Warhammer 40K Chaos Gate Daemonhunters Duty Eternal Review

Warhammer 40K: Daemon Hunters – Duty Eternal

My time with the Daemon Hunters, the full name is way too long to keep typing out, was an enjoyable jaunt to the chaos, insanity and satire of the 40K universe. Controlling the elite Grey Knights as they bickered their way across the galaxy in an attempt to foil Nurgle’s plans was one of the better 40K games that was released this year. So, when the code for Duty Eternal hit my inbox, I was eager to re-engage with the madness for a few more hours. Sadly, the DLC does not live up to the promise of both the main game and this one’s premise.

As this is “just” DLC it won’t change the game fundamentally it will just add new content to the game. And the jewel of that new content is the addition of the Dreadnought. This is a massive unit that absolutely dominates the battlefield and turns any and all enemies into just another bloody stain on an already blood-drenched battleground. When it is available it is a ton of fun to play with. Most enemies will wither under the righteous flames of the over-overpowered and oversized flamethrower that it wields. When against the more resilient Plague Troopers the flamethrower is less effective, but don’t worry you have the enormous weight and size of the Dreadnought’s fist to plough through the enemies.

The Dreadnought is the reason to play this DLC, just sad it is only deployed on a handful of missions. You also cannot upgrade or control it off the battlefield the way you manage the rest of your troops, removing something that could’ve been fun to tinker with in between battles. More than likely the devs decided against the addition of such a powerful unit as it would throw the balance of the game completely off and result in one that would become too easy to play and thus boring.

Duty Eternal does add a new unit for you to add to your squad, the Techmarine. But given that other than the Dreadnought, there are no tech units in your squad he tends to be a little less than useless in battle. That is harsh, I should rather say that there is no incentive outside of the Dreadnought missions for you to deploy him on missions as he is a support class for mechanical units. The addition of this unit also adds a new resource for the Baleful Edict to collect over the course of the game. Luckily it is a passive collection that starts generating once you secure Archeotech generators early on. Harvesting the resource requires visiting the system that houses these generators, a chore that makes choosing between a mission and harvesting resources one that frustrates as you may not be able to get to that important or rewarding mission in time if you make the stop off.

The final addition to the game is a second ship called the Gladius. This now enables you to tackle more missions as it can be sent off independently around the galaxy. The Gladius is a half measure, mechanically, to the Baleful Edict as while you can manage the team on the ship, once you assign it a mission it is a “fire and forget” mechanic. Battles are resolved off-screen while you concentrate on the Baleful Edict and those missions. However, for whatever reason, the Gladius is only unlocked after you complete the main missions, so it is mainly there for end-game content to assist with the grind. This would’ve been more welcome as an earlier addition to the game and would’ve added a bit more of a strategic element to which missions you take on as you work your way towards the finale, eliminating some of the repetition that creeps into the mission types and maps.

Duty Eternal adds one element to the game that I would consider to be worthwhile in the Dreadnought. The rest is padding that is not worth the price of admission. Should the DLC be on sale during a Steam Sale or as part of a complete edition then I would recommend a purchase just to experience the power of the Dreadnought.