How much of a geek am I, that when I read the first line of the new Warhammer 40k newsletter my first thought was, “Jovian Chronicles!! Heavy Gear!! Tribe 8!!”
This newsletter comes from Ghislain Barbe, the art director of Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade, and he goes into his thoughts on game design, artistic creation and how it all comes together for him on this particular project. It’s always interesting to read about the creative process of artists, so I found this newsletter interesting, particularly since Ghislain Barbe is a name I first heard over a decade ago. But here, he focuses on two main features: the characters and the world.
There will be five factions in the game, four of them playable; the Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines, Orks, Eldar and Tyranids. From the very beginning, Ghislain wanted to provide as much customization as possible. As he puts it: And what is variety if it’s static? From my first discussion with the game designers, we immediately agreed on the importance to be able to support as much customisation as possible, to dig deep in the lore to find cool elements that will allow members of the community to build and play totally unique characters. They’ve done a lot of research in their attempt to provide as much as possible in the way of choices to players as they can, which sounds pretty cool! With the Founder’s Program going live in a few weeks, there will be glimpses of some of these customizations coming soon.
Nicolas Côté is their in-house concept artist, working with inspiration for the look and feel of the world provided by Kai Lim and Diego Gisbert Lorens. Ghislain promised to release some of their concepts soon, so expect to see some of that at some point! 
Graham McNeil and Anthony Reynolds worked on the world. The game is location on the planet Arkhona, the fourth planet of the trinary Kharon System is located in the galactic northern marches of Segmentum Obscurus, in the dead centre of a void of systems. Once home to the now extinct Xenos, Arkhona has been plagued with disaster after disaster. First earthquakes, now a deadly swarm of Tyranids have all but slaughtered the human population. It’s a great place for adventuring, with a mix of abandoned old and new architecture to explore.
If you’re hungry for more, you can read the full newsletter, and visit the official Warhammer 40k website.
