

Smashing Hulks: Space Hulk - Deathwing

The Genestealer genie

Whee! A new Space Hulk game that converts the claustrophobic tension of the boardgame into some sort of action-packed shooty-punchy experience. I'm not deeply versed in 40K lore, although I could have told you a thing or two about the Codex Imperialis when I was a teenager. I made an army of chaos marines by gluing bits of toy animals onto my Space Wolves because I wanted a change of pace. Unfortunately, I'm not the most gifted person when it comes to modelling so the height of my achievements was a heavy weapons chap with a hoof for a codpiece. Let's look at Deathwing.

Oh lord, I'm feeling grumpy. The blame isn't entirely on Space Hulk: Deathwing's trailer and it's far from the first to use the phrase 'in-game footage' so liberally, but it's the first to do so on this particular day at this particular time. In the trailer's defense, it's Friday and I've had a week of obnoxious muscle pains that have made me more bitter than Lemony Snickett's lemon juice and tonic chicory mixer. I wish it was much later than it is so that I could be in a pub with my fourth or fifth pint of fizzy fool-juice and a couple of chums to talk nonsense with.

But instead, here I am, wondering whether this 'in-game' footage means that the game will sometimes be controlled from the perspective of an ant, dodging slow motion bullet casings as they fall to the floor. Lots of daft angles and fast cuts do not tell me anything about the game, unless it's absolutely impossible to follow anything that's happening in the game while controlling it at the same time. The trailer tells me that there will be Deathwing Terminators and that they will be shooting Genestealers. I don't know what perspective I'll be controlling them from or even if I'll be controlling anyone at all.

Maybe I play the cameraman?

This first in-game video, created using the game engine (Unreal Engine 4), plunges you headlong into a Space Hulk, with the game's main character - a Librarian of the Deathwing,and a squad of Deathwing Terminators, in their a head-on confrontation with the merciless Genestealers. A clash that will prove deadly for the elite warriors of the Dark Angels and the outcome of which has a HUGE surprise in store.


You can see the incredible level of detail on the smallest game elements: the Tactical Dreadnought Armour of the Deathwing Terminators, their weapons, the Genestealers, and the backdrop are all rendered with a care that will astound any fan of Warhammer 40,000!


Space Hulk®: Deathwing™ is a First-Person Shooter experience of Games Workshop's classic Space Hulk boardgame set in the universe of Warhammer 40,000, developed on Unreal Engine 4 by Streum On Studio, the team behind E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy.

Ah, so it's a first-person shooter, which goes some way to explaining why none of the in-game footage was from that perspective. Pass the chicory mixer. Toodle pip!

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