It is the one with the most rigorous backdrop, though.
I'm not going to claim Deathwing is the best 40k game of all time, because the best should appeal to more than just those that get what space Warhammer is all about. Essentially a tangle of dead ships fused together in the timeless malignancy of the Immaterium, space hulks are malevolent contortions of metal and stone reminiscent in parts of the claustrophobic corridors of sunken U-boats, in others as vast dilapidated cathedrals, but at all times uniformly oppressive with failing lights, groaning metal and the constant threat of ambush from any and all directions. The infested hulk to which your squad is sent to investigate and purge is the ultimate source of Deathwing's appeal - so much so that I can't recall a more faithful environment for any Games Workshop-endorsed title in all my years of playing them (and I remember Tower of Despair, so I've played a few). Deathwing's space hulk sits alongside Vermintide's Ubersreik as one of the better realisations of a Warhammer setting that does justice to the established lore. It's literally coming out of the goddamn walls. From the gruff mission preamble to the iconic weapons and through every groaning bulkhead of the space hulk itself, Deathwing is dripping with 40k credibility. There are other aspects of the game worth shouting about too - which I'll get to in a moment - but they all boil down to one thing: authenticity. In Deathwing, as implicit in the ancient text of the first edition Space Hulk rulebook, you have to keep moving forward lest your incomparable space knights become overwhelmed by the demon swarm.ĭeathwing draws inspiration from deeper sources than dioramas of carefully assembled flock and figurines, from the Black Library for its fiction to decades of 40k-themed gothic architecture glimpsed from box art, dust jackets, flourishes in rulebooks and the pages of White Dwarf. But then a knowledge of where the enemy might spring from, and that it will never stop coming for you was always integral to the original game. Conventional design wisdom might suggest not revealing such things to the player, especially when doing so highlights the fact that they can't be taken out. Beaming Nigel Farage becomes first British politician to meet Donald Trump since election.Īn example are the spawn points and "blips" that are highlighted on the in-game map, from which the Genestealer hordes commence their attacks. As in, they properly get that 40k is more than just Lord of the Rings in space, or, in the case of Space Hulk, James Cameron's Aliens rampaging through the Mines of Moria. Not enough to have compromised the action too much, but just hints here and there (to reassure the faithful) that developer Streum On Studio hold the source material in suitably high regard. In actual fact Deathwing's flimsy structure and plasterboard systems can, to a degree, be seen as a virtue you can almost see the influence of the original board game underneath the first-person shooter design. There are plenty of reasons to be cagey over the current state of Deathwing, but the game's lack of Left 4 Dead DNA isn't one of them. If that all sounds underwhelming and rather tedious, don't be put off just yet. What you get is more of a glorified survival mode stretched thin over nine large levels, with you and your Terminator Space Marine buddies under regular assault by waves of Alien-inspired creatures as you stomp a steady path from one distant objective to the next. Sure its multiplayer game is co-op only (and its campaign fed by AI bots), with you and up to three others up against relentless hordes of skittering horrors, but Left 4 Dead's clever narrative framework, its dynamic stage direction and cast of sarcastic characters are hard to make out in Deathwing's grim darkness of the far future. I can't see it much myself, but Deathwing is supposed to be Warhammer 40k's take on Left 4 Dead. An impressive handling of the Warhammer licence, Deathwing is sadly a less than impressive tactical shooter.
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