I feel like making it less violent than Space Marine would do it an injustice, because Space Marine felt quite tame for hitting things with a chainsaw on a stick, most of the finishers were just blood particle effects, and few chunks. I would probably become extremely skeptical if the game had a T rating, Warhammer is bloody and violent, not tame and child friendly.
Those two things aren't mutually exclusive, though. A game can be less bloody while still being mature - It's all the matter of creatively doing it. Personally, I'd see the game as childish if it's just all blood and gore - that's not all that hardcore to me. The amount of blood we see in Space Marine were almost blinding, but again, didn't bring anything to the game, other than just violence. And sure, the universe is violent, but many universes are. What 40k has is the 'grimdarkness' that goes through the universe. I got the chills listening to workers in Space Marine, and the announcments from the overseers - That stuff is scary and mature to me. It's not like Dark Souls is known as a dark world because of the skulls and blood and stuff, it's the atmosphere. I'd rather have more focus on the depth of the univere, and less of what everyone else arguably can do better, which is violence and blood.
Violence is a tool. It awakens the primal senses of the player and makes the game more intense. That's not just in terms of a righteous kill fantasy (e.g purge the heretic/xenos!!) but also conveys a visceral atmosphere of risk: Players don't like when their character is killed. Especially in RPGs. And especially in competitive multiplayer matches. They've actually done studies on this and the more attached a player is to their character the more the death and the manner of death matters. Incidentally seeing a friend's avatar die horribly is equally unnerving for players. The more intense the death or damage the more "real" it gets for those involved. It is figuratively the only reason WOW, GW, W:AR (etc) do not feature MKX-like death scenes or Killcams as standard (yet). But for a Tactical game, and especially one that blends Shooter and Fighter, the risk of a bad death is deliberately there hanging over the player's head (and their squad's). It's intentionally confronting in a way that screams "one wrong move ... and it's going to get messy reeeeal quick" and it gives pause to players who would typically be happy with meat-grinder/zerg tactics. Gore for gore's sake is silly of course. You can go too far easily and that's a genuine risk for Devs. I've never been one for excessive guts but borrowing on MK again, it has it's purposes: Most people hate losing to Sub-Zero in the earlier games because dammit if the spine rip wasn't painful to watch, and that was a game with zero RP properties. It made a lot of players fight harder. While it's not the only lever to gin up that sense of pseudo-panic that a 40K product has it's one of the better ones. Warhammer is violent and while it has both comedic and religious relief the shock content of a given novel (or video game) serves to ground the viewer with just how horrifying war is, even if most of the races are bred for it. Tagore in GMcN's Outcast Dead is a prime example.
The cool brutality will sell good probably, unnecessary brutality wont probably. Well probably not have MKX brutality as it would take to much of our computers/ server. As long as were M rated pedal to the metal with brutality and "cool violence", but with options to scale it down.
Ludicrously attentive and protective parent that continues to treat their children as children well into adulthood. It's like a soccer mom, only it lasts for a longer period of time. EDIT Razakel's Word Bearers models would be a mighty fine demonstration of some proper execution animations in model form.
I'd be fine with just blood and dismemberment. Like this: EC gameplay demonstrations show more blood of course (which is fine Devs can just include a slider in Game Settings if necessary). Dismemberment not as precise as the above of course and only for execution animations. Just arm cut off at the elbow/shoulder, legs at knee, head off at neck/crush, and separation of the body at the waist. Don't need organ detail either. Er wait, Nurgle CSM are going to be a thing. So cosmetic options for this sorta thing possibly. The Guts hanging out are a bit much though. Of course can be done differently since decay and disease can be depicted in various ways, shown in these 2 links: Plague Marine by paranoimiac @DA. & Chaos Space Marine Plague Marine color by jutami @DA. Overall Chaos has a lot more range concerning shock values discussed here to go with than the other factions I feel. In a sense mutations can be interpreted as gore (Nurgle especially as shown). For such things can look at Resident Evil games among other things. -----OFF-TOPIC------ Well... This is a thing. Street Fighter vs Tekken game skin by MaesterLee @DA.
