TL;DR – Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr: Prophecy (henceforth referred to as “Prophecy” to prevent this review becoming the Infinite Jest of games journalism) is an enjoyable if overwhelming ARPG which has clearly been made by fans of the setting. It has a lot of content, a decent amount of challenge and offers plenty of grinding for loot obsessed freaks. With that being said, it’s a bit obtuse so more casual ARPG and/or W40K fans are recommended to be patient.
Quick Note: This game is online only and as such requires a constant internet connection. To it’s credit the game still receives modest updates, but those who travel frequently or are otherwise unable to guarantee a consistent online connection should avoid it.
Prophecy is the stand-alone expansion to W40K: Inquisitor – Martyr and offers a new playable character class, the Tech Adept (which is the 4th and first to be added to the game post-launch) alongside a new chain of story missions. It should be noted that while all characters can be played across both games due to the fact that they’re stored on synchronised servers, there are some restrictions related to the main story missions. Only the Tech Adept can play the new campaign, while only the 3 previous classes can play through the base game campaign content. Due to these synchronised servers, Prophecy essentially acts like a DLC and if you own the base game then prophecy is a mere 500kb download with everything it adds automatically unlocking the next time you launch the base game. Those who only own Prophecy however will need to download the entirety of W40K: Martyr which is around 80GB after years of updates and DLCs being released. This is a lot of space for a relatively short game, as Prophecy’s new story mode only lasts for around 10 hours.
To be fair, these 10 hours are fun and the expansion integrates itself nicely with the base game. During a certain point in the base game your character who is a member of the Inquisition is stranded on the gigantic abandoned vessel (referred to in-universe as a “Space Hulk”) with the ship name of Martyr (hence the name of the game). The Tech Adept campaign takes place during this interval, with your new character utilising their inquisitorial authority to take over the vessel the original characters use. Both campaigns follow Inquisitors chasing after the legacy of one of their forefathers who was engaged in a project to create a new race of psychic superhumans who would have the power to defeat the foul gods of Chaos that exist in the mirror universe that is opposite reality. By tying the narratives of the two separate campaigns together, the developers are able to retain the same characters and hub setting across both games which cuts down on their workload and the player’s potential dissonance when switching between characters. One potential source of dissonance for you however, fair reader (if you exist, which WordPress thinks you do not) might been all this sci-fi jargon that’s floating around. As such I’m going to quickly try and bring you up to speed with the setting, as it concerns the game and those who already have a solid grasp of these things are encouraged to skip the next paragraph.
In Prophecy you play as a Tech Adept, a former Tech Priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, who has moved beyond their initial training to end up as an agent of the Imperial Inquisition. The Adeptus Mechanicus is the universe wide body responsible for the use and development of technology across the Imperium of Man, but after 10 millennia of constant warfare it has essentially degraded to the point that it is a quasi cargo cult. Many processes and technologies have been lost, never to be rediscovered and as a consequence most technical tasks are conducted with a mixture of faith, barely understood routine and actual scientific reasoning. Tech Priests are therefore both researchers and priests of the Machine God, thus they have many benedictions, supplications and rightful fears of blaspheme and heresy which could corrupt the technology they use and cause it to cease functioning – or worse. While your character was a Tech Priest in the past, they have strayed from this path and are now an inquisitor. As an Inquisitor, your character is judge, jury and executioner of all subjects within the Imperium and is able to requisition almost anything and cast judgement on almost anyone. The reason for your extraordinary extra-legal powers is simple, you will need them. As to be an Inquisitor is to be tasked with investigating and eliminating the myriad threats which face the Imperium of Man, it’s fleets, it’s armies of Imperial Guardsmen and even the Superhuman Warriors of the Adeptus Astartes referred to as Space Marines. Whether these threats be related to mundane issues of corruption and rebellion all the way through to demonic incursions and the threat posed by hostile alien species (such as the haughty space elves Aeldari or ravenous Tyranid swarms), the Inquisition is often called in when the situation is truly dire or desperate. These aforementioned demonic incursions are caused by the Pantheon of Dark Gods who are collectively referred to as the Chaos Gods, with both Nurgle (the god of pestilence and decay) and Khorne (the god of war, bloodshed and violence) being represented within the game. Due to the strain, responsibility and necessity of the inquisition you are relatively independent and privy to a great deal of classified information, but are frequently faced with the worst that the grim future of humanity in the 41st millennium has to offer.
To combat these myriad threats the new Tech Adept class has a variety of unique skills and abilities with which to smite the enemies of the Emperor. Many of these focus on the ability to summon in multiple robotic NPCs and turrets, with the former even following your character around while both types either engage enemies on your behalf or provide buffs. These summonable allies are customisable via a new Construct Setup interface that is accessible on “your” spaceship, with you as the player having the ability to decide which allies will be accompanying you on your missions. Initially you only have access to basic robots which come in either a melee focused or gun-totting ranged variety. As you gain levels however, you will gradually unlock all 7 types of these Constructs, which I’ll quickly list below;
- The basic Psiloi Combustors which are fast, gun-totting, low health and cheap spider-esque robots. These guys start off with Autoguns (machine guns) but can be equipped with flamethrowers or armour melting Melta Guns later on.
- The equally basic Psioli Vivisector which is the melee equivalent of the former robot, while they’re still cheap these guys are surprisingly lethal and durable once they’ve been upgraded with life-steal and passive skills (more on those later).
- The Voltagheist support type turret which doesn’t deal damage but buffs or heals you and all other allies in range depending on it’s configuration
- The Tarantula gun turrets, which not only deploy from the sky with a satisfying thud (and the chance to damage any enemies unlucky enough to be where they land) but can be equipped with Lasguns (laser rifles), Flamethrowers and Rocket Launchers. These guys are great, but can’t move and self destruct after a set amount of time has passed
- The Kataphron Vanguard which is a big beefy cyborg torso implanted onto tank treads. These menacing fellows carry big axes and are lethal in melee, plus they have a handy taunt ability to draw aggressive enemies away from you. They’ve even got a charge ability and deal cleave damage so they can hit multiple enemies at once
- The Kataphron Destroyer, who are the ranged equivalent of the previous guys. They’ve got the choice of big plasma guns or big flamethrowers.
- Finally you’ve got the Kastellan robots, who are massive mech suits that deal melee cleave damage and are equipped with either flamethrowers or a laser beam weapon. Once upgraded they’ve got a decent AoE attack and will explode when they’re incapacitated (they don’t die, but are instead knocked offline for 20 seconds)
These allies can then be upgraded with up to 3 “Modules” each that add various bonuses like life-steal, health regenerator, more power to certain attacks, faster movement speed etc. Ultimately the Tech Adept class fits into the classic ARPG summoner architype and while you are moderately powerful by yourself, it’s these allies that will deal the majority of your damage output. With that being said you do have the option of using Power Axes, Plasma Guns and two types of Autogun alongside a variety of class specific tools which include grenades, energy shields, mines and a knockback inducing refractor field. With all that being said, the class itself is a nice addition to the overall game and is enjoyable to play for those who like swarming the enemy with murderous killbots while you sit back and pop-off some shots.
But this far into the review, I’ve still barely touched on the game itself. As already mentioned, it’s an ARPG or Action Roleplaying Game which will be familiar to anyone who’s played Diablo or it’s myriad clones. This means that you are running through a variety of combat arenas that are riddled with enemies of various types and who may all be holding onto that sweet, sweet loot. You then exterminate them in vast numbers to complete various objectives, most of which involve reaching a certain point and holding the F key or gunning down particularly large enemies. There are 7 races of enemy in the game, including Rebel Imperial Guardsmen, the Worshippers of Nurgle, the Black Legion (corrupted Space Marines), the Worshippers of Khorne, the Eldar Aeldari, the Dark Eldar Druchi and Tyranids. Each race then has multiple enemy types, split between Horde, Regular, Champion, Elite and Commanders with every race having a few different enemies for each of those overall types. This gives the game a ton of enemy variety and as each race has it’s own unique units, you’ll need to quickly learn which enemies pose a threat and which are a pushover. Personally speaking, I found that the larger enemy vehicles and enemy psykers could do a worryingly large amount of burst damage that could quickly shred through my health if they weren’t prioritised quickly. To the game’s credit, each race had it’s fair share of chaff and genuinely scary enemies and as a consequence the game managed to maintain a decent level of challenge throughout it’s moderately short campaign.
Alongside this challenge the game also does a good job at conveying the overall tone of the setting and is consistently accurate in how it treats both the lore and the reactions of characters within it. Your crew consists of a Rogue Trader captain, a sci-fi privateer with many useful contacts but who often lacks the knowledge and awareness that an Inquisitorial agent would have. A Space Marine, who is a stalwart and zealous servant of the imperium but who’s bloodthirstiness and obstinate sense of duty gets him in trouble. Two tech priests who are both ruthlessly detached from themselves and their humanity but are invaluable in getting the job done and finally the captain of your former ship who is essentially a torso in a tube and who has just the right amount of sass and death-wish for an inquisitorial subordinate. Alongside these characters you also have a gallant mecha-knight, numerous other inquisitors who are generally (but not always) even more zealotous than you and multiple blubbering planetary governors, stoic guardsmen and jaded but heroic space marines. I don’t want to list every character, but it’s clear that the developers have a rock solid idea of how characters within the setting should act and how they would react to both the events transpiring within the campaign and to each other. These characters give the main campaign’s narrative a boost and ensure that the missions never feel too repetitive, especially as you are often putting down the scheming enemy – both with your firepower and with your words.
This campaign really is only the beginning however, as the game also comes with multiple free side-campaigns (referred to as investigations) that are part of the base game. These are very similar to the main campaign, albeit they have slightly fewer cutscenes. All together there are 4 of these bonus campaigns and playing through them added another 10 hours of playtime to the game. Throughout these campaigns you are occasionally offered the choice of whether to act as a Puritan or Radical, which generally translates to ruthlessly judging everyone as guilty or being slightly more lenient. To give an example, you might gun down a platoon for cowardice or you might make them follow you through what would generally be considered as a suicide mission. These choices are a good opportunity to give a bit of roleplaying to the game, although they sadly fall for the classic pitfall of being tied to a morality system that reserves the best rewards for those who fully pick one or the other. As such you’re heavily encouraged to stick with one, so that you can gain access to the exclusive perks and weapon/armour bonuses that they offer.
Speaking of perks, the game has two main ways of increasing your power outside of granting you better and better loot. These come in the form of Passive Skills which make up the slightly overwhelming amount of skill trees and Perks which are powerful passive buffs that you can equip (up to 3 at a time). Most of the Passive Skills are fairly modest, such as +5% construct HP or +3% ranged damage, but as you gain 1 per level and a bonus 1 for every 10th level, they can quickly add up. In addition most skill trees have one or two powerful bonuses such as the ability to reduce the damage of incoming fatal blows by 80%, or granting your robotic allies new abilities (like the explode-on-death for the Kastellan mentioned earlier). As for the perks, there are a lot of them but they’re all generally pretty good and are extremely varied. Some let you summon more robots (so you can have 4 Vivisectors per pack instead of 3, for a combined total of up to 20 at a time instead of 15), others give you vastly more critical damage or movement speed at a slight cost to some other state like damage resistance. By combining these perks and passive skills together however you can create a wide variety of playstyles, some of which are very powerful indeed.
And you will need to figure out these powerful playstyles if you want to truly beat the end-game content, as once you’ve played through the campaigns you will be strong enough to start stacking up the difficulty. You see the game offers missions that broadly correspond to your level, but you can increase them through a variety of methods up to +21 levels above your current one. Each level increase grants you more XP/Cash/Rewards but also makes you take more damage and dish less of it out. As such you are encouraged to push yourself harder so as to maximise the rewards you can receive, but as these side missions only allow you to die three times per mission, it’s a delicate risk reward system. Fortunately you are always in control of the level of the missions you face and indeed by default the campaign missions are matched to your level (although you can increase them if you wish). But if you want those juicy, juicy extra rewards you can apply Uther’s Tarot cards which are modifiers that increase the difficulty of missions but add additional rewards. Without going into excessive detail, you can apply up to 3 per mission and they generally give you +X% rewards and an increased chance of Y item type spawning but will cause the enemies you face to be stronger. An example would be the The Possessed card, which gives you 70% more general rewards and an increase chance of “Psalm-code” items dropping, but will cause enemies to potentially reflect some types of damage or spawn new enemies on death. Some of these Tarot cards also increase the overall mission difficulty level up to a maximum of +11 and you can run missions that are up to 10 levels above yours.
These extra difficult missions can be accessed via a selection of random missions which are accessible from your ship, by using “Intel” items which automatically generate a mission that’s one or two levels above yours, or by engaging in two types of structured random campaigns. The first of these structured random campaigns are the Priority Missions, which take the form of 4 or 5 linked random missions. When starting these Priority Missions you can set the difficulty from your current level all the way to +10 levels higher than yours. During these Priority Missions you have a few opportunities to make decisions, such as prioritising a certain mission over others, purchasing benefits such as the ability to call in a squad of friendly NPC guardsmen or choosing a strategy for the forces under your command (which can benefit or harm your overall mini-campaign).
The second type of structured random campaign are the Void Crusades, which are an interconnected series of random missions that gradually increase in difficulty. There are generally around 20 of them in a crusade, but you only need to fight your way through to the Supreme Mission which will end the crusade. Fighting through additional side-missions will give you more opportunities to gather loot, but beware as you only have 5 lives per crusade. There are also random keys which drop from certain missions, that can be used to open Void Chests after you beat the Supreme Mission and these chests contain some of the best loot in the game.
Of course like any good ARPG most of this is entirely optional and the more casual player will probably play through the main campaign, maybe the side campaigns and call it a day long before reaching the maximum level of 100. For those who find themselves addicted to the game however, these random missions, Priority Missions and Void Crusades offer the perpetually alluring prospect of grabbing better and better loot with which to constantly grow in power. Oh and did I mention that you can upgrade the Tarot cards up to 5 times each, combine the various enchant gems together to gradually level them up or improve items within the game’s built in crafting system?
Ultimately Prophecy is a game that can be as short or as long as the player wants it to be, allowing it to serve as a modestly entertaining single player narrative or a time-sink of dangerously addictive power. Between the myriad of skills, perks, weapon types, buffs, bonuses, mission types and enemy types there is a lot of content on offer here and it’s almost all done with a good level of polish. There are a few minor niggles, such as the fact that the non-campaign dialogue can be repetitive (although this can be disabled in the options), the fact that some mechanics are poorly explained by the ingame guide and the fact that the game has performance issues on older systems. Of course the biggest concern is probably the fact that the game requires a constant online connection, but the developers have steadfastly refused to change this since it launched years ago so I wouldn’t expect this to change anytime soon. Yet if you can overlook these small flaws, you’ll find a faithful depiction of the W40K setting with plenty of enemies to shoot and things to loot. Overall I have no issues recommending this game – but to those who are unfamiliar with ARPGs I would recommend patience alongside the diligent usage of DuckDuckGo (or Google if you must) and to those unfamiliar with the W40K setting I would recommend reading through lexicanum to gain a bit more understanding of what everyone is yelling about.