Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters looks like aggressive space XCOM and I’m here for it

I was sold from the moment our Justicar sliced off the mutated Apostate Preacher’s tentacle arm. The poor thing was clutching a Vox Stave, and so removing his arm removed the use of his scariest abilities – although in this case the dismemberment proved academic, because it also left him exposed to immediate melee execution. That left our Interceptor free to shoot a nearby statue down on top of a cultist before stabbing him and his friend to death, which in turn gave our Apothecary enough space to chuck a grenade at a bridge and send three Poxwalkers plummeting to their doom.

I’m no Warhammermun. Those proper nouns are all cosmic Greek to me, but I’m relieved to report they didn’t obscure the promise within the 30 minutes of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters I was shown last week. This is fast-paced XCOM in space, with extensively destructible terrain, an intriguing dual focus on ranged and melee combat, and not a miss chance in sight. That should sound enticing to just about anyone.

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