For many Warhammer 40k fans and even some not familiar with the franchise, you probably have heard of a title 4 years in the making which held promise of atmospheric, gun blazing, emperor praising, and Xeno annihillating 4 player shooter. Space Hulk: Deathing promised to deliver a new kind of Warhammer 40k experience, putting the player in the hulking mass of Terminator armor and a mission to expunge Xenos from a massively discovered 'Space Hulk' an amalgamation of ships and structures, fused together into a nightmarish labrynth of danger.

But the question remains, after 4 years of development, did they deliver?

The short answer: Yes! Even for folks who are brand new to the Warhammer 40k universe, the game delivers a tense, energetic gameplay that requires quick thinking, tactics focused, and glorious blazing story and missions! Granted, the game is quite unpolished at this time. The game was slated for the Holiday season rush, and the Publisher made sure to push for it no matter the cost. Sadly, this gave the devs little time to polish and bug fix the game, letting it launch with some glaring flaws. Devs are aware of it, however, and have been promising patches very soon. If you want more details, read on...

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Now without a doubt, this game is developed in the heart and mind of Left 4 Dead, handling waves of monsters, with special creatures sprinkled in to make things difficult, only to deliver it all in an atmosphere and setting that makes fighting, even as a famed Deathwing, tense and interesting the whole way. In singleplayer, your single role and character is stuck to one class, but open to use all weapons, and accompanied by two NPC Space Marines who are quickly ordered around using a quick command wheel. Weapons are easily swapped out, and your gear promises varying styles of play as you take on hordes of Xenos while fighting your way to your next mission. During this time, the game is littered with Relics to find and small quips of lore everywhere you must locate, or if that's not in your interest, you can plow through and directly for your objective, but locating these trinkets allows you to gain more XP, lore, and access to better gear and equipment. The NPCs accompanying you are relatively competent, knowing how to defend themselves, but you'll find yourself often micromanaging orders when it comes to keeping each other patched, hacking doors to seal them behind you, or holding position. With story background and events happening around you, the story delivers an interesting package that will nudge you to keep trekking through.

Now one glaring difference between most FPS games like L4D and Space Hulk: Deathwing is that the mechanics for romping around in a full suit of Terminator armor can come off as clunky, slow, and often a challenge to navigate, especially when each suit even fills out half or more of a corridor when you're traversing like an armored caravan. The important thing to note on this is this is intended, as the Terminator armor is to be depicted as nothing short of a battle tank on legs. This requires more tactical thinking and preparation for how you approach each room and corridor, and if friendly fire is on, you'll need to coordinate with your team to make sure your assault teammate isn't hosing you and your team down with the assault cannon while trying to take on that incoming wave of Xenos. This builds desired tension in fire fights, do you keep your assault in front, or taking up the rear to avoid a surprise? These decisions is what helps Deathwing keep that tension as your situation can change on the fly, even if your current marching line works.

Damage itself is also something to write about, as unlike other L4D games or similar shooters, damage you take is not overall, but rather locational to your Terminator armor. As you fight, sections of your armor take damage, and if that section is destroyed, use of that limb or equipment will be disabled till healed or repaired. If your right arm is damaged, your primary firearm will no longer function, if your legs get damaged, you'll move at a noticably reduced rate. The only two critical points will be your chest armor, and your head armor, and while head shots by enemies are rare, its the most fragile point, while your chest armor can take most of the abuse but at the same time, the most likely target of most attacks. Thankfully, repairing the damage is as easy as the Apothacary giving you a quick heal, or using a Psygate to return to safe haven.

When moving to Multiplayer, the situation changes on you a good bit. Firstly of note, your Psygates for running to safety or repairing during a middle of a mission are now gone, and the charges for your abilities are now replaced with cooldowns, allowing infinite, if restricted use. However the biggest change of note is the fact that now all players have 5 levels to achieve per mission. Every time a mission starts, everyone is level one with basic abilities for your class. As you progress, destroy Xenos, and complete objectives, you gain levels, opening up new abilities and equipment. Librariums get access to extra Psy abilities, and access to the Force Axe. Assaults get access to better and better weapons, and can more easily hack devices. Some classes have better 'sweet spots' on levels than others, like an Assault get access to its Avenger cannon as easily as level 3, while a Librarium gets their best crowd clearing pyk power at level 4. Lastly, being defeated in Multiplayer does not leave you stranded till your teammates find you, this is especially useful as the Space Hulk missions and maps are not linear, but highly explorative. Instead, you'll be subjected to an increasing respawn timer for every death you endure, sometimes leaving your team without an essential teammate if things go awry, which often creates tense, and actually rather interesting fights for survival.

There are some issues that need to be addressed at this time, however, as the game, as said, was rushed out the door, likely due to the publisher demanding a Holiday release. While I will mention current issues, the developers, as of the week of release, acknowledged these issues and are working to get a patch out as soon as they can. The biggest, glaring issue, varying from PC to PC is the significant lack of optimization for lower end machines, as framerates can drop to 5 - 10 fps sometimes, rendering the game sometimes unplayable. On top of that, there are several bugs in game that can cause Fatal Errors, crashing the game. Opening the inventory in multiplayer is often the biggest contibuter to this, making frustrating crashes and disconnects from the server mid mission. On top of these, there are smaller issues that could use some polish, from some options and settings that end up being a little more vague in what they do, especially in times where its neccessary to really know what they are. If a mission fails, you have the option to 'Fix-It' which is actually a full mission restart, to 'Continue' which allows you to restart from the last check point, but neither clarifies this issue to the user before hitting the button.

That said, at this time, these issues are temporary, and honestly, from my experience, do not detract too heavily on the overall experience. The base package is a solid game, and a foundation that shows promise to be built on in the future.

All in all, Space Hulk: Deathwing delivers a very atmospheric game for both newcomers to the Warhammer 40K and fun easter eggs and nods to the fans of the series, leaving a fun, tension filled game that makes you feel both powerful and vulnerable in the same stroke. While single player's story and campaign has a lot to give, the Multiplayer is where the game shines where you work with a full team and feel great pulling off a full mission as a synchronized unit. Easily a game to pick up and enjoy. If you're worried about the functionality of the game, give it a few weeks before you buy so that the developers can get it polished for the playerbase.

Space Hulk: Deathwing - 8/10