Based on the board game of the same name, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth takes the Warhammer world and turns it turn based. Lead your troops to survive various threats at the hands of the enemy known as the Word Bearers. Those who love the lore seen in the 40k world and the setting will possibly be interested in The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth. Equally, those who like to test their friends online to see who the better tactician is will find The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth online component possibly very intriguing.

Unlike the usual RTS gameplay seen in most games containing Ultramarines, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth aims to deliver tactical turn based combat. Control from the sky as you move units into defensive positions and take aim when you can. Maps provide a varying degree of challenge so going into any battle haphazardly will earn you a quick defeat in The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth. As of right now, the Early Access version of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth offers up Act 1 which offers several missions to take on as well as online multiplayer matchmaking and/or local play. With several updates planned to add VR gameplay via the Oculus Rift and several other VR devices, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth will be a truly intriguing turn based title set in the much loved 40k world.

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth tells the story of the Word Bearers and their coup against the Ultramarines. Follow Sarc who faces this betrayal head on using his knowledge to turn the tides of battle towards the Ultramarines. The fight for the Imperium is now at hand and only one side can win. Lead your troops to victory or face brutal defeat, the choice is up to you.

Here at Honey’s Anime several us just so happen to be fans of Warhammer and 40k or whatever combination of the two we see either board game or video game wise. Developer Steel Wool Studios also seem to be fans of the lore and games and decided to take the largely popular The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth board game and make it into an actual video game. We here at Honey’s Anime were graciously given Early Access codes to try the game out and after putting some time into the game we have gained an opinion we’d like to share with you all out there on our website. Welcome all you beautiful souls to our Early Access preview of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth for the PC.

First, let’s begin by making sure all of you understand that this is a preview article for The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth. What that ultimately means is that whatever we say here may or may not be represented in the final product. At any time, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth could become something entirely different and if that is the case, we’ll keep you updated via this preview or possibly a full review of the completed product. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s now begin with talking about the gameplay of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth.

When you start up The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth, you’ll quickly notice this is not a RTS title. Instead, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth acts a more traditional turn based game where players control various Ultramarines—a popular element in the 40k world—and lead them into various skirmishes. At first you’ll be forced to use various characters and Sarc—the main protagonist of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth—but after the first several missions in Act 1, you’ll be able to configure your team of Ultramarines with various weapons and rank. This was a nice element to The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth and we had fun tweaking our teams to see what combination worked best in battles that we sometimes lost because we just were overpowered or didn’t use the right team set up.

Now in terms of actual controls, players move their units via circular areas on the map and attack in the same manner. Each unit can act up to two times but actions regardless of the type can only be executed once per unit before the enemy moves. It’s a bit complex at first but quickly, you’ll learn how it works in The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth. Players can either shoot/attack, assault—which allows movement and attack depending on the location of their enemy—and reform which helps fallen units pair closer together. It feels very simple in theory but we can see some depth to be had in later missions and acts of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth.

Graphically, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth is a bit of a hit and miss situation. While we liked the units and how they looked, animations looked kind of dated and backgrounds also felt generic and mediocre. The same could be said of the music, voice acting and special effects which all sounded very average as a whole. Needless to say, we’ve seen better Warhammer and 40k titles out there but graphics aren’t always extremely important as long as the game plays well. Though that’s where we have some issues with The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth and why we will lastly talk about the problems of the game.

As a whole, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth suffers from several problems in its single player campaign. The first is the flow of combat while playing The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth which feels slow paced and makes battles feel longer than they should. Several of the missions we played—especially the hold ones or extraction ones—just felt meticulous and if we died or had to restart we found ourselves sighing slightly. The more action heavy battles though were enjoyable and fun luckily, so we hope there are more of those missions in the final version of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth. We also want to state we couldn’t play multiplayer as no matter what time or day we went on—we tried the weekend and weekday with different times—we couldn’t find a single match via matchmaking. Thus, we find ourselves unable to comment much on the multiplayer component of The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth but know it contains 4 maps and two games modes being Deathmatch and Objective Mode.

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth isn’t a bad turn based title but it certainly isn’t the best we’ve seen here at Honey’s Anime. There are some interesting ideas such as the VR concept—which wasn’t available in the Early Access but will be the first Warhammer or 40k title to offer it—and the way you can alter your unit’s equipment and load out to make the perfect Ultramarine fighting force, though the slow pace of turn based mechanics fueled by the okay graphic makes The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth a title that needs some more work. We here at Honey’s Anime feel developer Steel Wool Studios can accomplish the fixes above and create a great game but for now we think there are better Warhammer games out there with similar ideas. Plus, with multiplayer options and the VR mode, if The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth gains more popularity we can see some fun matches going on which would help the game immensely.

The world of Warhammer and 40k aren’t complete strangers to turn based gameplay and while The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth offers up a few interesting ideas it ultimately feels like it needs a lot of work to make it stand with the other titles out there. Early Access doesn’t mean a game is done by any means but this is where developers like Steel Wool Studios need to realize what works in The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth and what doesn’t. Some polish here and there will make The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth possibly a great title but as it is at the moment, we aren’t too sold and we know diehard fans of both the board game and other 40k titles might feel the same. Let us know in the comments below if you’re thinking of buying The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth when it releases on the PC and or if you have also played the Early Access and what your thoughts are. Whether you agree or disagree comment below and sound off so we can hear your opinions. Remember for more Early Access previews and other gaming news keep stuck to our hive here at Honey’s Anime.