Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters is very much XCOM with Space Marines. Gears Tactics is a good point of comparison, but I found it even more traditional at times, to the point it was easy to spot familiar systems operating beneath the grim-dark veneer. That said, it still offers impressive production values for an indie title, with a suitably epic, narrative-driven campaign and an aggressive gameplay loop that’s perfect for those who prefer shorter, tougher missions with plenty of decision making in between. It also plays great on a gamepad – I’m guessing it was just the small team size that prohibited a simultaneous console launch – just don’t expect it to change your mind about the genre, even if you love the IP.
A deceptively easy, tutorial-heavy prologue encapsulates the ridiculous Warhammer 40,000 setting before thrusting you into the role of a freshly promoted commander of a Grey Knights chapter of the Adeptus Astartes; serving the God-Emperor and the Imperium of Man; assisting an Inquisitor from the Ordo Malleus in hunting down daemons and heretics that serve the Chaos gods. If that long sentence meant little to you, you might find Daemonhunters’ strong narrative more intrusive than entertaining, as it leans heavily into established lore, features a surprising amount of well-directed cutscenes, and plenty of text-heavy conversations with your crew that flesh out the state of the universe and the factions within.
That said, even if you’re familiar with the IP, it’s not the most novel or surprising story. Something that’s not really the fault of the developers when the entire Black Library now survives by rehashing old ideas with ret-cons, inconsistencies, predictable archetypes, repetitive battle descriptions, and endless contrivances. To Daemonhunters credit, it’s more narrative-driven than many tactical turn-based games, it sets the stakes high from the get-go, and provides context for several gameplay systems. Your mission performance and crew members you side with during key moments can affect their contribution to shipboard functions, and several encounters even function like choice-driven text adventures.
Given this is a future where there is only war among the stars and scheming Chaos gods, the Grey Knights chapter is immediately forced back into action despite having just lost their commander, several Battle-Brothers, and severely damaged their strike cruiser the Baleful Edict. As the new commander, you’ve got to deal with characters like the Adeptus Mechanicus Dominus “Lunete” who cares more the ship than the crew, and the Inquisitor “Kartha” who seems content to treat the Grey Knights and local populace as disposable in the pursuit of her goals. As you dig deeper into the source of corrupting “bloom” seeds, you’ll uncover plans by Nurgle to invade real-space and an ancient rivalry between a Primarch turned to chaos and a G randmaster thought lost in the warp.
Moving to gameplay, Daemonhunters’ is traditional but flexible, and feels more balanced around aggressive play. There’s a basic three-AP structure that allows you to move, shoot, and use abilities in any configuration – and you can alternate freely between Knights until all the combined action points are spent. You can dash across the map to place a Knight in the midst’s of heretic gunners to trigger attacks-of-opportunity if they try flee; you can take three successive shots or melee strikes to quickly deal with a target; or you can set up overlapping overwatch zones that’ll trigger as many times as you have rounds and action points in reserve. Of course, the same applies to your foes and – in addition to that annoying design where they always get the first turn once detected – you’ll grow to hate their preference for running to full cover, taking a shot, and setting up overwatch.
As the many firearm-wielding enemies outrange your Knights and a bloom counter ticks up every turn eventually triggering warp surges, Daemonhunters can feel merciless at first. There are more tutorials after the prologue, but they explain combat scenarios, gameplay modifiers, ship abilities, upgrades, and research in broad strokes, and I often found myself digging into the extensive glossary of key concepts for more details. Much like the XCOM games, Daemonhunters places you on the back foot from the start and expects you to run an increasingly lethal treadmill to maintain pace – with a strong possibility of hitting a wall if you push forward too quickly. Bloom corruption feels inevitable as outbreak clusters are spread too far apart on the expanding sector map; requisition points to recruit new Battle-Brothers are earned slowly, ensuring you rarely field an uninjured team; while the best ship upgrades and support powers are multiple research levels deep.
The bulk of your time may be spent directing your Knights in battle, but the longer you play, the more it feels like their level, requisitioned gear, and research upgrades are what’s keeping your forces alive – not your tactical abilities. Each Knight can branch out from a central cluster of class skills to invest in physical or warp resistance; armour and weapon proficiencies; offensive psychic abilities; or leadership and healing support abilities. Aside from class specific items, load-outs are flexible and overlap, but you’ll want to fill your barracks with a healthy mix of tanks, healers, long-range damaged dealers, and crowd-control specialists to survive later missions, especially handcrafted story missions that often have you babysitting a key character that needs to survive or tackling a boss.
Working in your favour, Space Marine physiology ensures they can handle multiple wounds so long as they’re not outright killed during a mission. Even critical wounds will eventually heal or be mitigated with augmetic parts, though accumulate too many and the best you can hope for is to recover their gene seed to claim further requisition points for new recruits and gear after missions, or during increasingly tense reports to the chapter’s Grandmaster. This tiered gear feels essential and includes situational melee or ranged weapons, classic power armour, and tank-like Terminator armour, all of which can be improved with stat-boosting mods. On top of that, you have accessories that range from limited-use grenade variants to trophies that provide passive buffs (and you can extensively customise your favourite Battle-Brother’s outfit if you want).
To further improve your tactical options in battle and restore the Baleful Edict to full functionality, you also need to keep on top of ship upgrades and research – which require servitors and bloom seeds respectively, and anywhere from a few days to over a month to complete. It’s a lot to keep on top of but if you can survive a few rough hours by rotating your squad, complete a few optional “valiant deeds” tasks, and simply rushing the mission objective when outnumbered (teleportation is your friend) your Knights will eventually become a formidable and resilient force against corrupted heretics, lesser and greater daemons, and particularly tough Plague Marines.
Wrapping up, I’ll assume a challenge is what you were looking for if Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters was on your radar, so the biggest question is how does it compare to the console ports of XCOM: Enemy Within, Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, or Gears Tactics? The answer is near-perfect, and I never found myself fighting the controls or struggling to navigate menus. Yes, the lack of a mouse cursor and keyboard shortcuts slows you down, but rarely impacts the outcome as you can take each turn at your own pace, you always confirm movement waypoints or abilities, and you can save or reload at any point if things go horribly wrong. I’ll admit, I’ve been forever spoiled by Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden’s free movement out of combat and stealth takedown mechanics, but Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters still offers immensely satisfying battles when you’ve got over that initial difficulty hump, and the turn-based combat and progression systems gel.
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One and PS4/5.
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (Xbox Series) Review
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (Xbox Series) ReviewThe Good
- An epic, narrative-heavy campaign on an indie budget
- A focus on shorter, tougher missions with plenty of decision making in between
- Satisfying, flexible turn-based combat that rewards aggression
- Knight and gear requisition, skills trees, ship upgrades, warp powers, and more!
- Stylish production values and writing that capture the ridiculous setting
- Basic gameplay and menu-ing feel fine on a gamepad
The Bad
- An early difficulty hump to get over
- An over-reliance on grinding basic missions for upgrade materials and requisition