Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior

Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior
Developer(s) Kuju Entertainment
Publisher(s) THQ
Designer(s) KUJU
Platform(s) PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows
Release date(s) October 2003
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer

Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior is a Warhammer 40,000 video game available for the PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Windows. It was developed by Kuju Entertainment and was released in October 2003.

The game is a first person shooter, where the player takes the role of a Tau Fire Warrior named Shas'la Kais (Promoted to Shas'ui halfway through the game), seeking to rescue his leader and defend his race from the aggressive Imperium of Man and forces of Chaos.

There is also a multiplayer mode consisting of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. Eight multiplayer maps are included with the game, Deathmatch having its own, and Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag having their own. Fire Warrior was one of the first PlayStation 2 games to support 8 player games using its broadband adaptor.

Plot

The story takes place over a period of 24 hours. The game begins with Kais' first mission, an attempt to rescue the Ethereal Ko'vash from Governor Severus. He infiltrates Severus' prison-fortress, and escapes with Ko'vash intact. As the Orca dropship begins docking with the Tau Emissary class cruiser, it is attacked by an Imperial Battleship, and boarding pods are launched. Kais then fights a desperate battle against a force of Storm Troopers as they try to disable the cruiser's engines, and assassinate the Captain. After Kais fails to rescue the Captain, he and several teams of Fire-Warriors are launched, by boarding pod at the Imperial ship. There, he disables the ship's guns and nearly captures the ship's commander, Admiral Constantine. Kais is clubbed on the head by Captain Ardias, however, and is captured. Ardias brokers a truce between the Imperium and the Tau, and it is revealed that Governor Severus has been seduced by the Powers of Chaos, teleporting a contingent of Word Bearers Chaos Marines onto the ship. They capture the ship's remaining guns, in an attempt to restart the Imperium-Tau war, but are stopped by Kais' destruction of the guns. Ardias then sets the ship to self-destruct, and Kais escapes via a Dreadnought drop-pod. Landing in the midst of a ruined Imperial city, Kais fights his way to fellow Tau Fire-Warriors, and learns from Ardias that Severus plans to use an Imperial Titan held in the City. Kais destroys the Titan, enters Severus' fortress, and kills Severus and his daemonic master. The game ends with Ardias ordering that the planet should be destroyed to prevent the taint of Chaos from spreading. Many adversaries from the Warhammer 40,000 universe are encountered by the protagonist Kais, such as Chaos Dreadnoughts, Chaos Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Daemon princes, Obliterators, and an Imperial Valkyrie.

Characters

Voice actors

Novel

In October 2003, Black Library Publishing released a novelization of the game under the same title (Spurrier, 2003). The book explores the plot of the game in much greater detail, as well as a close look at Tau culture.

Continuity

The commander of the Tau strike force in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade is called Shas'o Kais. Whether or not this is the same Kais is unconfirmed, as Kais is a recruit in Fire Warrior and the rank of Shas'O approximates to that of general, so a significant amount of time must have passed (32 years for Tau society). Also, at the end of the Fire Warrior novelization, Kais was shown to be in a coma, possibly mentally broken by his experiences fighting the forces of Chaos, though the medics said he may have pulled himself out of this.

Furthermore, Kais is a Tau name meaning 'skillful' (The famed Commander Farsight is mentioned in the Tau language section of the tau codex as being named Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr, with all parts of his name explained) so it is unlikely that they are the same Tau.

However, in the 6th edition supplement to the Tau codex; Farsight Enclaves, there was mention of a tau Commander Kais who trained alongside Farsight and Shadowsun under the legendary Commander Puretide. They were the only three students of Puretide and Kais, "a withdrawn and strange individual, was unusual in that he sought mastery of the monat's way of war. His goal was to become the perfect lone warrior, an army of one that could triumph in any situation with only the materials to hand." This would bridge the gap between lone warrior Kais in Fire Warrior and Commander Kais in Dawn of War. Kais is still a relatively common Fire Caste name, so this is not a confirmed link, but it would make sense in context of establishing a long-debated link.

Reception

Fire Warrior received mediocre reviews from the majority of the gaming press sites on the PC version, receiving an average score of 6.0 from sites such as IGN and GameSpot. It was described as a let-down "shooter by the numbers" FPS for the PC, despite its promotional posters claiming "Who needs Halo?". However, IGN gave the PS2 version an 8.1[1] and the game received a B- from the Play Magazine, along with other decent reviews. The PS2 version was actually better received by critics and fans all around, earning it a 7.1 on GameRankings [2]

References

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