When House Marine 2 was first introduced, its debut trailer led gamers to consider the most important enemy to battle can be the hungry hordes of Tyranids swarming the Imperium. They’re nonetheless a significant menace, however the newest gameplay trailer revealed the sport’s different antagonist: the Thousand Sons, servants of the God of Change. However who’re these unhealthy guys, precisely, and why are they such a menace to Titus and the Imperium of Man?
Over 10,000 years in the past, earlier than the present grimdark setting of Warhammer 40,000, the Emperor of Man created 20 House Marine legions. Issues instantly began going off the rails; two legions have been purged from historical past, their fates unknown. A civil struggle known as the Horus Heresy cut up the remaining 18 legions 50/50, with half on the aspect of humanity and the Emperor. The opposite half, together with the Thousand Sons, ended up siding with the extra-dimensional and wholly malevolent Chaos Gods.
The Thousand Sons are arguably essentially the most tragic traitor legion, and a few followers have argued that their primarch, Magnus, did nothing flawed. (He completely did an entire lot of issues flawed, however that’s an entire different article.) Every legion, loyalist or traitorous, has their very own specialization; the Imperial Fists like to fortify, the Raven Guard is the very best at stealth, and members of the Loss of life Guard are robust to the purpose of near-invulnerability. Magnus and the Thousand Sons are top-tier pyskers; these guys aren’t simply House Marines, in addition they have a ton of area wizards of their ranks.
Again within the days across the Horus Heresy, Magnus the Purple — who loved numerous freedom and energy as one of many Emperor’s sons — spent numerous time mucking about within the Warp. What he didn’t know, as a result of his dad by no means clued him in, is that the Warp is the area of the Chaos Gods. One among these malevolent entities, Tzeentch, reached out to Magnus and began some area Skype calls.
Tzeentch supplied to repair up somewhat drawback the Thousand Sons have been coping with: a rampant mutation known as the flesh change. Magnus traded his eye for an answer to the flesh change. This began a sequence of bargains that finally unintentionally turned Magnus in opposition to his dad and loyalist brothers, and ruined his father’s grasp plan for the way forward for humanity.
Making issues worse, the flesh change returned. Ahriman, the favored son of Magnus, determined to interact in somewhat paternal revolt of his personal. He solid a sophisticated spell, known as a rubric, in an try to treatment the flesh change. It type of labored; Ahriman stopped the flesh change as a result of the spell turned each non-psyker Thousand Son right into a storm of mud trapped inside their armor. Oopsie doodle!
The Thousand Sons have been a long-running antagonist to the Imperium, and Magnus even confirmed up initially of the present Period Indomitus to try to cease the Ultramarines primarch Roboute Guilliman from making it to Terra. The Thousand Sons exhibiting up in House Marine 2 is somewhat little bit of a grudge match. As Titus stomps his method by way of Rubric Marines and Tzeentchian sorcerers, I’ll be pondering: My dad may beat up your dad.
Tzeentch is a more durable boss to depict in video video games than the opposite Chaos Gods. Change, manipulation, and destiny are summary ideas in comparison with Khorne’s bloodshed or Nurgle’s plagues. The Thousand Sons are a great way to place a face — properly, or a helmet filled with mud — on Tzeentch and his infinite variety of schemes. I hope we see a few of this Chaos God’s weirder parts, like two-headed demons that may inform the previous and future, however not the current.
House Marine 2 is because of be launched this winter on PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X; it has no concrete launch date.