There are lots of memories linked to childhood and a tabletop game.
MonsterVine: Do you guys have a definitive Warhammer game/story that you always go back to?
Shchuiko: Dark Omen. It’s magical anytime I play it; I become a child again. There’s this guy speaking with a British accent, and there’s non-sense to a degree. I love it.
Klapovskiy: I’ll be very diplomatic, because if I mention one thing, I’ll have to mention another. I’ll say the whole thing because it’s such a fantastic universe, and you can start from any point.
MonsterVine: I wanted to ask you guys a simple question. What’s your favorite Warhammer Faction and why?
Shchuiko: Surprisingly, I like Tau. Because Fire Warrior was the first shooter in the Warhammer universe, which is trying to be cinematic to a degree very successfully, and it was very impressive. But for fantasy, I think it’s the Green Skins. They’re super awesome, and for no reason, I love them.
Klapovskiy: I believe Chaos should be the thing. I think it’s super underrepresented, and I believe they can be more. They are so unpredictable, and you know what to more or less expect from factions. But Chaos is Chaos.
MonsterVine: Is there anything you’d love to highlight that I didn’t ask about?
Shchuiko: Usually, when a game is released, users are very unhappy and say it’s a complete disaster. We want to let everyone know that we are really, really trying to do the best we can. We failed, according to some opinions. But we really tried. If we can do better, we’ll try. This is something we really wanted to do, and we’re very happy that we managed to put it together. It’s a dream come true, and we’d love to do it again.
Klapovskiy: I want to encourage people to be loud if they want to replay some old games. Talk about it, request it, mention it on forums/community sections, and social media. People are listening to you, and there are plenty of studios that are happy to follow and support gamers’ needs and requests. Then magic might happen.
