The Grey Knights of the The Baleful Edict have just finished a lengthy campaign against the forces of Khorne that has lead to the death of their commander, many of their number, and caused heavy damage to the ship. The Grey Knights being a chapter focused on the hunting of daemons and being unique amoung Space Marine chapters due to their secretive nature, close ties with the inquisition, and because every member of the Grey Knights is a powerful psyker. You are chosen as the new commander by the purifier Ectar who is confined to the ship as part of a punishment duty while the Adeptus Mechanicus Dominus Lunete makes the case that the best thing to do is to return home for repairs and replenishment. While on route the ship is intercepted by Inquisitor Kartha Vakir that tasks you with helping her to stop the forces of Nurgle by combating a sector wide plague known as The Bloom. You will have missions appear on planets randomly with you needing to reach the planet to deploy a squad of four characters to stop the spread of plague on that planet. As you play you can repair and upgrade parts of your ship for bonuses, have the Inquisitor research bonuses you can give your knights in battle or complete plot important goals, recruit new knights, and gain more powerful equipment by spending earned requisition points from completed missions and bonus objectives. Random events with different options to how you deal with them and their benefits or consequences appear on the sector map. Many of these events involve having you trying to appease the demands of Grand Master Vardan Kai who is dealing with other threats being dealt with by other groups of Grey Knights, most amusing about these is that sometimes even doing well will lead to him asking you to donate supplies or temporarily give troops to other areas since you seem to be doing so well with your threat.
Combat is turn based and similar in style to XCOM where you move around the map and can run into patrolling or stationary squads of enemies that once encountered will take actions like finding cover, entering overwatch, or buffing each others while your own characters have their action points refunded and get a chance to react before the enemy can attack. Every character has three action points that can be used to shoot, move, move and melee, throw a grenade, reload, move and interact with the environment, make use of a unit's class abilities, etc. Attacks always hit but with further ranges lowering gun damage combined with light and heavy cover and armor that regenerates each turn your attacks can be prevented from doing damage. Because every Grey Knight has access to psychic powers they also have starting willpower that they can spend to enhance their abilities, regaining a point of willpower when they get a kill or when certain conditions are met. One of the more used mechanics is that melee weapon and some ranged weapon critical hits will not only do more damage but allow you to remove or damage body parts of enemies limiting their actions or doing further damage. Most enemies are given a stun value and after taking enough stun damage are able to be executed with a melee attack that gives every Grey Knight an additional action point.
There are eight classes in the base game with each being able to reach level nine, each level gives you two ability points that you can spend on different ability trees that branch out from the center with one tree below, one above, and three to your left and right sides. Abilities can give a unit access to new or additional weapons and equipment or can give a variety of passive, active, and auto abilities as well as passive bonuses for them or active ones that comes into play when you enhance them with willpower. With certain builds classes can focus on fast movement/teleportation and melee, long range and support fire, AoE attacks, throwing grenades, healing or buffing other units, and one gives you access to a more powerful psyker in the form of a Librarian. Different power armor, terminator armor, guns, and melee weapons have their own passive effects and sometimes new abilities tied to them and can be further upgraded over time and each character can equip active equipment like grenades and servo skulls or passive items that will enhance their abilities.
While it is a good game, Chaos Gate can start to overstay its welcome for a variety of reasons. On top of just being a fairly long game, even with the four new assassin DLC classes and the DLC techmarine and Dreadnaught you will reach a point fairly early on where you have every class maxed out and due to the random nature of the game are waiting/hoping to get the right character class drops to try out the four advanced classes. There are some more interesting environments like ones with you in an active battle going on outside of your immediate area and a mission type where you get some allied guardsmen but due to the way the game is designed the environments rarely do much to effect the gameplay. With hit chance gone and replaced with most ranged weapons just having fairly short max ranges (and often even shorter with further out ranges of a weapon decreasing damage making cover negate attacks you end up likely playing with your characters fairly close together or making frequent use of teleports, AoE attacks, charge moves, cover destroying equipment, etc that often makes the terrain of a map not really matter even without getting into the often lacking of verticality to the majority of maps. The randomness of the game with missions appearing in locations that might put you at a big disadvantage or not being able to unlock the equipment or class that you want because of the mission reward options being randomized can also lead to issues where you are unable to try out certain classes for a long period of time. The melee focused or AoE damage characters are typically the stronger units as single target guns tend to just not do as much and even the environmental attacks that seem powerful early on start to fall off in damage and availability quickly. Minimizing the game occasionally seemed to cause some severe slowdown when brought back up or caused camera issues that were fixed with a restart.
Those issues aside, it is a solid game that fits the setting well.
DLC Reviews
Castellan Champion Upgrade Pack: This adds a text event where Garran Crowe joins you. Giving you access to a purifier class unit who has specialized in the melee side of the class, he comes with his own unique equipment and has unlimited resilience making him unable to be permanently killed. With him coming at max level and the four advance classes that the purifier is a part of being a random mission reward he is nice to just have with this also allowing you to focus a new purifier down a path focused on the incinerator. The problem with him is that he doesn't have a unique ability that can be useful like other characters can have and you are unable to change his equipment that can become weak over time.. His armor gives him fairly low health and no armor value and his equipment is limited to grenades which can be good for a purifier but you might want to focus on equipment that improves his melee skill or if you really wanted to focus on grenades you would have wanted to put him in armor that allows for additional and stronger grenade options. He's too limited to remain that useful for long and doesn't offer anything unique enough to be worth paying for by himself. It doesn't help that max leveled purifier is probably the most useless class to have ever skill unlocked in since, unlike most of the classes, it is based around using three different weapons that you can only use one of at a time and Crowe specifically lacks the ability to switch even if you wanted him too.
Duty Eternal: Gives you access to some new mission types, the new techmarine class, the ability to recruit and field a dreadnaught in certain missions as well as an extra unit in the final mission, and an option to recapture a frigate that can eventually be repaired to join your fleet. The techmarine is an interesting class who can take up to four servitors with him of six different possible types. They will automatically follow you when you move and can be activated as an ability where you can freely move them before activating their own ability which can be a plasma cannon AoE and knockback, overwatch, support fire, melee attack that destroys armor, incapacitating an enemy, or taunting enemies. The techmarine isn't as strong as some other classes but their servitors have their own HP and can serve as meat shields, you can repair or give armor to them or enhance their damage, you can get an auto ability to regain action points used to activate them, and can make them self destruct to act as a powerful large AoE grenade while also giving a buff to the others when one dies. The dreadnaught is a bit more limited in when you can use it but it can be equipped with a variety of weapons that can make it more of a long range fire support platform, a close range damage or stun doing melee attacker, or focus on wider AoE attacks against multiple enemies. The frigate you gain is a nice feature that allows you send it off to complete missions for you by assigning your characters to it and choosing to deploy it at one of the available planets. This can allow you to avoid doing missions you don't want to, do a mission that was too far away to reach, level up underused units or send out your better ones while you level up weaker ones yourself, and allows you to gain the base rewards for completing the mission. This does come fairly late into the campaign though. None of the new mission types are that different or interesting but it's worth it for the new unit types if you are interested in them.
Execution Force: Adds four new classes to the game that aren't part of a normal space marine deployment, instead giving you assassins from four of the the Officio Assassinorum temples. You have access to a Vindicare, Eversor, Culexus, and Callidus character with most of them having skills that are on cooldowns that recharge faster when they get kills as opposed to using willpower for psychic abilities like the Grey Knights. Each has a very unique playstyle compared to the other classes and while the Culexus isn't as powerful as some of the other options they can also be useful. The Vindicare gives you a long range unit that can get additional actions from movement and pistol kills while getting frequent part destroying hits with their sniper rifle. The Eversor has a high amount of health and ability to gain high armor unlike the other assassins but their abilities drain their own health while kills can refill it, they are fast, durable, easily gain bonus action points, and are one of the best units in the game. The Culexus starts with no willpower but gains it as they get kills or as other units use their willpower, they can attack through walls and have a draining melee attack. They have the ability to close reinforcement portals before they open but the random placement of portals and their lack of speed, a teleport ability, and that being limited to one range rarely makes the skill see use. The Callidus can play in a completely unique way with an ability to disguise herself as an enemy with some skills being able t o kill units while hidden and a gun and sword that bypasses armor with the gun firing in a wide arc and having the option to immobilize enemy groups before they even enter combat. The new enemy and equipment types are good additions, but the ship boarding missions are terrible and are frequently worse result wise than using different options when encountering an enemy fleet. A mostly very good addition to the game that allows you to just ignore the bad part while adding some needed variety to the game.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1754384957533995342
Combat is turn based and similar in style to XCOM where you move around the map and can run into patrolling or stationary squads of enemies that once encountered will take actions like finding cover, entering overwatch, or buffing each others while your own characters have their action points refunded and get a chance to react before the enemy can attack. Every character has three action points that can be used to shoot, move, move and melee, throw a grenade, reload, move and interact with the environment, make use of a unit's class abilities, etc. Attacks always hit but with further ranges lowering gun damage combined with light and heavy cover and armor that regenerates each turn your attacks can be prevented from doing damage. Because every Grey Knight has access to psychic powers they also have starting willpower that they can spend to enhance their abilities, regaining a point of willpower when they get a kill or when certain conditions are met. One of the more used mechanics is that melee weapon and some ranged weapon critical hits will not only do more damage but allow you to remove or damage body parts of enemies limiting their actions or doing further damage. Most enemies are given a stun value and after taking enough stun damage are able to be executed with a melee attack that gives every Grey Knight an additional action point.
There are eight classes in the base game with each being able to reach level nine, each level gives you two ability points that you can spend on different ability trees that branch out from the center with one tree below, one above, and three to your left and right sides. Abilities can give a unit access to new or additional weapons and equipment or can give a variety of passive, active, and auto abilities as well as passive bonuses for them or active ones that comes into play when you enhance them with willpower. With certain builds classes can focus on fast movement/teleportation and melee, long range and support fire, AoE attacks, throwing grenades, healing or buffing other units, and one gives you access to a more powerful psyker in the form of a Librarian. Different power armor, terminator armor, guns, and melee weapons have their own passive effects and sometimes new abilities tied to them and can be further upgraded over time and each character can equip active equipment like grenades and servo skulls or passive items that will enhance their abilities.
While it is a good game, Chaos Gate can start to overstay its welcome for a variety of reasons. On top of just being a fairly long game, even with the four new assassin DLC classes and the DLC techmarine and Dreadnaught you will reach a point fairly early on where you have every class maxed out and due to the random nature of the game are waiting/hoping to get the right character class drops to try out the four advanced classes. There are some more interesting environments like ones with you in an active battle going on outside of your immediate area and a mission type where you get some allied guardsmen but due to the way the game is designed the environments rarely do much to effect the gameplay. With hit chance gone and replaced with most ranged weapons just having fairly short max ranges (and often even shorter with further out ranges of a weapon decreasing damage making cover negate attacks you end up likely playing with your characters fairly close together or making frequent use of teleports, AoE attacks, charge moves, cover destroying equipment, etc that often makes the terrain of a map not really matter even without getting into the often lacking of verticality to the majority of maps. The randomness of the game with missions appearing in locations that might put you at a big disadvantage or not being able to unlock the equipment or class that you want because of the mission reward options being randomized can also lead to issues where you are unable to try out certain classes for a long period of time. The melee focused or AoE damage characters are typically the stronger units as single target guns tend to just not do as much and even the environmental attacks that seem powerful early on start to fall off in damage and availability quickly. Minimizing the game occasionally seemed to cause some severe slowdown when brought back up or caused camera issues that were fixed with a restart.
Those issues aside, it is a solid game that fits the setting well.
DLC Reviews
Castellan Champion Upgrade Pack: This adds a text event where Garran Crowe joins you. Giving you access to a purifier class unit who has specialized in the melee side of the class, he comes with his own unique equipment and has unlimited resilience making him unable to be permanently killed. With him coming at max level and the four advance classes that the purifier is a part of being a random mission reward he is nice to just have with this also allowing you to focus a new purifier down a path focused on the incinerator. The problem with him is that he doesn't have a unique ability that can be useful like other characters can have and you are unable to change his equipment that can become weak over time.. His armor gives him fairly low health and no armor value and his equipment is limited to grenades which can be good for a purifier but you might want to focus on equipment that improves his melee skill or if you really wanted to focus on grenades you would have wanted to put him in armor that allows for additional and stronger grenade options. He's too limited to remain that useful for long and doesn't offer anything unique enough to be worth paying for by himself. It doesn't help that max leveled purifier is probably the most useless class to have ever skill unlocked in since, unlike most of the classes, it is based around using three different weapons that you can only use one of at a time and Crowe specifically lacks the ability to switch even if you wanted him too.
Duty Eternal: Gives you access to some new mission types, the new techmarine class, the ability to recruit and field a dreadnaught in certain missions as well as an extra unit in the final mission, and an option to recapture a frigate that can eventually be repaired to join your fleet. The techmarine is an interesting class who can take up to four servitors with him of six different possible types. They will automatically follow you when you move and can be activated as an ability where you can freely move them before activating their own ability which can be a plasma cannon AoE and knockback, overwatch, support fire, melee attack that destroys armor, incapacitating an enemy, or taunting enemies. The techmarine isn't as strong as some other classes but their servitors have their own HP and can serve as meat shields, you can repair or give armor to them or enhance their damage, you can get an auto ability to regain action points used to activate them, and can make them self destruct to act as a powerful large AoE grenade while also giving a buff to the others when one dies. The dreadnaught is a bit more limited in when you can use it but it can be equipped with a variety of weapons that can make it more of a long range fire support platform, a close range damage or stun doing melee attacker, or focus on wider AoE attacks against multiple enemies. The frigate you gain is a nice feature that allows you send it off to complete missions for you by assigning your characters to it and choosing to deploy it at one of the available planets. This can allow you to avoid doing missions you don't want to, do a mission that was too far away to reach, level up underused units or send out your better ones while you level up weaker ones yourself, and allows you to gain the base rewards for completing the mission. This does come fairly late into the campaign though. None of the new mission types are that different or interesting but it's worth it for the new unit types if you are interested in them.
Execution Force: Adds four new classes to the game that aren't part of a normal space marine deployment, instead giving you assassins from four of the the Officio Assassinorum temples. You have access to a Vindicare, Eversor, Culexus, and Callidus character with most of them having skills that are on cooldowns that recharge faster when they get kills as opposed to using willpower for psychic abilities like the Grey Knights. Each has a very unique playstyle compared to the other classes and while the Culexus isn't as powerful as some of the other options they can also be useful. The Vindicare gives you a long range unit that can get additional actions from movement and pistol kills while getting frequent part destroying hits with their sniper rifle. The Eversor has a high amount of health and ability to gain high armor unlike the other assassins but their abilities drain their own health while kills can refill it, they are fast, durable, easily gain bonus action points, and are one of the best units in the game. The Culexus starts with no willpower but gains it as they get kills or as other units use their willpower, they can attack through walls and have a draining melee attack. They have the ability to close reinforcement portals before they open but the random placement of portals and their lack of speed, a teleport ability, and that being limited to one range rarely makes the skill see use. The Callidus can play in a completely unique way with an ability to disguise herself as an enemy with some skills being able t o kill units while hidden and a gun and sword that bypasses armor with the gun firing in a wide arc and having the option to immobilize enemy groups before they even enter combat. The new enemy and equipment types are good additions, but the ship boarding missions are terrible and are frequently worse result wise than using different options when encountering an enemy fleet. A mostly very good addition to the game that allows you to just ignore the bad part while adding some needed variety to the game.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1754384957533995342