The multiplayer is much better than I expected.
CO: As you earn perks are they weapon-based or class-based?
MH: There’s a combination of both. There are class-based perks. For the Assault Marine, there's one that let’s you use your Jump-Pack more often, another gives you a longer flight time. For weapon based perks, you have, once again, the Kraken Ammo, or ones that, for some of the melee weapons, allow you to regain health. It’s a mix of class and weapon specific perks.
CO: Does the online multiplayer have any kind of clan support?
MH: Not at launch. We’ve had a couple questions on clan support, so it’s obviously something we’ll look at and consider, but at launch it’s 8v8 multiplayer, unfortunately without clan support.
CO: Are there any iconic 40k characters in the campaign? For instance, will we have a cameo from Gabriel Angelos (leader of the Blood Ravens featured in the Dawn of War series)?
MH: You will see some of the Blood Ravens come into the campaign. I can’t talk too much about them, because they are a little bit of a surprise. Special thanks for all of the people who have played Dawn of War and helped make the Blood Ravens the chapter that they are. You will get to see some of them. We will have some Inquisitors come in, but we can’t really talk too much about the Inquisitors, but we do have some iconic characters in the game.
If I had to guess, the Blood Ravens would look a lot like this.
CO: Why did you choose to have the hero of the single player campaign be a member of the Ultramarines? Blood Ravens and Blood Angels have been standard favorites in 40k games.
MH: The Ultramarines are the iconic Space Marine chapter. You have all the other great chapters like the Space Wolves and the Blood Angels and the Blood Ravens, but the Ultramarines are the guys who wrote the book, the Codex Astartes in terms of how to deal with the alien threats and the demonic threats that face humanity. So we really wanted to tell an Ultramarine story. The do have a sort of stigma attached to them being these Boy Scout do-gooders, as much as that can be in the 40k universe, right? No one’s really good or, necessarily totally evil in the 40k universe. Everyone has shades of gray, and we really wanted to be able to tell an interesting story with the Ultramarines and try to add some extra depth and dimension to them. And hopefully you guys, the fans, will see that there’s a bit more to the Ultramarines than just them being blue and Space Marines.
CO: I get the feeling that the main character, Captain Titus, might not be such a Boy Scout. Does he have a crisis of confidence?
MH: Titus is a... fleshed out character. He’s not a “Boy Scout.” He’s got some things in his past which you’ll find out more about in Space Marine; what drives him forward, and why he can do some of the things in the game that he can do.
CO: He’s not just saying, “For the Emperor” the entire time?
MH: He’s got his own dimensions.