Hey everyone and welcome to my review of Warhammer 40,000: Deathwatch.
Stick around for the review you filthy heretics.
Please be aware that I received review code for this game.
However no money has changed hands.
Thus all opinions are my own.
Warhammer 40,000: Deathwatch is a strategy game akin to XCOM.
Based on the board game, "Tyranid Attack," by Games Workshop.
Tyranid Attack, much like the more well-known, "Space Hulk,"
was a spinoff of the 40k tabletop game.
The point of the game in both the board game and this adaptation,
is to move your Space Marines around and shoot at the Tyranids, who are bent on tearing them apart.
Hmm, I just realized: that kind of describes games of this genre in general, doesn't it?
Before I get into the review, I feel I should get into some of the Warhammer 40k fluff
as those who aren't familiar with the 40k universe will be really lost as to what I'm talking about.
Because this series has been around for decades, I'm gonna have to skip over a lot
so I'm not here for decades trying to describe it to you.
Alright, so the original Warhammer is a fantasy-based game that is very similar to Lord of the Rings.
Whereas Warhammer 40k, which is a spinoff of the original Warhammer,
is a sci-fi game based in a far-flung, dystopian future.
In this universe, the humans have been in space for a long, long time
and they've bumped into other races.
Most of those other races wanna kill all the humans and all the humans kinda want to kill them all back.
Now normally humans tend to be the good guys in this sort of setting,
but in this setting, the humans are actually pretty scummy.
After thousands and thousands of years of war,
and a whole bunch of other stuff,
the humans have basically become zealous, fascist, self-righteous dicks.
Who are bent on either destroying or controlling everything in their path.
The other races in the game range from just as crazy as the humans
to more monstrous races that just want to eat or kill everything in their path.
In this game, you will be the humans fighting against the Tyranids.
One of those monstrous races I was talking about before.
So finally, this brings us to what the Deathwatch is.
The Deathwatch is essentially an elite group made up of the best Space Marines.
Do I really have to explain Space Marines...?
Oh well I will anyway.
Space Marines are genetically enhanced super soldiers that have been designed to kill
everything they see.
Oh wait, I mean, technically they're supposed to be the "Defenders of Humanity"
but everyone else knows better.
So basically if a marine is badass enough, he will be recruited into the Deathwatch
regardless of which chapter he's from.
I also realize I haven't explained chapters, but let's just... skip it, okay?
Now you may be asking, what are the Deathwatch actually for?
Well they serve as a last resort.
A last push of power when the inquisition
- did I mention the Imperium's crazy religious streak yet? -
can't get the job done with their own agents or the Imperial Guard.
Who are basically just regular humans and therefore kinda sucky...
and are you kind of seeing why I said this would take forever to explain?
Explaining one piece of lore requires me to explain another
and another
and another.
..and another...
So to sum up the Deathwatch: basically when shit really hits the fan
the Inquisition goes to all the chapters, gets all the best men they can and
and brings them back to deal with the problem.
Do you got all that?
Well, if not too bad, we're moving on anyway.
So getting back to the actual game:
the Deathwatch has been called in to deal with a MAJOR Tyranid invasion.
And that's where YOU come in.
Ahahah sucker..
So because this is a turn-based strategy game
- not unlike XCOM -
your main goal will be to complete missions while preserving your resources.
In Deathwatch, you are limited to the use of 5 marines with different classes,
traits, skills and wargear.
Like many other games of this type, movement and range is done on a grid.
Missions in the game range from killing all the Tyranids in one level
to placing bombs strategically around the level.
While the maps aren't bad, they really do give away that this was originally a mobile game.
The reason I say this is because they feel very small and claustrophobic,
particularly on the PC.
This is one area in particular that it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.
If you're going to port the game to PC - which has a LOT more power -
why not make the levels a lot bigger?
The game has multiple difficulty levels but only normal is available
until players unlock the harder modes by finishing the game.
Weirdly though, the hardest difficulty is only unlocked if you beat the game twice.
For anyone who finds normal mode too easy,
it's probably going to be kind of a pain to have to repeatedly beat the game
in order to unlock harder difficulties.
Because I'm not very good at this kind of game, the normal setting was more than enough for me.
Although I found it quite slow in the beginning.
The difficulty curve in this game is a little bit off.
Sometimes it's really easy and then it will throw a really difficult level at you
and then it'll go back to easy again.
I found that after a few levels it kind of evened out
and sort of became a normal curve but it took a while to get there.
And unfortunately those first few levels that are really easy
were also really boring.
And because it can take a couple hours to get past these levels,
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players gave up.
Speaking of random difficulty spikes:
If you run into one, you might just find yourself having to go back to the old levels and grind for EXP.
Experience points are gained by completing levels and killing enemies.
And it's used to level up and unlock traits, skills and wargear slots.
While upgrading characters can be a lot of fun,
it's also a HUGE pain to get enough EXP to do it.
Sometimes the game wants absolutely insane amounts of EXP to upgrade a single skill.
For example, if you want a skill that's worth 12,000 EXP
and you're getting about 1,000 EXP from a level..
you'd have to play that level 12 times to get enough to unlock that.
And that's if you don't die.
Unlike XCOM, there's no permadeath in this game
but if you lose a character in a battle, all of their EXP is reset to 0.
While this does add the necessary tension that the game requires,
it's also really painful to be 500 EXP away from that super expensive upgrade
and then boom!
0 EXP
Alright, alright, alright.
So say you've upgrade your character, now what?
Well you can get MORE characters.
Or you can get different gear for them to equip.
All of these can be found by collecting packs of cards that are rewarded at the end of levels.
You can also sell old gear to earn in-game money to purchase even more cards.
Once you receive a pack of cards, opening it will reveal 3 random cards.
These will either be a new character, a new weapon, or new wargear
such as shields, healthpacks,and more.
All of these are extremely important in advancing in the game,
so it's best to get as many cards as you can.
Trust me, you don't want to go into certain levels without those high-level characters
and the high-level weapons.
The Tyranids WILL snack on you.
There's another important aspect to characters and that is what class they are.
Classes with dictate what traits, skills and weapons you can use.
Where Devastators can use heavy weapons,
Veterans can only use pistols.
Weapons also have a variety of different effects,
although the lower-level weapons won't.
Some of these effects can be negative, such as plasma overheating,
however many of them are really useful, such as increased hit rate and increased CRIT.
With weapon selection becoming so important in the later game,
you'll start to notice a particular problem.
And that is that the mission screen doesn't really explain enough.
It's hard to know what you're walking into and therefore
you'll probably fail a mission before knowing exactly what you need to bring with you.
Another issue comes along with the melee weapons.
If you aren't building a character in a specific way, then I find the melee weapons tend to miss more often than not.
Certainly it follows the tabletop in that using melee is usually really risky,
however I felt like the game was punishing me for bothering to use it.
This was really exacerbated in the later levels where I felt like there was no reason to use it at all.
If I took a swing and messed, I'd often get counter-attacked and killed.
There are certainly ways to counteract this accuracy issue, but I didn't find it worth it.
Going on to the graphics, I found that the game looked pretty good.
However it didn't really seem like it had been upgraded much from the mobile version.
This is yet another missed opportunity because the PC is much more powerful
and the game could have looked much better than this.
What we got wasn't bad though, so I can't really knock it that much.
The models for the marines and the enemies look especially good.
Although I suppose the maps are a little underwhelming as far as detail goes.
Lastly, let's go over the sound and I can say that it was fairly forgettable.
The music is atmospheric but unfortunately it never really seems to change all that much.
It also never really felt big or epic enough.
And I hate to use that word, but I feel if you're going to be playing as Space Marines
kicking Tyranid ass, it should sound better.
Thankfully the voice acting is well done.
Unlike other Warhammer games, such as the first Dawn of War...
SPESS MEHREENS
The characters would also exchange banter from time to time and I found it really entertaining.
Their talks are very specific to the lore of Warhammer,
so if you're not familiar with it it's not going to add a whole lot.
But if you ARE then you'll probably be entertained like I was.
There's one more MAJOR issue here with the sound though:
and that's the fact that there are no sound options.
I'm not sure why these are missing but there's no way to turn the sound off.
And there's no way to adjust any of the sound levels either.
Hopefully this is just an oversight that will be patched in but it was really sorely missed.
That's enough of this heresy, I'll tell you exactly what I thought about the game.
Honestly, while there are some mediocre elements in this game,
I overall found it pretty fun.
Character progression was enjoyable, the models and environments look alright
and some of the levels are pretty fun.
It's just a shame that there wasn't more put into this PC port.
I feel like the weaker graphics and the smaller maps are going to be what holds this title back.
With so many Warhammer games being built from the ground-up for the PC coming out,
it's a little hard to recommend this at its current price.
However, if you can get it for a little bit less then I think it's worth it.
The Emperor protects.
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my video!
If you liked it, remember to hit the subscribe button to get more like it.
Remember to follow me on Facebook and Twitter for more updates.
And don't forget that I have a livestream on Hitbox that usually happens in the evenings during the week.
Also please support me on Patreon.
Every pledge goes toward me being able to make this content on a more regular basis.
Huge shoutout to all my current patrons, you guys are AWESOME!
And see you next time.