Space Hulk: Deathwing should have been a dream challenge for little French indie studio Streum On, creators of the endearingly janky E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. As a staff they’d began their careers with making Warhammer 40,000-themed mods, so having the official key to the dominion should have felt like a miracle, however with a well-known license and the next price range comes larger expectations.
While undoubtedly extra polished than E.Y.E, Deathwing nonetheless felt like a low-budget sport with a high-budget facade. After an extra yr and a half of growth and launching alongside the PS4 model of the sport, an Enhanced Edition rolled out at this time, addressing most of the flaws of the unique launch and for these with the unique model, it’s a free improve.
While a number of the Enhanced Edition options had already rolled out through incremental patches for the unique sport, the re-launch seems as a completely new retailer entry on Steam, though should you already personal the sport it’ll pop up in your Steam library alongside the previous model. The greatest new function is Special Missions. Once you’ve accomplished a map in story mode, you may return there with further routes open to finish randomly generated missions, including much more meat to Deathwing’s initially under-padded bones.
Another main enchancment has been efficiency optimisations – a requirement for the console launch, undoubtedly. A fast poke across the first mission confirms that the sport does run noticeably higher, and performs properly on my 1070/i7 laptop computer at most settings, the place beforehand it could chug fairly badly as soon as the primary enemy swarms confirmed up. Other new goodies embody a brand new class, extra weapons, new enemy variants and a nicely fleshed out beauty customisation system, as a result of the Emperor desires you to look fabulous.
Still, a few of Deathwing’s underlying flaws stay unaddressed, together with the not-quite-impactful-enough gunplay and the flailing melee fight. While that is the sport that arguably ought to have launched on the tail-end of 2016, competitors has dulled its affect as soon as extra. Still, it’s a lovingly detailed tribute to the setting, and can undoubtedly discover its viewers with Warhammer 40,000 followers, however the remainder of us will most likely keep on with bashing rats as an alternative of offended purple aliens.
While the Enhanced Edition of Deathwing is a notable enchancment, this seems like an ill-timed relaunch. If you need first-person Warhammer-themed co-op ultraviolence, then you definitely’ll most likely be higher served by Vermintide 2. While it might be extra close-combat centered, it’s exhausting to argue that it’s not only a higher, greater, extra polished expertise on the entire. While Deathwing is under no circumstances a nasty sport (particularly after this overhaul), that is maybe only a case of being too little and too late.
Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition is out now on Steam for £35/$40, minus a 20% launch low cost. Owners of the unique launch will discover it of their library already.
