Space Hulk: Deathwing

My first hour inside a Space Hulk was genuinely exciting. The setting does something most licensed games fail at: it makes you feel the weight and scale of the Warhammer 40,000 universe without a single cutscene speech explaining what an Adeptus Astartes actually is. You are lumbering through gothic cathedral corridors in Terminator armour, bolter roaring, Genestealers pouring out of every vent and bulkhead. The atmosphere is the game's strongest argument for existing, and for that narrow window before the repetition sets in, Streum On Studio deserves credit. You play as an Epistolary Librarian of the Dark Angels' feared 1st Company - the Deathwing - leading two squadmates through a derelict Space Hulk on a relic-recovery mission that quickly turns into a xenos extermination marathon. Combat is deliberately slow and heavy. You are not a twitchy FPS character; you move like a tank and hit like one too. That fidelity to the source material is a genuine design choice, but it cuts both ways. Weapons like the storm bolter and heavy flamer feel appropriately weighty, and the Librarian's psychic abilities - arc lightning that chains across clustered enemies, or psychic fire scorching the floor - add some tactical texture to the shooting. The Enhanced Edition layered in a new class, expanded weapon options including extra melee loadouts, and a reworked progression system that gives solo play a bit more structure. Special Missions mode adds procedurally generated objectives across the existing maps, which pads the replayability numbers without really solving the map-reuse problem underneath. Here is where the cracks widen into chasms. The AI squadmates are a persistent disaster - blocking doorways, ignoring enemies in plain sight, and requiring manual orders through a radial command menu that is nearly impossible to use cleanly in the middle of a firefight. The save system compounds the frustration: there are no manual saves, and the autosave checkpoints are spaced so far apart that a bad death can cost you 30-40 minutes of progress. The campaign itself clocks in under ten hours and recycles its maps for both solo and multiplayer, so that threadbare feeling arrives quickly. The story, co-written by longtime 40K author Gav Thorpe, leans so hard on in-universe terminology that newcomers will spend more time confused than engaged. Multiplayer is where the game breathes. Four players in a coordinated squad - using the Apothecary for healing, mixing in heavy weapon specialists, covering choke points - turns the slow pace into something genuinely tense rather than merely tedious. The Genestealer horde pressure feels meaningful when your team is communicating, and the randomised Special Missions give that group something to return to. The problem in 2026 is finding that group. The player population has thinned considerably since launch, and matchmaking into a full four-player game takes patience. If you have three friends already committed, this becomes a much better game. If you are counting on public lobbies, adjust your expectations accordingly. Deathwing is a game that got the soul of the Space Hulk board game right and left the execution half-finished. The look is the best visual realisation of the Warhammer 40,000 aesthetic in any first-person game, full stop. But lookalike atmosphere only carries you so far when the AI is unreliable, the campaign loops back on itself, and the co-op that could save it depends entirely on who shows up. For a deep-lore 40K fan with friends to drag along, there is a specific and genuine pleasure here. For everyone else, the mixed Steam score is an honest warning sign.

Alex · Scout Team

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