Jack Emmert previously worked on games like City of Heroes, Star Trek Online, and Neverwinter. In 2022, he founded his own studio. With this, he is developing a new MMORPG based on Warhammer, for which he is now revealing a few details.
What do we know about the game? Currently, there is still no name, and the setting is also unknown. The Warhammer universe offers various stories that can take place in fantasy as well as in sci-fi worlds.
However, Emmert revealed in an interview with Wargamer that he has never placed importance on PvP. He himself is not a good PvPer and has always been frustrated when he was beaten up. Frustrated players, in turn, would lead to a decrease in the player count. He says:
PvP is not my focus and will never be, probably for the rest of my career.
This suggests that the new Warhammer MMORPG will focus more on PvE. He also wants to combine AI and humans to develop quests and events faster. He has an example of how good events in the open world look for him:
If there is an orc tribe in the hills and the players kill a bunch of them because the farmers gave them a quest for it, there will be no more orcs there. Unfortunately, the orcs were the only thing keeping the dark elves in the caves below in check, so the dark elves suddenly come out.
The head explains further that a good MMO lives off stories and the players. He wants to create an immersive world with his game, in which he himself, as a Warhammer fan, loves to immerse. According to Emmert, New World has also shown that the interest in a new MMORPG in the West is enormous.
Warhammer Online was considered a WoW-killer but was defeated by WoW:
NetEase owns the company, but it operates independently
Who is behind the game? Jack Emmert worked at Cryptic Studios from 2003 to 2015. There, he developed as a designer City of Heroes and was the lead designer on City of Villains. The two games thrilled players and critics and are still yearned for today.
Later, he rose to the role of CEO and took care of the management of three live MMORPGs, including Neverwinter.
His new studio currently has 45 employees, with a rising trend.
However, Jackalytic belongs to the Chinese corporation NetEase, which previously collaborated with Blizzard and still distributes Diablo Immortal. However, the studio is said to be able to operate completely independently in Texas. This also works well with ArenaNet, which, although owned by Korean developer NCSoft, has developed a product with Guild Wars that has little in common with Korean titles.
For which platform will the Warhammer game be released? A press release states that Jackalyptic Games is said to be working on “top-tier PC and console titles”. Since the studio has only announced the Warhammer game so far, it suggests that it will not be a mobile game.
However, many details are currently missing. When exactly a larger presentation of the game will take place is currently unknown.
What do you think about the new Warhammer title? Would a PvE MMORPG be the right choice here, or should it primarily be about player battles in Warhammer?
MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus is sure: In a perfect world, the largest MMORPG today would be World of Warhammer.
