Space Hulk: Deathwing, Worth Purging Xenos?
Written by Jonathan Lee, January 29, 2017, at 12:30 p.m. Tweet to: @Writerscube
Do you smell what the promethium is cooking? Thanks to the combined efforts of Focus Home Interactive, Cyanide, and Streum on Studio, we have another title from the popular Games Workshop tabletop universe of Warhammer 40,000. For those who have been longtime fans of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, you may be familiar with the Space Hulk board game. You played with a team of Space Marine Terminators. And your team’s tasked with the holy mission of purging Genestealers and accomplishing mission objectives.
Space Hulk: Deathwing was meant to be the solution to bringing the gamer closer to the action! So I hopped onto the nearest boarding torpedo, loaded up my storm bolter, charged my power sword–and set forth.
What Awaits In the Dark?
Space Hulks are drifting superstructures born from the other-dimensional Warp. The Warp is the place that Imperium ships use to go faster than light and get to places quickly. There’s a problem though. The Warp is basically Hell.
I’m not kidding. If your shields fail, daemons will board your ship. They’ll turn you and your crew into taco meat or worse. If your engines fail, you’ll be stuck in the Warp until the ocean of the Warp decides to throw you back onto the shores of Reality.
And that’s how we get Space Hulks. Lost ships drifting in the Warp can collide into other lost ships, the Warp will pound them together into an amalgam of wreckage and bodies, and then eventually–the Space Hulk returns to the material realm. Filled with lots of bad things.
But the ships that make up a Space Hulk often are ancient. And with ancient ships comes old, potent technologies and relics. The Imperium are very fond of recovering their respective relics and technologies, depending on which faction you speak to. In this case–we’re following the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter.
The Mission
The game takes you on a mission that’s two-fold. Initially, you’re tasked with destroying all Genestealer alien lifeforms because they’re psychically luring a Tyranid hive fleet towards their sector of space (You know the Zerg from Starcraft? Think of something fifty-times worse. That’s eaten a whole galaxy already. And it’s coming for ours. That’s the Tyranids.) But upon entry, the Dark Angels discover there are Dark Angel vessels in the Space Hulk, and within are relics as well as more precious treasures belonging to the Dark Angels chapter.
So naturally, they get all gung-ho about charging in and finding those relics and treasures that once belonged to them.
That’s essentially what it boils down to, but compelling story isn’t what makes Space Hulk on the table or on the screen great–it’s about the action, the intensity, the uncertainty of going down dark corridors waiting for that next horde of Genestealers to come rushing at you in a wave of chitin, claws, and gnashing teeth.
It’s about you KILLING all of those nasty SOBs.
The Gameplay
You play as a Librarian, a psychic-powered Space Marine with the ability to summon lightning, fire, and a few other tricks. In the story, you’ll use your psychic ability to see hints of what’s to come as well as what has transpired in certain areas. But in the action, you’ll be frying Genestealers left and right, blasting them with shockwaves, turning them to ash, and even summoning forth a black hole!
But that’s just the icing. The meat is in the guns and other weapons.
Warhammer 40,000 has no shortage of ways for its people and aliens to die. The Imperium has so many kinds of weapons, it’s almost silly (in an awesome, blood-splattering, soul-reaping kind of way). Space Marine Terminators are usually equipped with a default Storm Bolter (imagine a machine gun that fires enormous, EXPLOSIVE rounds bigger than your thumb–they blow holes in people’s chests, for example).
But that’s just the beginning. There’s plasma cannons, assault cannons (miniguns, essentially), lightning claws (imagine Wolverine’s claws with a force field that melts tank armor), thunder hammers (a warhammer with that same insane force field), and modified bolters that fire incendiary acid. The ways to purge the xenos are innumerable. And that’s great! That’s how Warhammer 40,000 should be!
You get stuck in with two of your battle brothers. One’s a heavy weapons specialist, while the other is more or less your healer–but the game allows you to customize them to an extent. For example, if for some reason you don’t want a healer, you could give your apothecary heavier weapons too to add to your firepower. But really–heads up–keep the healing ability around.
Also instead of Safe Houses like you might find in something like Left 4 Dead, you get to activate the Psy-Gate which takes you back to home base to rearm and regroup. Handy in a bad situation!
Your Enemies
The Genestealers are part of the Tyranids. That means they have a tendency to mutate to adapt and kill better. You’ll be running into various kinds of enemies because of this fact. Some Genestealers will just rush at you, others can render themselves invisible, and even worse, some have grown much larger and can spit bio-plasma! And then there’s the big kahunas–the Broodlords. Goes without saying, they’re the nastiest ones, and you don’t ever want them to get too close to you. Doesn’t help that you’re in such close quarters!
You’ll also run into Genestealer hybrids. This happens when Genestealers infect other people or aliens with their Tyranids genes. As those victims live on and breed, their generations begin to show various signs of mutation, but eventually, one generation becomes the perfect infiltrator to go forth and infect more. These hybrids, while humanoid in form, will serve their Genestealer masters with absolute loyalty and zeal–but they’ll be coming at your with guns and rocket launchers!
Graphics
The graphics for this game are excellent in most cases. The gore and body physics is especially fun when you’re in the thick of it. Guns blazing, lightning claws hacking, body parts flying everywhere. It’s something I really wanted in Left 4 Dead, but I’m glad I got it here. However… there were some instances when some parts of the levels were rendered kinda iffy. This mainly was from signs that were on other props–occasionally there’d be an odd granulating effect. Other than that, I quite enjoyed the visual spectacle.
Final Thoughts
I would give this game a Buy! Especially for the fans of Warhammer 40,000, but also if you’re a fan of horde-slaying games like Left 4 Dead because the format’s essentially the same. As a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, I don’t mind paying the $39.99 price tag on Steam. For people new to the Warhammer universe, I’d say wait till it’s on sale if it gives you peace of mind. I say that because currently the Steam Review ratings are Mixed. The single player was a good ten hours for me, but it’s probably because I was also achievement- and relic hunting. The multiplayer had some serious hiccups at the start, but it’s more-or-less stable at this point. I’m on my second playthrough now–going to try finding ALL the relics. Because achievements.
