1 person found this review helpful
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 264.7 hrs on record (50.0 hrs at review time)
Posted: 24 Jan, 2020 @ 7:28am
Updated: 21 Mar, 2020 @ 8:08pm

Amazing atmosphere, both in the way of graphical and sound design. Multiplayer gameplay, though not very varied or tactically deep, is somewhat enjoyable much in the same way as other horde shooters, such as Left 4 Dead or Payday are. The selection of weapons is adequate, if still somewhat small, and is further narrowed down by the obvious underpoweredness of some and clear superiority of other weapons. There is little room for improvement here, though, as the only Terminator-grade weapon from WH40K that is not in the game are the Chainfist Gauntlets. Enemies come in a greater variety, and have different strengths and weaknesses, which requires some strategic thinking both on the level of individual players, and the team as a whole. Objectives are greatly varied. Singleplayer is simply trash, without most of these positive qualities.

In multiplayer, judicious amount of sheer bullsh*t, such as somwhat tanky, fast, and almost completely invisible enemies that can one or two hit kill you and come in groups, psykers that can oneshot kill you with a hitscan attack from a hundred meter away, heavy stubbers (the WH40K equivalent of an airsoft rifle) destroying your Terminator armor with 5-6 shots, or RNG-driven "critical hits" that cannot be parried and will wound or kill you no matter what are something that you will have to put up with if you wish to play on higher difficulties, which is necessary to gain any meaningful amount of XP and unlock customizations and upgrades at a bearable rate. Good situational awareness can negate these threats most of the time, but death still comes, often, and suddenly, be prepared that this game is not a power fantasy.

Unfortunately, Space Hulk Deathwing is clearly unfinished, even with the Enchanted Edition, the UI is laughably unpolished and the game is infested with bugs (and I do not mean the genestealers), but to be fair, most outright gamebreaking ones are fixed. The netcode is a whole different story though, it is highly unstable, and will likely give you massive lagspikes (freezes) and hit detection issues, if not just throw you off of whichever server you are playing on right away.

There is no mod support in the game. No multiplayer bots, so you either get people to join your server, or you will be playing alone. No voice chat. Very barebones radial command menu. Barely functional server browser. You get the point, core functionality is either outright missing, or just implemented in a half-arsed way. Non-core, "quality of life" functionality is unheard of.

Adding insult to the inury, the developers declared that they are done with the game, and since the release of the Enhanced Edition, there is no official support of any kind to speak of, and they have completely abandoned the game and its community.

Regardless, even in this state, Deathwing is an OK horde shooter carried to the occasional moments of glory by its setting in the 40K universe, and indeed, it is the best WH40K themed shooter at the moment. Due to its great many flaws, and the audacity of the developers to flip off the community in such a way, I cannot recommend it at a full price, however, if it's on a discount, say, -50% at least, consider grabbing it.
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