‘Space Hulk: Deathwing’ Looks Like the Shooter Warhammer 40,000 Deserves

Games Workshop, the company that makes the fantasy tabletop game Warhammer and its futuristic counterpart Warhammer 40,000(as in the year 40,000), has been on a bit of a licensing tear for the last couple of years. What was once a closely guarded intellectual property, translated into great video games like Dawn of War and not so great games like Fire Warrior, is now licensed with abandon.

There are Warhammer 40,000 endless runners, battle chess, and lane strategy games, none of which do justice to one of the most influential franchises in gaming, or capture its essence: a future where there is only war, spread across an entire universe.

That's why I'm cautiously optimistic about Space Hulk: Deathwing, a new first-person shooter from Streum On Studio. It's based on the Space Hulk boardgame (which is spun off the traditional Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game) and slated for release later this year.

I was skeptical when it was first announced three years ago because it was yet another Warhammer 40,000 game, and increasingly so as we've seen so little of it since. However, publisher Focus Home Interactive finally dropped a trailer showing some Space Hulk: Deathwing gameplay this week, and it's encouraging.

Some observations:

• Space Hulk: Deathwing is being made with Unreal Engine 4, and it obviously looks very beautiful. Unreal engine really good at rendering dark, spacey, bloody environments and big guns, which is a perfect match for Warhammer 40,000 visual palette.
• Space Hulk: Deathwing seems to have the style and structure of Left 4 Dead, meaning a player and three friends go from level to level, taking on huge numbers of enemies. It's about managing crowds and surviving, only here the crowds are aliens ("Genestealers") instead of zombies.
• Space Hulk: Deathwing is all about shooting and killing, and it doesn't look like it sucks!

And that's really what's exciting about it. As a tabletop game Warhammer 40,000 lends itself to the strategy genre, but rarely does it capitalize on the potential and thrill of putting players in the boots of a space marine. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine came pretty damn close, but even that was in 2011.

If Space Hulk: Deathwing is anything like this trailer, it could finally be the shooter Warhammer 40,000 deserves.