You're free to build a team around a single class, but doing so makes progression much more difficult. In single-player you're locked into playing as a Librarian, but in multiplayer co-op you can choose from other as-yet-undisclosed classes. That's the promise, at least, although I've seen only the Librarian class firsthand, which can combine the use of weapons with psychic abilities. In order to help you rely less on the environment, you can build your squad around different classes of Marine. Blocking a doorway makes it much trickier to retreat from a skirmish, and it also limits the number of routes to reach your goal.

Sealing up a passage is a double-edged sword, however. They are reason and fear combined into one.ĭoorways can be sealed shut in a bid to protect your rear flank and limit the options available to Genestealers. Their presence both forces your squad of Deathwing Space Marines to keep moving, and prevents you from recklessly pushing forwards. Your location goal is indicated on the map, but how you get there is down to you.Īs per the tabletop game that shares the Space Hulk name, and from which Deathwing takes its inspiration, the ceaselessly energetic Genestealers (a predatory alien species) pursue you without pause. Pathways bleed into each other to create circuit board-like channels of parallel and intersecting right angles, while rooms have multiple entry and exit points to defend or exploit. The layout of the Space Hulk (read: dilapidated star ship) highlights just how dungeon-like the level design goals are, particularly the overhead map I'm shown during the Gamescom 2016 demo.

The basic setup is that your four-player squad, consisting of either human players or AI, battle through enormous space stations made up of various rooms, corridors, and doors that can be blocked off or opened up. Space Hulk: Deathwing got a deeper showing at Gamescom 2016.ĬOLOGNE, Germany-Both developer Streum On Studio and publisher Focus Home Interactive seem unwilling to define it as such, but Space Hulk: Deathwing is essentially an old-school dungeon crawler masquerading as a first-person shooter.

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