Let’s not beat about the bush: Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters is good, really good. A mix of grand strategy and turn-based, tactical combat in the vein of the X-Com series, it places players in command of a strike force of Grey Knights – super-soldiers who act as the Imperium of Man’s shield against the forces of chaos (demonic, god-like entities that exist outside of realspace). While I say ‘in the vein’ of X-Com, and many others have drawn that comparison, I want to stress that this comparison only goes so far. Indeed, as someone who never could really get into the X-Com series, I found myself having an absolute blast with Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters.
The ‘rule of cool’ is well in play here. You don’t have soldiers, you have armoured super-soldiers who are the best of the best. You don’t have a secret base, you have a strike cruiser capable of incinerating entire planets (which you can do, by the way). You’re not fighting for the fate of a planet, you’re fighting for the existence of an entire galaxy.
The very first mission sees the Imperial strike cruiser, the Baleful Edict, flying into the heart of a raging warp storm – purple lightning flashing against void shields and tearing bits off the ship – to reach a burning planet that everyone else is fleeing from, in order to put down a daemon that’s several stories high. It looks and feels awesome. And that’s just the tutorial. This really is a game that subscribes to Sam Goldwyn’s dictum of ‘we want a story that starts out with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.’
Following on from the events in the tutorial, the Baleful Edict is commandeered by Vakir, an Imperial Inquisitor, who tasks the player with investigating ‘the Bloom,’ a foul disease which is the latest offering from the chaos god, and Plague Lord, Nurgle. Damaged though the ship may be, the Baleful Edict is still manned by the best of the best, and it’s up to the player to take the fight to one of the most deadly foes of the Imperium.
Going toe-to-toe (or toe-to-clawed-hoof-like-thing) with the forces of Nurgle takes place in two distinct modes of play: a grand campaign, and turn-based, tactical combat. In the grand campaign mode, players have control over the Baleful Edict. It is here that players get to make decisions like which sections of the ship to repair, which Knights to recruit, what to research, which missions to attempt, and what planets to incinerate.
This game does not hold the player’s hand, and it’s up to the player to decide what choices will best suit their campaign. Just taking examples only from the ship-repairing side of the game gives an idea of the scope open to the player. Do they want to repair the barracks first to get extra Grey Knights? Or will they lean heavily on their Prognosticars (powerful psykers who can channel the energy of the warp against the bloom and slow its spread)? How about upgrading the engines so you can reach more missions before their timers run out? But is that more important than brining the guns and shields back online?
All choices the players face have real impacts on the game, and force players to consider very carefully where to invest their resources, whether it be requisition (used for acquiring Grey Knights and snazzy wargear), Servitors (the lifeblood of the Baleful Edict), grimoires (vital for your research needs), Bloom ‘seeds’ (used for research, upgrading wargear, and advancing the story), or, perhaps the most precious resource of all, time.
And the clock is ticking. Research and repairs take time. Travelling between planets takes time. And every few days a new batch of Bloom outbreaks will appear. There’s no way you can possibly reach all in time, and each failed or missed mission results in an increase in the planet’s corruption rating. While there are a few ways to reduce this (from using the scarce resource of your Prognosticars, or ordering an extremely costly, last ditch, planet destroying Exterminatis), should the corruption rating get maxed out you have one last chance to prevent a chaos gate from activating. Fail too many of these all critical missions, and it’s game over: trillions dead in a galaxy consumed by Nurgle’s ‘gift.’
While preventing the growth of the Bloom is top priority, players will also need to be strategic about which missions they try to complete, and which ones they let go. Each mission provides a different type of reward, whether it be grimoires, requisition, or servitors. Some missions, if missed, will increase a planet’s corruption rating significantly, others by only one level. To succeed, players will have to consider what best serves their long-term goals, knowing that no matter how well they’re doing, the Bloom will slowly, inevitably spread. Because of this, the game manages to create the feeling that no matter how successful you are, you’re always on the back foot, and while you may be winning the battles, you’re slowly losing the war.
And this isn’t a war that’s going to be over quickly. Even if players make a bee-line for the story missions (which will probably mean they’re bringing Knights to the fight who haven’t had a chance to level up or get better equipment), a full campaign will still take many hundred of in-game days to resolve. While this seems like a lot, it’s quite enjoyable. Not only is there the list of endlessly engaging strategic decisions to make, the interactions with the characters are quite engaging, whether it’s the terse and initially unhelpful Grandmaster Kai (voiced by Andy Serkis), the stoic Ectar, the imperious Vakir, or Lunete, the surprisingly expressive Tech-Priest. The story is also gripping and well told, with enough twists to keep players engaged. And, of course, you have the actual combat.
Each mission you accept (or make it to in time) will see you deploy up to four Grey Knights against the forces of Chaos. While this mightn’t sound like an awful lot, and you will always be outnumbered, these are Grey Knights we’re talking about. However, don’t be deceived. While they can take a certain amount of punishment, they are a precision tool. This was a fact I didn’t fully appreciate in my first failed attempt, which resulted in numerous failed missions and barracks full of critically injured and lightly wounded (and therefore less powerful) Knights. Used correctly, however, they can swiftly and spectacularly dismantle just about any force thrown against them.
The main tool allowing you to dismantle (often literally) your opponents, is also one of the features that sets it apart from games like X-Com. There is no percentage chance-to-hit, and no random number generator. The Grey Knights are the elite, and know in advance just how much damage any action will inflict or incur. This really does let players plan with confidence, and pull off some spectacular moves. One particularly memorable moment involved using my swift Interceptor, to cut out a Bloom seed from an infected Death Guard knight, before tossing a grenade just far enough for my Interceptor to be outside of the blast zone, but close enough to send the Death Guard, and all the Pox Walkers (zombies with the disturbing ability to resurrect fallen foes), flying, before teleporting back into cover.
That said, it also means that when things do go south (which they will) you’ve only yourself to blame, adding insult to injury. Especially given that this often involves the critical injury of a Knight you’ve spent some time upgrading and customising. These upgrades are far from cosmetic and have a real impact on the flow of battle, so to suddenly find yourself without them (which will happen unless you have a replacement Knight you’ve trained in the same way), can really cause difficulties.
While combat is turn-based, don’t let this fool you – it’s surprisingly fast and cinematic. Foes go flying off bridges, doomed Hellbrutes detonate with enough force to turn buildings into rubble, and a blow from a heavily armoured Death Guard can send your Grey Knight flying through brick walls. And with eight distinct classes of Grey Knight, and plenty of different types of foes, combat never fails to be varied and entertaining.
You’re also able to read most of your foes’ abilities simply by what they look like. For example, while cultists tend to look similar, that one over there with the grenade launcher is going to behave differently to the one packing the machine-gun, or that one with the heavy stubber.. Also, the more horns, teeth and tentacles a foe is sporting, the more dangerous they’re likely to be. A good example of this is Plague Bearer daemons. While they start off as comic green monsters, they mutate each turn they’re left alive, and quickly go from laughable to terrifying: sprouting extra horns, longer claws, and more mouths than any creature should have (all of which translates into more health, extra armour, and more damage done). There also seems to be no upper limit on how many times they can mutate, making eliminating them a priority. The visual nature of combat also means that every ability a foe has is tied to a body part – and this is a game that takes disarming your foes quite literally. In fact, one battle started to resemble the infamous ‘Black Knight’ scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail – where a particularly tenacious daemon lost first its arm, then its head, and still was doing its level best to kill my Knights.
Another delightful feature is just how interactive the environment is. While you’ll be keeping an eye out for cover and vantage points, you’ll also be looking out for things you can use to your advantage. This may be a generator that will explode if shot, or a pillar that can be shoulder-charged and brought crashing down on your foes. It might even simply mean placing a grenade at just the right position to blast foes off a bridge.
There’s plentyof tactical depth, and this is without even taking into consideration things like your Knights’ special abilities (which consume willpower, a resource which can be regained by killing foes), stratagems (one-shot, support abilities that can turn the tide of a mission), the ability to stun and execute foes (which grants additional action points, and can let you go on a spectacular rampage if you set things up carefully, and the powerful synergies that come into play when you’ve upgraded your Knights. Oh, and there’s also the ‘Warp Meter’ which gradually fills up (quicker, if you use special abilities). Fill this, and Nurgle will send some ‘gifts’ to ‘help’ you in your mission. These range from creating dangerous plague zones, to hobbling your knights or even summoning enemy reinforcements – so the longer you take, the harder the mission gets. Indeed, some missions, where enemy reinforcements continually spawned, turned into a frantic, exhilarating, last ditch attempt to complete the mission objective before my squad got completely overwhelmed. For the adrenaline-fiends out there, if you’ve ever wondered ‘can a turn-based game really be that exciting?’ the answer is a definite ‘yes.’
As this is a Warhammer game, it’s worth noting that while ability upgrades are far from cosmetic, there are also cosmetic options for your Knights. While you won’t be able to change the paint-scheme (they’re called ‘Grey Knights’ for a reason), there’s an enormous amount of customisation to be had for chest plates, pauldrons, greaves, and the writing that adorns the armour. Should you choose to forgo a helmet, you can also change your Knight’s hair and skin colour. Weapons and armour also come in a vast array of styles, and a more powerful piece of wargear doesn’t just have more impressive looking stats, it also looks way more impressive than the basic model.
All up, I have absolutely enjoyed my time with Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters. Visually spectacular, strategically exhilarating and utterly engaging, this is an absolute masterpiece, and the best Warhammer 40K game out there. Whether or not you’re completely new to the Warhammer 40K universe or an old hand, and whether you’re a fan of turn-based games or not, this game is highly, highly recommended. ■