TEST Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, a bit of Warhammer 40K with your XCOM?

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (which we will simply call Daemonhunters to spare your humble editor’s fingers) left little room for speculation during our last meeting. We knew that Complex Games took the very demanding path of XCOM-like. After only a few hours of play, it was also clear that the title succeeded in this perilous exercise with a certain panache. Now remains the most difficult: to confirm that the good impressions were not window dressing, but indeed a bold alternative to a genre haunted by the model of FIRAXIS Games. For this, we went to scour the corruption in the depths of the galaxy for dozens of hours, just for you.

The developers have applied the recipe for success to the letter.

And the least we can say is that the cosmos is in an unnamed mess. The four Chaos Gods are at work in this universe. One of them, Nurgleis even teasing enough to unleash a sector-wide plague. L’Hatchingthat’s its name, would have had time to carry out a genocide if the imperial vessel baptized the Sententious had not pointed the tip of his nose in the corner. On board is you, acting commander since the previous holder gave his life during the last campaign. There is also and above all a small group of genetically modified elite soldiers belonging to the order of Gray Knights. It is under your command that these knights in gleaming armor will purge the threat with great reinforcement of futuristic swords, impressive cannons and psychic powers.

Problem, the sector is gargantuan and you only have a small ship, damaged by the last campaign to make matters worse, to manage all this mess. We’re going to have to be strategic in order not to be overwhelmed by this galloping epidemic, and that’s good, because it’s the first pillar on which everything rests. XCOM-like worthy of the name. Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters comes out with honors on that side. It must be said that there are things to plan on board the Sententious. It starts slowly with research to unlock advantages and bonuses to use in the field, but soon you have to turn to the performance of your machine if you want to increase in power. Increase the size of your contingent, speed up construction, increase research speed… Without being unlimited, the possibilities are numerous.

Where Daemonhunters is really generous is in the arsenal it puts at your disposal. A complete equipment that keeps growing to the extent that it is possible to recover it at the end of each mission. Even within the same category, no two objects are alike. An ideal playground for anyone who likes to specialize their soldiers for hours (in addition to the aesthetic customization that should please fans of the universe Warhammer 40K). If the strategy aspect does not pay much at the start of the campaign, it is clear that this facet of the game exceeds our expectations in the long term, while still remaining fairly agreed given the genre. Let’s say that the surprise comes above all from the quantity of content offered by Complex Games and the relevance of each element of this great whole that is Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters. A good variety, which we also find in the eight classes of the game, synonymous with a complete experience that does honor to the work of Complex Games.

Between two preparation phases and a few random events, you have to find the time to patrol the area to accomplish the missions that are incumbent on you. For this you have to move the Sententious from the campaign map and try to get to the different mission locations that appear at regular intervals. Impossible to go everywhere at once though. As for the rest, it is necessary to choose its operations judiciously under penalty of seeing theHatching increase in neglected areas. While we appreciate this challenging format, recognize that Complex Games chose the simple and effective method. This loop of gameplay should not surprise anyone, any more than the objectives of the missions which are quickly redundant and generally content to invite us to destroy the source of the contagion.

The objectives of the missions are quickly redundant.

Nothing to complain about however, these are punctuated by more delicate narrative missions which include boss clashes in particular. Just enough not to go around in circles, although, as mentioned above, the interest of turn-based tactical battles lies above all in the different ways of playing that can emerge from the class/equipment combo. If he is clinical in his approach to XCOM-like, Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters tries all the same to impose its paw.

We see it for example in its desire to make highly modular battlefields where the destruction of bridges, covers and certain elements of the scenery can be used to your advantage. The same goes for the ubiquity of hand-to-hand combat or the possibility of inflicting substantial penalties on the enemy in the event of a critical hit. Without saying that Daemonhunters comes out of the shackles in which it has locked itself, it must be recognized that the title has a small identity to assert which allows it to escape the status of ersatz.

Complex Games goes to the essential, it is to his credit, but in doing so he forgets to take care of the packaging of his title. Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters struggle to seduce us on form. It is not for lack of wanting to impress us. Except that it is precisely his ambition that costs him dearly. She is overflowing from what we could see. Daemonhunters connects the cutscenes and the close-ups well classified while the quality of its animations seems dated to us. The protagonists are sorely lacking in credibility when moving. And if the fights themselves avoid this pitfall, they still inherit camera angles that are a stain at the time of the actions in slow motion meant to be stylish. We spent so much time watching executions behind a wall that we ended up believing in a system of censorship, which is nevertheless generous in hemoglobin and dismemberment. These are minor issues. This is not the case with the game’s interface, which very (too) often lacks readability. The sometimes approximate French translations do not help to navigate, but it is most often a useless avalanche of information that penalizes the title. On rarer occasions, we also deplored the presence of bugs, mainly crashes. The kind of things that will eventually be patched, but still look bad when launching a new title.

This youthful error does not prevent us from welcoming Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters as it should be, that is to say as a fairly solid alternative to the genre it embraces. Although we secretly hoped so, we didn’t expect that Complex Games transcends the tradition of XCOM-like. On the contrary, the developers have applied the recipe for success to the letter, making rare sprains only to slip in welcome innovations. In this, Daemonhunters is a success in the sense that it manages to mix the strategic dimension and turn-based tactical combat in a harmonious whole that does not lack challenge. A little giving back, but ultimately not so much given the amount of combat styles of your knights and the many weapons and accessories capable of transforming this experience which does not hesitate to give of its person.

You can buy Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters on Gamesplanet at €39.99 instead of €44.99.