Review for Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 22/05/2018
After a long wait, it finally arrives on ours PC and, for the first time, also on ours PlayStation 4, Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition, definitive version, but above all revised and corrected of that same Space Hulk released by the end of 2016.
Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition will drop us in the imposing role of a Librarian, warrior monk with psionic abilities, part of the Dark Angels, one of the chapters of Adeptus Astartes, the superhuman Space Marines that we have already met in Warhammer 40.000 Gladius: Relics of War, with which this title shares the sci-fi setting.
The department to which we are aggregated, the Deathwing in fact, is the elite of the whole Chapter, the special teams of the First Company of the Dark Angels, equipped with the scary and ancient Tactical Dreadnought Armor, better known as Terminator Armor, gigantic reinforced armors that make the already lethal Space Marines of real war machines.
The Deathwing's task is to board and clean up the Space Hulks, gigantic piles of shipwrecks drifting in space and generally used as hiding places for the hideous Genestealers, the monstrous vanguards of the Tyranid bioflotte. If this encouraging premise were not enough alone, we discover that the Space Hulk that we will have to approach, codenamed Olethros, hides in its depths some Sacred Relics relating to the history and traditions of our Chapter, and of crucial importance.
Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition comes as an FPS with some simple RPG elements. We will therefore impersonate, in the single player campaign at least, this heroic Librarian in command of a team of Terminators.
The original version of the game had an excellent technical sector, especially as regards the graphics, made in Unreal Engine 4, but had serious gameplay defects and glaring bugs. This Enhanced Edition, in addition to correcting all the errors of the old version, incredibly improves the gaming experience by adding a lot of new features such as the ability to customize and progress your characters, new weapons, new types of enemies. We also find a "Special Missions" mode that allows you to play a series of "one shot" missions, unrelated to the campaign and randomly generated and a new class of Marine, the Chaplain, to be used in multiplayer.
And the multiplayer, which in the original version was little more than sketchy, in this Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition becomes one of its best strengths. Basically it is about facing the same missions of the campaign in single player, played in cooperative with other users, thus also giving us the opportunity to impersonate not only the usual Librarian, but also the other classes of Marines, including the aforementioned Chaplain, who it really is something devastating.
In this new version, the management of the AI for our companions during the single player has also been greatly improved. If before they sometimes behaved like real fools, getting stuck in dead ends or covering each other's line of fire, in this Enhanced Edition we will see them, fortunately, act almost always impeccably and with knowledge of the facts, even in based on the equipment they have. The AI of the opponents is also much improved, and we will have to work hard to avoid falling into some trap or ambush. Not only furious charges then, and this is a great good. All these improvements have been distributed for free to owners of the old version in the form of an update, which really comes as a welcome gesture, not requiring the purchase of a new version.
Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition is really well done: manages to make the peculiar “Grim Dark” atmosphere, typical of Warhammer 40.000 brand productions, really in an excellent way. Wandering through the haunted corridors, we will truly breathe a claustrophobic atmosphere of continuous anxiety, literally jolting at every slightest noise, until we literally find ourselves with our hearts in our throats after having come out, perhaps due to the broken headphone, from a fierce fire fight with horrendous creatures that do not really discount.
The only flaw we found, at least in the version tested on Playstation 4, was some sporadic, but conspicuous, drop in frame rates in some of the most excited situations and, if we really want to find something more, a certain slowness of some uploads.
For the rest, Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition ranks as one of the best Warhammer 40.000 themed action titles in circulation, with great attention to detail, of the game lore. A fun gameplay and a stimulating "nuisance" of some situations will delight both fans of this dark universe and lovers of adrenaline-fueled but still reasoned shooters. Plus, multiplayer games are a blast. Really a job well done!
► Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition is a FPS-type game developed by Streum On Studio and published by Focus Home Interactive for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 22/05/2018
