Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf takes on the Games Workshop franchise and delivers a solid, challenging but often cumbersome turn-based strategic experience.
Space Wolf is a gorgeous and full-featured card battler with layers upon layers of strategic finesse that fans of the universe and genre will no doubt eat up. However, it relies on a hefty amount of "buy Y to do X" sensibilities, so if you can't get behind that, you might be better off with another strategy game.
From a small dev team, we can hope to see big features like PVP and further adjustments to campaign difficulty, but I think there is more beyond just those things that will keep Hero Craft from pulling off a flawless game.
Be warned before downloading: the object of this game is to get you to spend money.
Literally everything you do in this game will cost you coins at a higher rate than gameplay alone will provide. Want to unlock a new character class? Level up? Level a squadmate? These can cost you over 40k coins each, and the most you can make through campaign gameplay is around 30k.
You literally cannot beat this game without spending at least a hundred dollars, preferably more.
This game also hit a new low in sleazy cash-grab mechanics that left me appalled. You can use ‘the forge’ in-game to create new weapon/item/action cards. But if you randomly create something really nice, the game will ask you to spend money to be allowed to keep it!
When you consider that you can buy the whole game on PC for under $30, it makes no sense that the ‘freemium’ model picked by the developers requires literally hundreds of dollars to have a fighting chance.
Add to that some really dumb design decisions and the negatives soon overwhelm the positives. Examples of bad design include:
Melee weapons only being able to attack the one square directly ahead of them, making melee more like a barn dance where every turn you spend one action to move/change face and one to hit. Melee should be able to hit the three squares directly ahead.
Endless waves of respawning enemies, especially when they pop out behind you (a real pet hate of mine).
Friendly AI that seriously underperforms compared with enemy AI (the ‘No One Lives Forever’ mission is especially bad at this).
Timed missions to create additional difficulty.
Enemy units that are constantly able to outperform player units in both mobility and damage.
Obvious paywall missions (‘No One Lives Forever’ again, chapter 3 mission 7).
Inability to even grind for in-game coins (seriously, you can only get them by buying them or beating missions, and beating missions alone will only give you about a fifth of what you need to beat the third chapter).
Enemy AI somehow constantly being able to stay out of range of weapons cards in your ‘hand’.
Frequent ‘glancing hits’ that reduce your killing attack just enough to let enemy AI get one more turn in.
Look, if you love 40k and are prepared to spend at least AUS$200 on in-game currency, go for it. But be aware that you’re just encouraging sleazy pay-to-beat-the-game devs to make even more games which are basically shakedowns for cash. If you really must play, just get the PC version: it’ll cost you less in the long run.
SummaryLead the Sons of Russ into battle and slash your way through hordes of ferocious enemies with Boltgun fire and Chainsword teeth. Write your own saga in the annals of the Space Wolves Chapter as you hunt your sworn enemies – the Chaos Space Marines.