
Games Workshop, the legendary British miniature manufacturer and behemoth behind Warhammer (and its infinitely more popular sci-fi setting, Warhammer 40,000), is notoriously rigid and inflexible. In the nearly five decades since setting up shop, the firm has fiercely protected its extremely lucrative IP, working closely with licensees to ensure the universe's relentlessly bleak lore remains in line with Imperial mandate. This is how we learned that developer Saber Interactive, in a truly humiliating blunder, managed to get the relative size and make of the ankle armour slightly wrong in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.
Speaking to IGN, chief creative officer Tim Willits described the level of scrutiny Games Workshop subjected the studio to: "When the guy that made the little Space Marine that sat on the table, he probably was not imagining them animating in a video game 45 years later. And let me tell you, that was hard to make. I mean, when you walk and run and fight as Titus, it feels so good. The ankle armour we had was the wrong size, and they told us that the ankle armour was wrong."
IGN pulled at this fascinating thread, and Willits described a system Games Workshop has, which licensees run content and assets through, with dedicated employees working to offer feedback: "They will help steer. And even when we're coming up with Tyranid attacks, they're like, oh, that Tyranid doesn't really attack like that, or that Chaos Marine, you can't really have him do that. So we had to adjust things. We did push them a little bit."
Can you believe that Saber would make the rookie error of using the incorrect ankle joint when attempting to depict Captain Titus' signature Tacticus Variant Mk X Power Armour? Chuckle knowingly in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 12
Damn. I heard they were very picky about licensing out Warhammer, but didn’t know it went that far. Kinda impressed.
It's a bit silly and micromanage-y. But seeing as many IPs are getting absolute trash fanfiction treatment, I can't say I blame them.
Tim Willits is on Warhammer these days?!? Wow had no idea. I think if him as at id forever.
It's a shame that they aren't protective of the quality of the product that they licence out then, as the majority of warhammer games are incredibly mediocre.
I heard the rumour about completely inaccurate modeling of the ankle armor so I held off from buying the game. I will get it now that you confirmed it was corrected
If GW didn't spot it, you can bet your bottom dollar that a fan would have, so I'm not surprised GW has this sort of process.
Well making GW models alive is really a hardshell nut. For example if you want make shoulder pads functional, they should be around 60cm wide.
Removed - unconstructive
Damn ankle armor bruh they think there Achilles or something
Games Workshop's attention to detail is a large part of why Warhammer 40K content is always consistent. I appreciate that.
Removed - flaming/arguing
Removed - flaming/arguing
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