

Reviewers have criticised the game for numerous bugs, a lack of polish and optimization, clunky menus, poor AI, and a lackluster story.

#Space hulk deathwing xbox one gamestop Pc
The Genestealers also form an infiltration force known as a Genestealer Cult that weakens a target planet, by infecting the local population and causing civil unrest, in advance of the arrival of the main Tyranid Hive Fleet invasion.Ĭritical reception for the PC version has been mixed, holding a score of 60 on Metacritic. The Genestealers are a part of the overall Tyranid aliens where they serve as the shock troops, although their origins are not related to any other Tyranid broods. Like the Space Hulk series, the main antagonists are Genestealers, an aggressive alien species (similar to the xenomorphs depicted in the Alien franchise) which have made their home aboard a massive derelict space-faring vessel called a Space Hulk, threatening the "Deathwing's" search for artifacts as they try to transform the Space Hulk into their nest. First company veterans in each Space Marine Chapter have earned the right to don the sacred Tactical Dreadnought Armor or Terminator Armor, which provides more powerful weapons and tougher protection than the standard Power Armour donned by most Marines. The Dark Angels' Deathwing company is unique amongst the rest of their Chapters's companies in being composed of only Terminators. Other than the tormented Sergeant Tahariel and his Librarian, Hagios, none of my boys in red got much of a backstory or specific mission dialogue to help them seem like real people.In Space Hulk: Deathwing's single-player campaign, the player is a Librarian of the Dark Angels 1st company of Space Marines. I did find myself wishing they had a little more personality in the context of the story, though. This helps add some personality to distinguish between, for example, the heavy weapons guy who’s really good with an autocannon and the one who’s really good with a flamethrower. Throughout the campaign, both factions have the ability to unlock new unit types, abilities, power cards, and specialized gear (for the Space Marines). The nine-mission Genestealer campaign, by comparison, feels like a bit of an afterthought, with not much in the way of campaign mechanics to speak of other than a couple opportunities to decide between one of two approaches to a specific mission.

The story is nothing to write home to Terra about, but presents the typical grimdark, far future melodrama of the 40K universe in all its cheesy glory. The Space Marines get 13 missions across a dynamic map with events, dilemmas, and collectible loot. Mouse scrolling doesn’t work very well either, and stops working at all in some cases, like when you’re trying to choose a target for a power card.Īside from skirmish and ranked match modes that work pretty much as one would expect, there are single-player campaigns for each faction. I had to choose between trying to play it like a PC strategy game and having my clicks often not register or trigger something unintended, or pick up my Xbox controller and deal with the hassle of, for instance, having to use the buttons to manually cycle through all of my units instead of simply clicking to select them. I’d much prefer to be using a mouse and keyboard in this type of game, but it seems really apparent Space Hulk: Tactics was designed for a gamepad and had some sub-par mouse controls slapped on after the fact.

And the ability to draw your enemies out of position with decoy units lets you engage in some delightful psychological warfare. Finding the chink in the armor of a Space Marine formation that would allow me to isolate the metal-clad crusaders and skewer them one by one rarely got old. It feels a bit less shirt-wringing, but also more fun. You always have the upper hand in terms of information and freedom of movement, but you’re also forced to be cagey and deceptive as a frontal assault is more than likely to fail. When playing as the Genestealers, the atmosphere is turned on its head.
