Judging by the number of downloads, many Warhammer 40,000 (40K for short) fans have been playing Space Wolf on mobile devices. The truth is that it’s a good turn-based strategy game reminiscent of XCOM. Even though it dates back to 2015, it’s still a hit, and apparently that’s what got someone at Complex Games to think that bringing the formula to PC would be a good idea. The idea was promising, but I can’t deny that I was nervous about the end result, because we didn’t receive the code to test the game until the afternoon of launch, and that’s usually a very bad sign.
Before anyone thinks it’s misspelled, no. Daemon is well written. It is a sign that the demons of this universe are not what we are used to seeing as they can be both good and evil.
In Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, you take on the role of the newly appointed leader of the Gray Knights, a special order of Space Marines, steroid-powered, two-hearted, acid-spitting super-soldiers. However, with another twist, because they are Psychics, the magicians of the 40K universe, and their main goal is to kill everything that crawls out of the Immaterium, a kind of parallel universe where the emotions of all living things flow like in an ocean and in which, given enough negative (or good) emotions, thinking beings are created that do their best to materialize in reality, or simply become so powerful that they can affect the real world and even become gods . With this premise, you must carry the brain of Gandalf in the body of Captain America, clad in Iron-Man’s armor (everything multiplied by 10) to fight demons created by negative emotions. In case you haven’t noticed, anything in 40K is a bit overkill.
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Bad luck leads one of the Empire’s inquisitors to believe she should be in charge, even though your ship isn’t doing particularly well after a long campaign against hordes of demons. Accidentally, it’s your turn to investigate and defeat a blight plague in a nearby solar system and find out what’s causing it (most of you who play Warhammer already know what). And how is that done? Well, with superior firepower, of course. After playing for a while, you can even unlock my favorite weapon, Exterminatus, which does things as simple as wiping out entire planets. Basically, you have to send your combat team (consisting of four soldiers) on missions and when they take too many hits, replace them with others. You can die more or less permanently, so it’s important not to sacrifice your best characters on missions you almost know you’re going to lose. However, there is a system of levels and equipment, so changing characters too much is not a good idea.
You control these super soldiers, usually four of them, who wear Aegis armor and who, through the use of action points and willpower (obviously killing requires willpower despite you being a super soldier who has been brainwashed for 500 years) use conventional projectiles and melee weapons charged with psychic energy. Each time you use the latter, you load a “debuff” that significantly reduces your units’ chances in battle. When it comes to weapons, there are actually a few options within reason, although some like the flamethrower sometimes cause more problems than they solve. Given the number of enemies, it’s always a good idea to have this weapon handy along with other high-precision max-damage weapons, as well as grenades that can be used in conjunction with various automated attacks. Thanks to this, you can make your enemies fly up in the air, regardless of whether Autofire is activated or not, and without costing action points. blessed glory!
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The gameplay tutorial could have been a bit better because while things are explained fairly well, you can’t help but have a lot of questions if you’re not entirely familiar with the format. Luckily, if you’ve tried XCOM or Gears Tactics, are familiar with Overwatch, and have a good understanding of action points and the cover system, it will be easy to get the hang of it.
The game is challenging. Well, it’s pretty hard, and if you’re playing on the higher difficulties, you’re going to have to say some words that would shame a dead man. Every mistake is severely punished here and you have to accept that you can play with some freedom in theory, but not in practice. You’ll need to carry balanced units, remember a lot about the Aegis, melee combat, and measure every move to the millimeter.
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The game has four basic classes: Purger, your main source of gunpowder, bullets, and flame; pharmacist, a kind of field doctor who removes the surplus organs from fallen soldiers to build new ones; Interceptor, a scout who can teleport and deal high-damage heavy weapons; and the Justicar, a real tank capable of wearing the Terminator armor, the best in the entire game.
Between actual combat missions, it’s time to conduct combat research and campaigns, make sure all of the Baleful Edict ship’s systems are working and improve them, and report back to the boss, Vardan Kai, for whom he gives the voice every two months no more no less than Andy Serkis. I have to admit that even though I knew in advance it was him, I had a hard time realizing it. You’ll want to get along with him since he’s a resource that makes it easy for you to get new soldiers and weapons from Titan, the moon he and the entire order he’s a part of lives on. Yes, you have to manage resources and in addition each soldier’s experience, which you have to use wisely to adapt well to your playstyle and the way you use each class. For example, I equipped some of my regular soldiers with gadgets that allow them to heal themselves and others, while my Apothecary could bleed his opponents dry at amazing speeds.
Nevertheless, I have some criticisms. The first is that the facial expressions are a bit odd, as well as very static, edgy, and cartoonish. They’re very reminiscent of Warcraft 3, with bright colors that aren’t distracting. The variety of enemies, especially humans, is very limited, to put it kindly. They didn’t even bother to move scars or other details, they’re almost a copy. There is little effort on this front or on the mission front, especially in the beginning. The settings change, but the objectives, enemies, and scenery are largely identical.
On the other hand, the game is quite demanding. Even with an RTX 3080 Ti, I’ve noticed significant fps drops, especially in menus, although in my world 80 fps at 4K is very little. At other times it has reached over 140 frames per second, but I refuse to believe that this game is so demanding, the problem is certainly the optimization. As far as bugs go, I’ve only had one issue in my entire game.
What I see problems with are lore and 40k myth and in-game events. I agree that it’s supposed to be a PC game and that it can be difficult, but I find it hard to accept that only one class can use the Terminator Armor and it doesn’t make sense for an ordinary human to endure it could have his face slashed open with a three-foot-long space chain saw with specially hardened teeth, or being hit in the head with a human-powered hammer by a 1,000-pound super soldier who can lift a ton. Also, it doesn’t make sense that standard machine gun bullets or concussion grenades would cause trouble for someone running Terminator and wearing armor that according to that universe’s literature is literally “a living tank”. These things might not bother you, but these games are made for people like me, and those bumps are hard to swallow. Although you know what? Let’s leave it at that.
Some bugs may appear during the game, although they weren’t very obvious and I understand that the updates will fix them. Coming back to the mechanics, the whole series of strategic factors that you have to take into account such as: For example, making sure you have good cover means your Super Soldiers will never feel completely calm, mainly because they take a long time to recover. You have to think very carefully about what you’re doing, just like in a normal 40K game. And that’s exactly what makes it hopelessly addictive despite everything.
Let the holy oils bathe my armor, and let the runes of my hammer shine: the demons will bleed! Or whatever comes out of them when multiple holes are drilled into them against their will.
