Among many adaptations of Games Workshop’s classic board game set in Warhammer 40,000 universe, Space Hulk: Deathwing may be the most distinct one by far. No more taking turns, throwing dice and clumsy tanks on legs, trudging forth so painfully slowly, one action point at a time. For a change, the player gets an opportunity to experience all the action uncut and via first-person shooter perspective. Whereas Streum On Studio remained faithful to the spirit of the original board game, depicting a conflict between Space Marines and Genestealer hordes, the action angle created a room to truly ramp up the enemy numbers. SH:D is a co-op horde shooter where players compose a team of up to 4 members, to carve a path to the objective with bullets and flame.

No, wait a minute. That’s the original Space Hulk: Deathwing, released back in 2016 to a mixed reception, criticised for painfully unbalanced multiplayer and mundane campaign. Title of the day is 2018’s Enhanced Edition, a re-release with additional features, gifted for free to all owners of the original, as it was taken down from the Steam Store. Did this little publicity stunt manage to wipe away the stain on Deathwing’s honour? The game ended up with “Mostly Positive” rating, so the developers certainly got something right.

Burden of the past
Space Hulk: Deathwing tells a simple tale of elite Space Marine formation, the titular Deathwing, who investigate the titular Space Hulk dubbed Olethros. One can appreciate when a game title is straight to the point. What you need to know about Space Hulks is that they are an amalgam of dozens of ships fused together by cosmic energies, to create a single gigantic vessel. Olethros is of particular interest to Deathwing, as one of the ships composing the Hulk bears signatures of a vessel from the chapter’s distant past, one which these secretive warriors would prefer left buried. Which ties WH40K lore quite ironically to the game’s own release background.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3417112235
Artificer craftsmanship
Shoving the uninspired story aside, let’s focus instead on the strengths of the game – chief among them being the gorgeous visuals. Having past experience with more direct Space Hulk board game adaptations, I’ve gotten used to vessel’s interior being portrayed as dull labyrinth of half-collapsed service corridors. Whereas SH:D certainly has plenty of these too, Streum On Studio dedicated truly impressive work towards ensuring there’s plenty to look upon through your warrior’s lenses. Vast libraries, spiraling stone staircases, grand halls with meters-tall statues. One gets a chance to appreciate why exactly Imperial ships are colloquially referred to as “cathedral with engines”. Those more lore-inclined among you will also enjoy ample details used to visually differentiate factions to which various pieces of Olethros originally belonged to.

Visual flair also carries over to weapon and armour designs. Be it humble bolter, flamethrower or a giant plasma canon, guns in this game sound and look just right. The feedback is sadly diminished by enemies being mostly bullet-sponges, but at least it feels glorious when the beast’s head finally explodes. Equipment department is also where the most of Enhanced Edition content is focused at. Opening up with 3 new armaments, EE makes an effort to expand options for woefully underequipped medic class. Followed behind by unlockable armour and weapon skins, the player now has additional incentive towards playing the multiplayer mode as drops are rewarded for each level earned with mission completion experience. Especially some weapon mods are notable for changing or upgrading gun performance beside simply adding extra fancy bits.

For all my fondness to obscenely detailed models of SH:D, the sad truth is, they look best during calm, static moments, and let’s just agree they are few and far between. Most picturesque location of the game won’t mean much when there’s a horde of bugs with scythes for arms charging straight at your face.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3417112572
Watch out for the bugs
Speaking of the devil, significant portion of the game will be spent facing against what I imagine a job of Australian sewer maintenance technician may look like. Corridors are claustrophobic, there is trash everywhere and man-eating bugs are crawling out from every available crevice. While there is some enemy variety to the Genestealers, during frantic point-blank combat you can realistically only tell apart bugs from humanoid hybrids and occasional boss creature distinguished by size alone. To makes things worse, pacing of the fight is mostly consistent throughout the level with steady stream of Genestealers accompanying the player. To be fair, combat usually gets more intense in immediate proximity of the objective, although this is hardly a rule and does not suffice to build any kind of tension through ebb and flow of battle, which is almost expected of PvE co-op titles such as SH:D.

As you may have anticipated, it is all downhill from there. Enhanced as the game may be, all the caveats of core gameplay have been carried over in pristine condition. First of all, single player campaign seems to be screaming “co-op” at top of its lungs. Instead, you are stuck with two bumbling bots who fail to offer any meaningful assistance during combat. Secondly, what makes this setup even more dumbfounding, is that the player is encouraged to complete all the campaign missions in multiplayer mode. However, without the narrative to tie levels together, multiplayer is a notable proposition exclusively for the players who would like to see more action upon completing solo campaign. Otherwise, the fight across Olethros is going to become a disjointed mess of random corridors with no sense of immersion or pacing.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3417111663
To give developers some credit, an effort at improving multiplayer balance was made by adding the Chaplain class, who is an ultimate tank with revive ability. Unfortunately, any party intending on surviving for more than five minutes still requires a mandatory healer provided with weaponry inferior to other classes. Furthermore, whereas singleplayer could use some co-op presence, the multiplayer could use some bots in turn. Despite the game having framework for AI companions, lobby may only be populated by live players. Meaning you either bring some friends along or you can wave substantial multiplayer-exclusive content goodbye.

The Unforgiven
In spite of the fact that Enhanced Edition seems to have fully accomplished its task of warming player reception of Space Hulk: Deathwing, I personally find this redemption unfounded. While some balance issues have been addressed, the game’s bizarrely reversed allocation of bots and co-op capacity has remained untouched. Then again, I always considered this title to be addressed exclusively towards diehard fans of WH40K setting. Assuming you count as one, I can easily recommend getting SH:D at a hefty discount, as it is by far the best depiction of Space Hulk to date. To be frank, among flavoured mediocrity of B-side Warhammer games, SH:D fairly decent, despite its many flaws.