Not just texture work either, but models for Marines and Genestealers, along with small animations throughout the levels (bursting vents, steam rising from marine armor, etc) that all serve to make the game feel whole.įirst-Person view allows you to experience the glory of Xeno splattering in the Emperor’s name.

The graphics are certainly a step-up from other board game adaptations. Last year’s Deathwing showed how majestic a Space Hulk looked from a first person viewpoint, and though the scale isn’t QUITE the same here, it still looks great. One of them is a first-person camera view for Space Marine gameplay, fully playable through map UI’s, an interesting way to play a strategy game like this. However, that isn’t all there is this time, there are some new additions. Move from square to square, kill enemies, open doors, and head for the exit after completing your objective. It’s turn-based set across a usually isometric plane and if you’ve played XCOM or any of those derivatives, you have the basic gameplay down. I wish they wouldn’t.Įven the gameplay is basically the same. Someone keeps thinking that 40k games need obscenely blocky UI’s. A nesting ground for Genestealers and other dark forces, your job is to kill everything and destroy the ship before it can do any damage to the mighty Imperium of Man.

You play as a group of Space Marines aboard a Space Hulk, an ancient conglomeration of massive abandoned and wrecked ships all melded together into one enormous behemoth. I’m not joking about that last one, it actually exists. The premise is the same as every other game to bear the name whether it be board game, card game, mobile game, video game, or choose your own adventure gamebook. I believe that if any game could do that, Space Hulk: Tactics is the one. It’s not hard to understand the prevalence, but there has to come a point where someone makes a Space Hulk game that is definitive enough to be the last. As it was, Warhammer 40k’s first venture into the gaming world was rough after the talks with Blizzard fell through for a RTS, which would later become StarCraft. The last 3 years have seen a Space Hulk game released with Ascension, a streamlined version of the board game, then Deathwing, a first person shooter set upon 1 for 1 adaptations of Space Hulks, and now Tactics which is a bit of both. There is an unbelievable number of Space Hulk video games in the world currently.

Space hulk deathwing xbox one review