Like many of my peers I spent many of my afternoons loitering around a Games Workshop store. The displays of intricately painted models tempting me to spend my meagre retail earnings on that next model to round out my army. I was rubbish at painting though, often just playing with unpainted models or enlisting my more talented friends to do the work for me. Once I was hooked into PC gaming however I left the models behind, but the love for the Warhammer universe was still very strong. So when I heard about Space Hulk: Deathwing I was incredibly excited as it’d been far too long since my last dip in this universe with Warhammer: Space Marine. However Deathwing falls appallingly short, so much so I couldn’t be bothered playing beyond the first hour.
You are a Librarian of the Deathwing force, the most secret and feared arm of the venerable Dark Angels chapter. You have stumbled across an ancient craft known as a space hulk, likely teaming with relics and technology from a forgotten age. It’s your charge to investigate the space hulk and to uncover the secrets locked away within its walls. This won’t be an easy task however as it is infested by armies of Tyranid genestealers, eager to tear into space marine flesh. Your powers as a psyker however give you an advantage few others have, allowing you to decimate hordes of enemies with a single thought. You are the blade of the Emperor space marine and it is time to cut through the blasphemers.
Deathwing does a great job of capturing the Gothic feel that Warhammer 40K games are renown for. The bigger environments do a great job of selling that feel with high cathedral ceilings dripping in banners and other Gothic imagery. It does have that Unreal engine vibe to it though which does make the graphics feel a step or two behind current generation titles. Since I came into this game past its initial few patches I didn’t have any performance problems to speak of, the game running fine even in high action scenes. That being said however any performance problems encountered are surely in the realm of poor optimisation or porting issues as I don’t think it’s that graphically intense.
This is where the positives of Deathwing stop however.
Taking inspiration from the tabletop game Deathwing puts you inside a massive ship laced with corridors punctuated by massive rooms. You’ll be given an objective to walk towards but you’re also free to explore the ship to find secrets. Along the way you and your squad will be set upon by the Tyranids that infest the ship and it’s your job to take them out. You’ll do this using your various bits of weaponry and psyker powers. Overall it has a very Left 4 Dead kind of feel, pitting you and a couple team mates against a horde of enemies. You’d think this would be great, the game format and IP are both exceptional in their own right, however this implementation is anything but. Indeed it commits probably the worst sin you can make with the Warhammer 40K universe.
It makes being a Space Marine boring.
The combat is just simply not enjoyable at all. Walking through hallways your radar will ping up with enemy activity and, inevitably, you’ll be jumped by something. These enemies aren’t varied nor are they smart so you’ll just sit there killing one after the other. Unlike Left 4 Dead or other similar games there’s no sense of tension at all so it’s just long periods of plodding along that are broken up every so often by holding the trigger down. This is made worse by the fact that you have a limited amount of sprint, meaning that exploration takes forever. It’d be ok if the rewards were worth it but from what I can tell they’re only cosmetic. Even the one end part of the mission, where I was supposedly set on by a “massive horde” turned out to be nothing more than me standing at a ladder and whacking at genestealers for 5 minutes.To top it all off your AI companions, whilst having some interesting banter, are as dumb as they come. Whilst this isn’t unexpected it’s yet another thing that detracts from the small amount of fun you might derive from playing Deathwing.
You’ll get upgrade points after each mission, up to a total of 4, for your performance in the mission. According to other reviews there’s only enough points to max out one of the talent trees and no way to go back and play through again with your now unlocked powers. Considering that the only interesting abilities appear to be at the end of the trees this seems a bit short sighted, severely limiting the game’s replayability appeal. Not that it really matters though as I doubt anyone who buys this game will play it more than once. The 3 talent points I got were invested in getting a psyker ability upgrade which, upon using, appeared to simply be a fire variant of the storm ability I already had. Not the most enthralling upgrade, if I’m honest.
I tried to play more, I really did, but there was simply nothing in Deathwing that kept me coming back. Many other reviewers have praised how true to the lore Deathwing is but that does little to make the game enjoyable. By contrast Space Marine did a great job of making you feel like an unstoppable war machine whilst still providing challenge. Deathwing instead makes it so a handful of genestealers could take you out whilst your brothers sit there and watch. I had really low expectations on Deathwing going in and even then I’ve been left disappointed.
Space Hulk: Deathwing does exactly what it shouldn’t: taking the idea of the venerable Space Marine and turns it into something mundane. The only commendable feature is the graphics, which do a great job of capturing the gothic feel of the Warhammer 40K universe. Apart from that all you’re left with is mediocre combat with confused AI partners at your side. Maybe this game gets a lot better past the first hour, I don’t know, but the fact of the matter is I honestly couldn’t bring myself to find out. I tried multiple times over several days but every time I just gave up, I was just not interested at all. Perhaps lore fans will find something to love here, but I certainly didn’t.
Rating: 4.5/10
Space Hulk: Deathwing is available on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 right now for $39.99. Total play time was 65 minutes with 17% of the achievements unlocked.
