Way Back When: Final Liberation

I'm just about to dive into painting up my Razorback and Vindicator but before I do that I wanted to start a new series project. Way Back When will focus primarily on 40k stuff that happened years ago. My goal is to make it not so much focused on the game itself, but on the stuff made that was based on the game like early 40k publications, the old Black Library movies, and of course the video games. I have started to kick off my series with my favorite 40k related video game "Final Liberation".

Even the box art screams badass...

Final Liberation came out in 1997 and was published by the now defunct Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI) and developed by Holistic Games.  I actually got this game as a birthday gift from my brother, it came in a box set with three other Games Workshop titles Dark Omen, Shadow of the Horned Rat, and Chaos Gate. Being an Ultramarines player, I immediately ripped open the package and loaded up Chaos Gate, because as a budding fan boy anything Ultramarine related rocked my world. After Chaos Gate I picked up the other Final Liberation, and once I loaded it up into my parents archaic PC I was smitten. Chaos Gate had an great soundtrack (which I still hear played at tournaments today), but where Final Liberation shined was its game play and its awesome full motion video cut scenes.

You're gonna need a bigger titan...

The game play was really simple considering how many units there were on the screen at any one time. Final Liberation stayed true to Epic 40k and promised mass scale battles that smaller skirmish games like Chaos Gate couldn't match. The best part was building massive titan armies in skirmish mode blasting away at pre-generated lists that the PC would devise. The single player campaign was pretty limited and the AI was never good enough to really challenge you in a fair fight, and there was nothing really to write home about concerning the graphics, especially considering that Star Craft came out around the same time as Final Liberation. But what I remember most, and what keeps me coming back to the game are the cut scenes.

Don't make Commissar Holt use his crazy eyes on you!

It's hard to really sum up how I feel about the cut scenes in Final Liberation, but as an eleven year old kid seeing Space Marines and Orks and Imperial Guard come to life was huge. The movies themselves are all really rather well done considering that this game was obviously made on a pretty small budget. I really think that these movies capture the essence of what Warhammer 40k is all about, and all it takes is one look at them to see why. Final Liberation was made back at a time when GW still had a sense of humor about it's intellectual property, and the sense of fun in the game is what makes me come back again and again.

At one time there were plans to make a sequel to Final Liberation, and tragically that never came to pass as SSI bailed on the idea. There also used to be a very active base of fans committed to making the other races for the game (Final Lib only included Orks and the Imperium, but it was obvious there were plans to add Chaos, Tyranids, and Eldar) however I never managed to find out whether or not they had ever developed a finished product.

Final Liberation to this day remains not only my favorite 40k game, but it also ranks in my top five games period. Every so often I like to boot it up and have another go at the single player campaign, it's a great game that I think has aged very well. I still have my fingers crossed that THQ will make a sequel! :D