Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector Review

Despite Games Workshop's Warhammer franchise being a huge success, many video games from the science-fantasy and fantasy versions of Warhammer failed to achieve breakthrough status. While only a few adaptations have been able to make Warhammer a timeless franchise, there is no sign that the franchise will slow down its efforts to reach that goal. Black Lab Games' Warhammer 40,000 Battlesector will be one of those success stories and help to establish the franchise's legacy.

Battlesector is an turn-based tactical game in which players can take control of a team of Blood Angels Space Marines. These super-soldiers vampires are power-armored and have been enlisted to clean up the aftermath of an invasion by Gigeresque Tyranids. The campaign is a single-player linear story that allows players to create their own forces, unlock upgrades and equip powerful weapons. The story is spiced up by the appearance of the Sisters of Battle to help their Space Marine brethren on their bloody mission.

Apart from the lengthy single-player campaign players can engage in multiplayer tactical battles as the Tyranids or Space Marines. Sisters of Battle are not available for this campaign. The developers generously provided a number of modes for playing against other players, including live matches, play by email, hotseat and hotseat. There are also plenty of customization options, battle maps, and plenty of customization options. The single-player campaign is quite long and the multiplayer options are varied, providing plenty of content to keep players busy (pun intended).

The best thing about Battlesector is the presentation. Although Battlesector is not an expensive game, the game's presentation, including the unit models and graphics, gives it a vibrant feel that accurately represents Warhammer 40K. There is also a photo mode that allows players to capture the most memorable and gritty moments of battle. However, unit animations can be a little sloppy, particularly when it comes to moving Space Marine infantry and large entities dying. But overall, they aren't too distracting.

Battlesector's audio design is outstanding. The voice acting is top-notch and delivers setting-appropriate dialogue. Battle music is well-suited with many operatic and pathos-filled melodies and themes that give each mission an energy and dynamism. There is some audio mixing, particularly for the Tyranids. However, it's not too severe.

The rest of the game, however, is either not impressive or poorly executed. The single-player campaign is a key component of Battlesector. While it doesn't do much to develop the Space Marines characters, it does provide some insight into the Tyranid activities at Baal Secundus. As one of the first major 40K video games to prominently feature the newly-introduced Primaris Marines (bigger, better, badder than non-Primaris), it's absolutely baffling that the developers elected not to include a major or supporting Primaris POV character from the start of the campaign for players to better understand this brand new addition to the franchise.

Although the core tactical gameplay loop is well-designed, it leaves much to be desired. Although tactical combat is not the worst, it works well and is very effective, it is just unimpressive and borderline superficial.

Although there are plenty of weapons, abilities and troop types available for players to try out different approaches and builds, the Space Marines have not been implemented in an enticing way. This is due to each Marine unit being capable of doing too many things simultaneously, which is a problem that tramples on the fragile unit variety in the game.

For example, it was difficult for me to justify choosing the Bolt Rifle-armed Intercessors over similar-priced Plasma Incinerator armed Hellblasters, despite them having a grenade and being clearly intended for anti-armor roles. The campaign does not include any unit limit or resource system. This means that players can spam out one unit without worrying about losing it. This encourages unchecked exploitation.

The Tyranids feel more compelling as a faction, which highlights the missed opportunity to include a Tyranid-focused Campaign. There are many more factors to consider, more weaknesses and more unit roles. This makes it difficult for them not only to engage in combined arms tactics but also to form formations and make effective use of map geography. Because of their propensity to engage in close quarters combat, the tactical challenges they face are more complex and multi-layered than their power-armored counterparts.

Black Lab Games is trying to invent traditional turn-based tactical tropes. They have added a Momentum mechanic where units can build up a meter by fighting and performing actions. Once filled, they will be able to activate an active ability or gain additional action points. Although it sounds great on paper, the mechanic was not very useful in practice. I found it more important for the Tyranids as it is a crucial mechanic that enhances their unique faction design.

Some tactical design flaws don't accurately represent the game's lore. This in turn hinders the game's combat design, especially for the Blood Angels. Cutscenes and dialogue in the game refer to the Red Thirst and the Black Rage. Both of these are interesting examples of risk-versus-reward tactical design. The former effect is merely an uninspiring positive effect and the latter has no specific gameplay effect. Aside from obvious weapon loadout and hit points differences, there isn't any clear effort to tactically differentiate non-Primaris Marines from Primaris Marines.

Both Space Marines as well as Tyranids are disappointed by the available army lists. There are several notable omissions of iconic units, and a dearth of customization options. The current rosters can be used as a serviceable tool, but they are not inspiring and raise questions about the game's tactical design. Sanctus Reach, a similar game in the same universe, also published by Slitherine and featuring the same army rosters, was more compelling and engaging than its counterpart.

The biggest problems for Battlesector are the inconsistent mission design and inefficient and confusing UI. Campaign missions are a mix of many exciting missions with attractive map designs and victory goals, as well as a variety of boring and unimpressive scenarios.

Battlesector's mission design has a major flaw. It relies too heavily on the "eliminate any remaining units" clause to complete the mission. This makes the missions feel tedious and grueling, particularly in the last third to quarter of each mission. While I can understand the Blood Angels' overall mission to eliminate the Tyranid threat through glorious combat, it shouldn't be a reason to ignore creative mission design.

The lack of an animation speed-up option for players, dumb AI and poor map design make the campaign missions more tedious. The player can speed up the Tyranid turn by waiting while the AI does the rest. However, they cannot do the same for their troops. The AI is unimpressive and even stupid at its worst, making the Tyranids a very uncompelling foe if it's not in the player's hands.

Large, sprawling maps are the preferred map design for Battlesector. They are a double-edged sword as they have a lot of terrain and are large enough to allow for creativity in geography and maneuvering. The downside is that the maps are large and can make it difficult to hunt down enemy remains in missions.

The UI is not a good fit for tactical combat. This is evident in the absence of tooltips and inability check stats and abilities. Players can see the status effects and characteristics of an enemy unit by clicking on it in battle. However, they cannot check its weapon stats because there is no tooltip.

Battlesector performs much better than other games, with very few frame drops due to the rapidly shifting perspective of the camera while multiple units are moving. This means that systems with the recommended specs should run the game without any problems, while lower-end systems might have issues. Although the options menu is very simple, it covers all of the necessary customization options including rebindable keys. Other than the Tyranids, I didn't experience any crashes or bugs.

Battlesector is a good game but it is not timeless. The game is too safe. Even elements that should have been a sure-win, such as tactical combat and faction design, are not up to par. There are many other great tactics games like the Sanctus Reach and Black Labs' Battlestar Galactica. Warhammer players should check out the game at least for the voice acting, interesting Tyranid tactics and strategy fans might wait until there are significant content updates.