Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium was an upcoming science fiction game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 setting. It is currently under development by Vigil Games. Originally announced in March 2007, further information was released as well as a teaser trailer at E3 2010. Originally planned to be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Vigil Games announced that they would be dropping the MMO components of the game in order to focus on a single-player and more traditional multiplayer experience.
The game will feature relatively in-depth fire-fights with player-formed squads as well as cover and flanking mechanics. However, being true to the setting, war and battles will be a big feature of Warhammer 40,000 Online and Vigil Games are promising to deliver battlegrounds of epic proportions. Controllable vehicles are a key aspect to the game; the developers have said that they are multifunctional and that some are able to sport multiple pilots.
The game will be set in the 41st Millennium, well after the Horus Heresy, and all races important to that period in the setting will be represented, although only one playable race has been announced so far: the Imperium of Man. Details about characters are still largely unknown. However, it has been said that there will be no non-combat classes in the game as this would not fit properly with the background. Players will be able to customize their characters visual appearance with ranged and melee weapons, armor, books, scrolls and chains.
Although war and battlefields will be a large part of Dark Millennium the scope of the game will include more of the setting than that; Vigil Games’ General Manager David Adams mentions being able to visit "cities (of all scales, types and sizes), exotic alien temples, Chaos shrines, deserted battlefields, mysterious ruins, ancient structures, drifting hulks in space, etc..." and that they will be populated with all manners of non-player characters.
