Space Hulk: Deathwing

Its glorious action more than makes up for that, packing the expected punch with a wide arsenal of phenomenal weapons at your disposal.

56%Game Brain Score

story, gameplay

optimization, stability

55% User Score Based on 3,981 reviews

Critic Score 56%Based on 21 reviews

Platforms

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About

Space Hulk: Deathwing is a single player and multiplayer survival hack and slash game with violence and science fiction themes. It was developed by Streum On Studio and was released on December 14, 2016. It received neutral reviews from both critics and players.

Space Hulk: Deathwing is a First-Person Shooter experience of Games Workshop’s classic Space Hulk boardgame set in the universe of Warhammer 40,000.

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55%

Audience ScoreBased on 3,981 reviews

story231 positive mentions

optimization227 negative mentions

Great visual and atmospheric design, perfectly capturing the grimdark Warhammer 40K universe and Space Hulk setting.
Satisfying and meaty combat as a Terminator, with varied weapons and psychic powers, enhancing immersion and strategic gameplay.
The game supports co-op multiplayer which provides an intense and fun team experience when playing with friends.
Developers have actively patched and improved the game over time, addressing many bugs and performance issues from launch.
Large detailed environments and varied level design that feel authentic and immersive.
Sound design, including voices, weapons, and ambient noises, complements the atmosphere effectively.

The game initially launched with many performance, stability, AI, and connectivity issues, impacting player experience and community size.
Gameplay can feel repetitive and slow-paced due to sluggish Terminator movement and limited mission variety.
The AI teammates are often unhelpful, with poor combat behavior and can block player shots, causing frustration.
Multiplayer mode lacks progression, character customization, bots, and has very few active players, leading to dead servers.
The campaign is relatively short with limited story development and disappointing ending, limiting replay value.
Some mechanics and UI elements, such as the command wheel, are clunky, unintuitive, or sensitive, and lack polish.
Certain weapons lack feedback and impact, melee combat feels underdeveloped; weapon balance needs improvement.
Some bugs remain, including missing relic spawns, voiceover errors, and occasional crashes or freezes.

story
1,260 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
75%
7%
The story in Space Hulk: Deathwing is heavily rooted in Warhammer 40K lore, offering a decent but lightweight and often uninspiring narrative that mainly serves to justify mission progression rather than deeply engage players. While fans appreciate the lore and atmosphere, many find the storytelling shallow, repetitive, and lacking character development, with abrupt, underwhelming endings and minimal cinematic or narrative depth. The multiplayer mode strips out most story elements, further diminishing narrative impact, and the limited mission variety and progression reduce long-term engagement.
- “The story is conveyed in well-voiced orders and we also get messages from the grandmaster again and again during the multi-part mission, who follows us and our mission progress and updates the tasks.”
- “The story actually quickly develops its own dynamics and tension and we really want to know what's hidden in the next spaceship.”
- “The story is short, but good; not enough to overwhelm you and obscure the goal of slaughtering everything, but enough to give you a sense of purpose, it's nice and lore-friendly to boot, which is always a plus.”
- “The story is shallow and poorly executed, failing to capture the epic and immersive experience I was hoping for in a Warhammer game.”
- “A lot of story is missing, there is a huge lack of depth to what should be every WH40K fanboy's wet dream come true. The devs bragged about having an author of Dark Angel lore working with them but the end result is the story is hollow, missing cinematics, with an abrupt, unexplained, and terrible ending.”
- “The story makes little sense towards the last third and the ending fight/cinematic was really lazy.”
gameplay
893 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
24%
62%
14%
The gameplay of Space Hulk: Deathwing offers a solid and atmospheric experience that captures the Warhammer 40K universe well, featuring tactical squad-based combat and a horde-style FPS mechanic reminiscent of Left 4 Dead. However, it is frequently criticized for being repetitive, clunky, and lacking depth or meaningful progression, with sluggish movement and some gameplay mechanics feeling outdated or poorly polished. Technical issues such as bugs, crashes, and performance problems further detract from the experience, though multiplayer co-op can be enjoyable when functioning properly.
- “The gameplay is fast paced, difficult, and a hell of a lot of fun for 30 bucks.”
- “The core gameplay going on here is absolutely fantastic.”
- “Gameplay is solid, with many different weapon types to enjoy.”
- “The Space Hulk: Deathwing tries to combine slow, tactical squad-based shooting with the gameplay of a horde FPS but it fails to make either side work.”
- “First and foremost, the gameplay is clunky and unresponsive, making it extremely frustrating to navigate the dark and cramped corridors of the hulking spacecraft.”
- “Absolutely amazing environments and atmosphere mired by slow, tedious, repetitive, frustrating gameplay and the lack of any depth.”
optimization
838 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
12%
61%
27%
Space Hulk: Deathwing is widely criticized for poor optimization, with many players experiencing severe frame rate drops, stuttering, long load times, and crashes—even on high-end systems. While patches have somewhat improved performance since launch, significant issues persist, particularly during intense combat with large enemy hordes. The upcoming enhanced edition is expected to address these problems with better optimization, but as it stands, performance remains a major drawback detracting from the overall experience.
- “It has been replaced by Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition which adds new enemies, cleaner visuals, better graphics and most importantly, it’s much better optimized.”
- “The game has vastly improved, optimization has had a big push.”
- “Ever since the latest patch, the optimization for this game has been dramatically improved.”
- “The optimization makes even Vermintide look like golden coding optimization from the gods when compared to Deathwing.”
- “I spent a lot of time tuning down every setting one by one and figured that in the end it hardly helps at all; it just makes the game look visually worse but grants no FPS boost in busier scenes. On top of the frame rate problems, there's also a lot of stuttering, hitching, and even full-on hard freezes lasting up to 10 seconds, during which you better have a friend around in co-op protecting you.”
- “Performance was horrible (especially when a horde shows up), the multiplayer barely worked, the game had terrible load times, and was just frustrating to play.”
graphics
830 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
48%
48%
4%
The game delivers stunning and faithful Warhammer 40k visuals with detailed environments, gothic architecture, and immersive lighting that capture the grimdark atmosphere excellently. However, many users report significant optimization issues, including frequent frame rate drops—especially during enemy horde encounters—even on high-end PCs, resulting in inconsistent performance and occasional graphical glitches. While the graphics are widely praised for their quality and style, these technical limitations detract from the overall experience.
- “Space Hulk: Deathwing boasts the best, most stylistically accurate Warhammer 40,000 visuals yet created, bar none.”
- “The detailed visuals, atmospheric music and voice acting give a great sense of immersion while you lumber along in your heavy armor.”
- “Fantastic graphics bringing the world of Warhammer 40k to life in a nightmarish first person view, delivering intense and detailed environments.”
- “The graphics are not optimized in the slightest - worst graphics settings of all my games and still laggy - in comparison Skyrim runs smoothly in full blast mode, so it ain't the platform.”
- “Plus the fps always drops faster than you can say "for the emperor" whenever there's a horde of enemies within range to attack you, regardless of what your graphics and video settings are set at.”
- “Space Hulk Deathwing was a game that I thought could have a lot of potential, but if only the creators had the time to go with performance over the graphics quality of this game; I have had trouble playing this game and the only thing I was able to play was the tutorial, and once I got into the campaign, my framerates and everything just dropped as hard as Fat Man and Little Boy on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
atmosphere
604 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
66%
33%
1%
The game excels in creating a dark, grim, and immersive Warhammer 40K atmosphere, with detailed environments, gothic architecture, eerie sound design, and authentic lore representation that many fans praise as the best atmospheric 40K experience in gaming. However, while the atmosphere consistently receives high marks for intensity and faithfulness to the source material, some players note the ambiance can be undercut by repetitive gameplay, technical issues, and occasional lack of dynamic audio or musical support. Overall, the atmosphere is widely regarded as the game's strongest and most compelling aspect, deeply engaging players in a tense and foreboding sci-fi universe.
- “Deathwing has the most incredible level of detail and atmosphere I have ever seen in any game, possibly ever.”
- “This game looks amazing, the atmosphere is one of the best I have ever experienced and the developers deserve a gold star for the whole feel of the game.”
- “The atmosphere is great, the levels are spectacularly detailed with a lot of exploring to be had.”
- “Sadly for me the negatives have outweighed the beauty and atmosphere that is so steeped in the lore of the franchise.”
- “Unfortunately found not up-to-date looking graphics, clunky controls, zero atmosphere - and that your character cannot climb ladders or over any obstacle.”
- “The appropriate soundtrack in this game is almost non existent (there's only ambient sounds which you barely can hear and that's about it), which makes exploration really boring and honestly... the lack of soundtrack is really hurting the atmosphere of this game and the combat a lot.”
stability
318 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
8%
92%
The game suffers from pervasive stability issues, including frequent bugs, crashes, freezes, frame rate drops, and glitches that often disrupt gameplay and make multiplayer unreliable. Although patches have improved some aspects since launch, many users still report significant performance problems and unpolished mechanics, resulting in a generally frustrating and unstable experience.
- “Bug free (unless you count the nids :d) and runs great.”
- “The game is running perfectly for me, no freezes or crashes yet on singleplayer or multiplayer.”
- “Hour and a half in and no glitches, no bugs, no loading issues, no crashes.”
- “The glitches are horrific. I'll be having the smallest inkling of fun, then boom, I am killed instantly. With a game that basically has no checkpoints, this caused me to wake my roommate by screaming. I'd consider it a cash grab attempt, but I see the effort of the studio with the detail to lore, graphics, and atmosphere. They really know what Warhammer is.”
- “This game is unfinished, buggy, feature lacking, and ultimately a disappointment.”
- “The gameplay is buggy and broken, with memory leaks that slow the game down to a jerky mess after an hour or two of constant play, forcing a restart of the game.”
replayability
116 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
68%
18%
Replayability for this game is widely regarded as low, with many players citing static maps, predictable AI, lack of meaningful progression, and absence of customization or unlockables as major drawbacks. While some appreciate occasional random mission elements and co-op play for limited replay value, most agree that once the campaign is completed, there is little incentive to revisit the game without additional content or features such as map editors or persistent multiplayer progression. Overall, the game struggles to maintain long-term engagement beyond initial playthroughs, especially at full price.
- “That is a Swedish developed indie game that is the embodiment of what a true Space Hulk game should be. It offers 4-player split screen or online play with randomly generated missions, has tons of replayability, and delivers that scary claustrophobic feel a Space Hulk game should have.”
- “This, coupled with the special mission feature, really makes each playthrough different, which again adds more replayability to the game.”
- “Multiplayer is the campaign missions with up to 4 players, excellent fun with a good deal of replay value.”
- “There is no replay value from what I've seen: some powers were actually removed from co-op multiplayer, nothing to unlock, collectibles literally do nothing, it's still buggy as hell, and very unoptimized for most systems.”
- “Multiplayer has zero replayability, there is no progress and barely anything to achieve.”
- “Without a new game+, there isn't much replayability, and all of the collectibles and gear you amass throughout the campaign disappear when you start over, which means if you want to find every collectible, you can't even miss one single relic or else you'll have to start over.”
music
79 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
73%
9%
The game's music is largely absent or minimal, with many players noting the lack of a meaningful or thematic soundtrack, which detracts from atmosphere and tension during combat and exploration. However, sound effects, ambient noises, and weapon sounds receive praise for immersion and fitting the grimdark setting, though some feel more dynamic or epic music would enhance the experience. Overall, the soundtrack is considered underdeveloped, making the game feel emptier and less engaging for many reviewers.
- “The music and sound in the game are top notch, really puts you in the mood of the game.”
- “As far as sound goes, the voice acting is very good, the music is suitably grimdark but the best of the sound design by far is the ambient audio inside the space hulk: from creaking metal walkways, the clatter of genestealer claws on pipework to the various ambient machinery sounds, the audio really helps to give an immersive feel of being inside an ancient spaceship that's been taken over by horrors from the warp.”
- “Great game so far, hugely wonderful visuals that just drip with authentic 40k atmosphere, excellent audio and music score which add to the tension massively.”
- “Also add a soundtrack; the game feels empty even when I'm covered in Tyranids clawing, nashing, and biting. It just feels like I'm grinding for no reason instead of feeling like a terminator exterminating the enemy.”
- “The appropriate soundtrack in this game is almost non-existent (there are only ambient sounds which you can barely hear), which makes exploration really boring and honestly... the lack of soundtrack is really hurting the atmosphere of this game and the combat a lot.”
- “The interface is junk (it's like something ripped off a 1990's video game), there was no music (although I suspect this was a bug), all the melee combat has the exact same generic swooshing sound, nothing sets this game apart from every other generic point and click shooter game.”
grinding
38 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
5%
95%
Grinding in the game is widely criticized as tedious, repetitive, and slowing the pace, with battles feeling dull due to weak enemy AI and lack of variety. While the atmosphere and environment are praised for their immersive Warhammer 40K vibe, the overall gameplay becomes a monotonous slog, exacerbated by clunky controls and frustrating mechanics. Some players note that multiplayer can alleviate grinding slightly with certain modes, but the experience remains largely tiresome.
- “Again, quite enjoyable, if not tedious at times.”
- “The gameplay falls short after the initial "wow, I'm a terminator!" feeling - it's repetitive at best, tedious at worst.”
- “But if you have to rely on the AI allies, you're in for a long, tedious slog through the mud with this game using weapons that feel too soft against enemies that feel too tanky - and this is coming from a 40k player of some twenty years, playing both the Tyranid and Space Marine sides.”
- “You start every chapter back at level 1, grinding everything anew; however, you can opt for codex rules which unlock everything but you are locked into that role/equipment choice and are unable to change anything mid-game.”
humor
26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
96%
4%
The humor in the game is often derived unintentionally from its buggy mechanics, awkward AI behaviors, and frustrating design choices, leading to moments that players find amusing despite the game's serious tone. While some enjoy the chaotic and unpredictable multiplayer antics with friends, the humor is mostly situational and arises from glitches or absurd gameplay scenarios rather than intentional comedic content. Overall, the humor is hit-or-miss, blending frustration with laughter but lacking polished, deliberate comedic elements.
- “To break this game down a bit, you're a super special snowflake as are the rest of the spess muhreens, and because of this you're pretentious and an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hilarious, but you also take everything so seriously.”
- “Enemies break dancing, getting stuck in walls and generally finding some hilarious ways to point out a lack of QA cycles is pretty funny -- except this is not a cheap game...”
- “I played in the beta and that was long loading times, sluggish and poorly optimized but since the full release I've crashed once and ran into a few FPS drops but despite all that, I've had some hilarious moments, some moments backed into corners with my squad and we've loved every minute of it.”
monetization
20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
10%
90%
The monetization of the game is widely criticized as a blatant cash grab, with players feeling the developers rushed the release and prioritized flashy advertising over a polished experience. Many report numerous technical issues and anticipate the game will rely heavily on paid downloadable content to compensate for missing features. Overall, users see the game as exploiting its Warhammer license to generate quick profits rather than delivering genuine value.
- “Unless they start talking to the community soon or releasing the new patch, this game was a simple cash grab using the Warhammer name to make money.”
- “Sadly, this game is just another cash grab with the developers probably being rushed to finish the game and being forced to release this pathetic excuse for a "game" far earlier than it was supposed to be.”
- “The game also seems to be very short-lived and I foresee many cash-grabbing DLCs from the developers to add features that should be in the game in the first place.”
emotional
17 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
94%
6%
The emotional responses to the game are highly mixed, with some players feeling a deep connection and immersion as a space marine, evoking pride and nostalgia, while others found the experience frustrating, boring, or even physically uncomfortable. The atmosphere is praised for its intensity, but issues with gameplay and story have left some players feeling disappointed and hesitant to continue.
- “I cried.”
- “I've never felt like a space marine before, and this game made me feel it.”
- “The atmosphere inside these spacehulks really added to the game and, in general, playing it really made me feel like a badass space marine popping puny little aliens.”
character development
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
42%
29%
Character development in the game is widely viewed as lacking or non-existent, with no persistent progression or meaningful growth for characters, especially in multiplayer. While character and weapon designs are praised for their detailed and immersive aesthetic, the absence of character development detracts from overall engagement and depth.
- “The level of detail extends to the character designs.”
- “The character design is amazing.”
- “So awe inspiring is the environment and character designs that you could easily spend hours just walking from room to room examining in detail all the architecture and machinery within the game.”
- “The multiplayer is enjoyable, though lacking one key aspect: no character development or gear gain opportunity.”
- “To be honest, I put this down to GW's rigid dumbing down of their tabletop systems and this game's close following of that source material, more than being a poor design by the game's devs. No proper character development here.”
- “Considering they touted this as being written with Gav Thorpe, a rather accomplished 40k novelist, there is a shocking lack of any sort of character development.”

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56%Critics’ scoreBased on 21 critic reviews

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6h Median play time

7h Average play time

3-10h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 44 analyzed playthroughs

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Space Hulk: Deathwing is a survival hack and slash game with violence and science fiction themes.

Space Hulk: Deathwing is available on Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and others.

On average players spend around 7 hours playing Space Hulk: Deathwing.

Space Hulk: Deathwing was released on December 14, 2016.

Space Hulk: Deathwing was developed by Streum On Studio.

Space Hulk: Deathwing has received neutral reviews from both players and critics. Most players liked this game for its story but disliked it for its optimization.

Space Hulk: Deathwing is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr, Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade, Overkill's The Walking Dead, Earthfall and others.

Space Hulk: Deathwing

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