Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition | PS4 | Review

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Based upon Games Workshop’s popular tabletop franchise, Space Hulk: Deathwing attempts to do for 40K what Vermintide did for old school Warhammer. While Deathwing is a unique and often exciting FPS onslaught in the vein of Left 4 Dead, it doesn’t quite meet the high standards set by its inspirators.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam

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Developer(s): Streum
On ​Studio, Cyanide
Publisher: Focus Home
Interactive
​Platforms: ​PS4, PC
​Players: 1 - 3

You play as a Deathwing, an elite member of the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, sent aboard Space Hulk Olethros, a gargantuan spaceship (with no relation to the big green guy), to clear a nasty infestation of Tyranids, a Xenomorph-like alien race, in service of the Emperor. If that clause-tastic sentence hasn’t already make it clear, Space Hulk: Deathwing is thick with years of Warhammer 40K lore that fans will eat up and newcomers will just about comprehend. Regardless, the narrative is mostly fluff that simply serves to frame the action.

Despite the bulky power armour your Deathwing sports, conflict comes thick and fast as varied swarms of lesser enemies mingle with more brutish individuals to create a genuinely challenging opposition. Utilising a powerful combination of cooldown-limited special attacks, melee weaponry, and heavy firearms conventionally reserved for vehicle mounts, you’ll attempt to cut a swath through the horde in order to keep moving towards your objective and avoid being overwhelmed - just don’t be too hasty, as sprinting ahead is a good way to get yourself flanked and killed.

A few tools at your disposal will help to keep that considered pace up, not least of all a pair of battle-brothers that can be issued commands via a simple radial menu. The AI is pretty competent left to its own devices, even if the stingy healer could be mistaken for your average human support player, but venturing online for a spot of co-op is definitely the way to play if you’re able. Here you’ll choose from six different classes, rather than having one dictated, as in single player, allowing you to better synergise and strategise whilst also gaining access to the game’s deeper customisation and levelling systems.

For the sake of balance, you’ll lose the ability to teleport to safety and kit yourself out on a whim when opting to play in co-op, but the trade-off is usually worthwhile for the smarter companionship capable of employing advanced strategies like locking doors to keep enemies at bay.

Deathwing is a unique and often exciting FPS onslaught in the vein of Left 4 Dead.

That tactic comes in particularly handy, as the game’s touch-and-go encounters can otherwise be overwhelming. Space Hulk: Deathwing bombards you with hostiles while requiring you to juggle priority targets between them, often as you’re confined to dark and claustrophobic spaces only sporadically lit by muzzle flashes. These moments invest you in the fight by making your squad of hulking marines - with infinite ammo to boot - feel small and vulnerable, but they could easily have been elevated further.

The game very sparingly utilises an ambient soundtrack, placing a focus instead on its (mostly) strong and encompassing diegetic sound. This isn’t inherently bad, but an adaptive soundtrack that ramped up alongside enemy spawns would’ve made for absolute magic in these situations.

Space Hulk: Deathwing also struggles when it comes to graphical presentation, largely looking fine in busy motion, but falling apart should you stop to smell the roses. Flat textures, strawberry jam blood effects, ropey animations and more stick out like sore thumbs as you traverse the darkly Gothic halls of the game’s labyrinthine spaceships.

On that note, environments are sprawling to their detriment at times, requiring you to frequent the map screen so as to not get lost in backtracking purgatory. Whilst a spattering of explosive barrels and flame-spewing pipes make areas lightly interactive, their similar aesthetics and objectives don’t offer up enough variety to maintain interest between missions or temp you off the beaten path in search of collectibles.

Unfortunately, this sews the seeds of tedium as you work through the campaign’s nine lengthy chapters, making the notion of revisiting areas to complete randomised special missions in a secondary mode an unattractive one, even if there are alternate routes to take.

Environments are sprawling to their detriment at times, requiring you to frequent the map screen so as to not get lost in backtracking purgatory.

Lacking replay value is easily Space Hulk: Deathwing’s biggest stumbling block, considering that’s generally the foundation for this breed of shooter and was no doubt intended to be here. Throw in technical issues like dropped frames and crashes and the experience definitely doesn’t feel “enhanced”, as the title suggests, though it’s worth noting that we were playing a pre-release version.

Overall, Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition is a game at odds with itself, boasting some brilliantly implemented ideas alongside weak alternatives. Its gameplay foundation is (mostly) structurally sound, yet the surrounding accoutrement hold it back. Despite the issues, as ever, gameplay is king, so we’d say it’s still worth a look if you’re in the market for a co-op shooter to dip in and out of with friends, especially if you’re fans of the source material.

Pros

• Frantic-yet-tactical combat encounters
• Characters feel hefty & impactful
• Varied slate of iconic 40K weaponry
• Great use of lighting
• Intriguing future Gothic aesthetic

Cons

• Repetitive locales that can be difficult to navigate
• Not nearly as replayable as its peers
• Technical drawbacks
• Lacking in the audiovisual departments
• Solo players miss out on a lot of content

7/10