... And I'm faced with a few complications...
"Heralds of the coming doom, by cry of raven, we are drawn. This oath of war and vengeance, on blade of exalted iron sworn. With blood-anointed swords aloft, advance we into dread's dark shade. Punishment divine unleashed with hate, a wrathful storm of bolt and blade. Purge with plasma, fist and shell, bring cleansing fire's righteous breath. For the Emperor, Knights of Caliban, the Lion's anointed Angels of Death!
No forgiveness. No retreat."
Space Hulk: Deathwing is a Cooperative Multiplayer First-Person Shooter developed by Streum on Studio, creators of E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy (a game heavily influenced by Warhammer itself), with assistance from Cyanide Studio. The game takes place in a Space Hulk infested with Genestealers, and the player a Dark Angels Librarian hailing from the elite 1st company; The Deathwing.
In essence it's an FPS adaptation of the Space Hulk tabletop game, although unlike the 1993 Space Hulk or its sequel Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, it's not a straight adaptation of the tabletop game's mechanics into a first person perspective, but rather takes the premise of the tabletop game and adapts it into a more typical FPS horde shooter.
The game was released on December 14 2016 for PC. A PS4 version was released in May 2018 to coincide with the Enhanced Edition update.
This game contains examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Claws: The primary weapon of Purestrain Genestealers who cut through even Terminator armor that normally can easily withstand most heavy weapons on the battlefield. The Terminators themselves can also equip Lightning Claws.
- Action Bomb: Bioblast-strain genestealers, which were added in Enhanced Edition. When they die, they explode in a shower of acid, and their only tactic is to charge the Deathwing along with the rest of the swarm to get as close as possible. Fortunately, they broadcast their presence with a distinctive, high pitched cry, and their glowing purple pustules make them easy to spot.
- Adaptational Wimp: Pretty much all the Genestealers; in the tabletop game, what makes Genestealers so lethal is the fact that their claws can rip through almost any armour like paper, making them quite capable of eviscerating a Terminator in a matter of seconds. In this game they're reduced to the approximate level of Left 4 Dead zombies (although like L4D zombies, they can still kill you pretty quickly if they surround you on higher difficulty levels). This is a necessary change as it's the only way Space Hulk could work as an FPS because it wouldn't be much fun playing a One-Hit-Point Wonder, particularly with how slow and ponderous Terminators are by necessity, and especially if you're playing single-player and are relying on A.I. teammates to fight without getting themselves killed (missions in the tabletop game or any of its other video game adaptations would get extremely bloody very quickly once the Genestealers closed to melee range).
- Averted with respect to Warhammer 40k rules in general, where Terminators have an "invulnerable save". This means they generally have a 33% chance of ignoring any incoming damage that would otherwise ignore armor. Averted even further when one factors in that Librarians have multiple wounds, as do Deathwing Terminators and Terminator Chaplains, meaning that on average a Terminator of the kind shown in game can survive an average of 10-46 attacks from genestealers (depending on their weaponry) before dying.
- Ancestral Weapon: As in canon, Power Weapons (Power Swords, Axes, Thunder Hammers, etc.), Terminator Armor and some Force Weapons are treated as such by Space Marines. Any other relics made for the game or based upon relics started to be in possession of the Dark Angels are Ancestral Weapons by default.
- Boring, but Practical: In the campaign mode, the player can chose to equip all manner of fancy weapons, including autocannons, plasma cannons, lightning claws and storm shields. However, by far the most practical of the bunch is the humble storm bolter the player starts out with, which is highly accurate, has minimal recoil and is able to put down most common enemies with only a couple of shots. Furthermore, it's one of only two weapons (the other being just another variety of storm bolter) that allow the player to equip melee sidearms other than the power fist — namely the force sword and (later on) force axe, both of which significantly reduce spell cooldown just by being carried.
- Combat Medic: The Apothecary's niche. Their unique narthecium melee weapon grants them a limited number of medkits that can be applied to themselves or other members of the squad, restoring them to full health instantly. However, they lose this ability if they swap out the narthecium for a more powerful melee weapon.
- Cool Sword: The Librarian can wield a force sword — a blade infused with the Librarian's psychic might. Carrying it reduces the cooldown of all psychic powers, allowing the Librarian to cast spells more frequently.
- Cthulhumanoid: The Evolved Genestealers in the second half of the game.
- Diegetic Interface: Part of the Terminator helmet. Weapon status is indicated on a holographic readout hovering above your hand, and the thousand year old radar and status readout on the heads-up-display have seen better days. Using psionic Power weapons causes both to temporarily short out, leaving you blind to what's going on around you for a second.
- Elite Army: The player is part of the Deathwing, a whole company of Dark Angels space marines (who are considered the best of the best of the best) who wear nigh invulnerable terminator armor.
- Furthermore, as evidenced by his left shoulder pauldron, Barachiel served in the Deathwatch.
- Elite Zombie:
- There are several types of enhanced Genestealers that appear mixed in with the regular types, all of which deal increased damage and have special abilities. Stalker-strain Genestealers can cloak and even scramble your radar when near, Warrior-strain Genestealers are larger and tougher than normal and also have a biomorph ability that lets them spit acid for ranged combat, while Scythe-strain Genestealers are Giant Mook enemies somewhat equivalent to the Tank from Left 4 Dead. Finally, there's the Broodlord, the game's Boss in Mook's Clothing enemy type that's incredibly tough, surprisingly fast, and capable of psychic attacks.
- In the second half of the game there are the Evolved Genestealers that have incorporated Dark Angel Space Marine genes into their DNA. They're tougher than normal Genestealers, and have their own Stalker, Warrior, and Scythe variants as well.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: There are a few. For example, the autoguns used by the Genestealer hybrids should be about as effective as a spitball against Terminator Armor, but they have to do damage in order to be an actual threat gameplay-wise. Conversely, Genestealer claws should shred through your armor and kill you in just one or two hits, but for balancing purposes you can actually survive a couple dozen melee attacks from the basic Genestealers before dying.
- Gatling Good: Like 40k proper. One of the Deathwing Terminators has an Assault Cannon.
- Ghost Ship: Space Hulks. Massive conglomerations of lost ships and wrecks fused together. They drift in and out of the warp through space and during the millennia the lost ships join together into one enormous body. Occasionally, they randomly emerge out of the warp for an unknown period of time before re-entering the warp. Space Hulks usually carry Orks, Tyranid bio-forms and chaos aligned forces. They are also known to carry ancient artifacts.
- Giant Mook:
- The Scythe-strain Genestealers are huge 15-foot tall Genestealers that can soak a few hundred rounds of bolter fire before falling. While they're a lot slower than regular Genestealers, their incredible durability lets them keep advancing even as 3 or 4 Space Marine Terminators are unloading on them with full auto fire.
- The Enhanced Edition adds Aberrants, which are a Giant Mook version of the Genestealer humanoid hybrids. They carrying heavy weapons like mining lasers or two-handed power hammers, and can soak several dozen bolter rounds to the face before dropping.
- Half-Human Hybrid/Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Other than purestrains, the game features genestealer hybrids (who are intelligent enough to wield melee or ranged weapons such as rocket launchers).
- Interface Screw: Using Power weapons causes your radar and health display to malfunction temporarily.
- Large and in Charge: Broodlords. One shown by the end of one of the trailers easily dwarfs three Deathwing Terminators by more or less 40 feet. The Broodlords that actually appear in the game are only about twice the size of a Terminator, but are still the largest and toughest enemies in the game, with each essentially serving as a Boss in Mook's Clothing.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Powered Armor will not be enough to keep a Terminator fully defended inside of a Space Hulk. However, a proper Power Shield will do the trick much better.
- Mighty Glacier: Though the Terminator armor is among the mightiest form of Powered Armor out there, it comes at the cost of speed and mobility.
- Military Mage/Magic Knight: The default player, Librarian, has psychic powers and plethora of weapons to combat the Genestealer infestation.
- More Dakka: Standard weapons of the Deathwing includes Storm Bolters and the Assault Cannon. Time will only tell what weapons will the "powerful relics" will be. Such as Fore Smiter and Lion's Roar(not the Dawn of War 2 Heavy Bolter ) original weapons or those based on Forge World's Horus Heresy series. Like the Plasma Blaster, which are basically two Plasma Guns mounted together.
- This is also the tactic employed by Genestealer Hybirds armed with assault rifles since it is the only way their smaller firearms will ever deal any sort of significant damage.
- Mission Briefing: Grand Master Belial of the 1st Company briefs players on each mission.
- Plasma Cannon: A hefty, slow-firing BFG that fires explosive bolts of energy. The player Librarian in campaign mode can unlock one, and with enough skill points invested in the Command tree their heavy-weapons squadmate can do the same.
- Power Creep: In multiplayer, the Tactical Specialty class suffers this thanks to the Interrogator-Chaplain class added in Enhanced Edition. Two of its special abilities are simply better versions of the Tactical's: Where the Tactical can revive one teammate or grant them a defensive barrier that reduces damage, the Chaplain can revive the entire squad at once or give everyone full invulnerability. On top of this, the Interrogator-Chaplain can take all the same weapons as the Tactical Speciality (plus the unique crozius arcanum melee weapon), leaving the Tactical class completely redundant.
- Power Fist: The most basic melee weapon available to every character. Power fists generate lethal energy fields and radiate shockwaves when they strike a target, making them a useful (if cumbersome) sidearm when a mob of genestealers gets too close.
- Powered Armor: What Terminator armor basically is but even better.
- Psychic Powers: As a Librarian, the player can make use of a range psychic abilities. There are also Genestealer Hybrid Psykers who has psychic abilities as well.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The 2nd trailer's choice of music ("Walking with A Ghost
" by Kadebostany) was criticized by users as its love lyrics in the first half don't particularly fit with Warhammer themes and don't make a whole lot sense when blasting genestealers. On the other hand, the second half drops the vocals and uses a mariachi band for the Last Stand scenes, which provides an interesting contrast with the orchestral music typical of WH40K games, and give it an overall Alamo vibe. -
Spiritual Successor: The game feels like a half-update of E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, with movement that is almost identical to wearing Heavy Armor (save speed being halved overall and the inability to modify your legs to go faster), a secondary fire that works identically to unupgraded EYE vision (complete with highlighting still-living enemies), hacking, and an emphasis on surviving and fighting against Zerg Rushes, both ranged and melee. - Stone Wall: Equipping one of your Terminator teammates with a thunder hammer and storm shield essentially makes them a brick wall that can hold out against hordes of Genestealers and take barely any damage, and even letting them go toe-to-toe with a Scythe-strain or Broodlord and keep them at bay long enough for the rest of your team to mow them down. The trade off is that they give up their ranged attacks and, in the case of your Apothecary, the ability to heal your squadmates.
- Subsystem Damage: The armor is split into multiple sections, which will stop functioning if heavily damaged. For example, if the left arm is crippled any left-arm mounted weaponry will become unusable.
- Unique Enemy: There's only one regular Broodlord in the entire game, it's also the first Broodlord you encounter and is fought about halfway through the game. The remaining Broodlords in the later levels are Evolved Broodlords, and even then there are only a handful of them that you fight.
- Updated Re Release: The Enhanced Edition, made available for free for owners of the original game, features various minor graphical improvements and PC compatibility tweaks, as well as adding new weapons, enemies, and game modes as well as overall increasing the difficulty of the game in general.
- Worf Effect: In the first level, you come across several other Deathwing members violently butchered, but when you open a door and see that an entire kill team worth of them was killed right there, you know that it's dangerous. Fittingly enough, it's right before you run into the actual Genestealers for the first time.
- Zerg Rush: The typical method of attack of the ordinary genestealer.
YOU DIED
You Have Brought Shame Upon Your Chapter
