Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters
PREVIEW
on specific worlds, which informs what
types of enemies you’ll encounter, the
likelihood of unwelcome random events,
and what your mission objectives will be.
Maps are transformed by the Bloom, with
higher levels of corruption changing the
layout and introducing new hazards. You
can also see what the mission rewards
are, allowing you to prioritise based on
what catches your eye the most. Orbiting
a world reveals even more information, like
what strain of Bloom is affecting it, which
determines what mutations and negative
effects you’ll have to worry about.SICK AS HELL
I had to watch a developer beat up
Nurgle’s minions instead of getting to slay
them myself, but even hands-off it really
looks like Complex Games has nailed the
feel of their Space Marines. These are
hefty badasses that move with menacing
deliberateness, but are still capable of
surprising agility. And they are masters of
extreme violence, dismantling maps as
deftly as they dismantle their foes.
Nurgle, meanwhile, is shaping up to be
a fun opponent. His worshippers are the
most gruesome of all the Chaos
abominations, and there are few things as
unappealing as being grabbed by one of
his plague-ridden Hellbrutes, all tentacles
and boils. They must smell terrible. No
wonder the Grey Knights are trying to rid
the galaxy of them.
The prevalence of cover means you
can play defensively, but it’s destructible,
and these daemon-slaying super soldiers
are much more comfortable charging into
the fray. This is really emphasised by the
precision targeting system. At range, this
means positioning affects damage, so
you’re more efficient depending on where
you’re standing relative to the enemy, but
it’s in melee where the system really
seems to open up.
If you get in close to a stunned enemy
and select a melee attack, you’ll be able to
select specific weak points. Targeting one
spot might inflict bleeding damage, while
breaking their weapon could lock them
out of crucial abilities. Once they’ve taken
a beating, you can execute them, putting
them out of their misery with a flashy,
cinematic coup de grace that’s evocativeof a Mortal Kombat fatality. This also gets
the Knights all fired up, giving everyone in
the squad an extra action point.NO DICE
Daemonhunters’ relationship with RNG is
one of the most notable deviations from
the XCOM formula. The Grey Knights are
the elite of the elite, so you know they’re
going to hit their targets. And you can see
how much damage you’ll be able to do
from your position. When RNG does rear
its head, it’s to your benefit, as it gives you
the chance to score a critical attack. This
not only increases the damage of the
strike, it’s also another way to access
precision targeting in melee.
Warp surge events also introduce a bit
of randomness in combat. You’re warned
about the likelihood of their appearance
before you select the mission, but you
won’t know when they’ll appear or what
shape they’ll take – maybe your troops will
become afflicted with the plague, or
enemies might develop new mutations, or
a whole bunch of new enemies could be
summoned. But when your back’s against
the wall, you’ve always got your psychic
abilities to fall back on, giving your squad
some extra pep or assaulting the enemy
with psychic violence.
The environment can be used to your
advantage, too, with Daemonhunters
allowing you to demolish cover or even
knock statues onto some unsuspecting
Plague Marines. And there are a lot of
statues. Humanity in the far-flung future
just can’t stop carving them. Pretty much
everything can be destroyed, and it’s not
always about harming your foes – you can
also break through walls to create new
paths through the map.
At the end of the demo, the Grey
Knights have to tackle one of the massive
aforementioned Hellbrutes. It serves as
the map’s ultimate challenge, but there
will also be proper bosses connected to
the campaign narrative. Complex Games
isn’t giving much away, but they’ll
apparently be massive in both scale and
capability, requiring a lot more work to
take down, like drawing them into terrain
where you get an advantage.
Despite the prevalence of tactics
romps that evoke XCOM, Daemonhunters
seems to embrace Warhammer with such
gusto that it didn’t feel like I was watching
a repeat. The threat of the Bloom, the lack
of RNG, and the hyper-violence all promise
to set it apart, and we’ll find out if it follows
through when it appears on May 5.
Fraser BrownIT’S IN MELEE COMBAT WHERE
THE SYSTEM REALLY SEEMS
TO OPEN UPOh come on, who stuck a
massive tumour on the door?
Put it in the bin.