In the grim darkness of the far future there are, if we’re honest, mainly lots and lots of little quests. Warhammer 40,000: Lost Crusade (download from the App Store and Google Play Store) is a game that grows by increments. …
In the grim darkness of the far future there are, if we’re honest, mainly lots and lots of little quests. Warhammer 40,000: Lost Crusade (download from the App Store and Google Play Store) is a game that grows by increments. You’ll spend your time fighting skirmishes, adding to your battle-barge base and unlocking new heroes to send out to secure the glory of the Emperor of Mankind.
What we’re looking at here is a riff on the classic Clash of Clans formula, with a few twists thrown in for good measure – more on those later – and a slathering of Games Workshop’s gothic space knights plopped on top of everything.
With that aesthetic comes the poe-faced intensity of the Space Marines. There are, it’s fair to say, not that many jokes here. There is, however, a lot of resource management. Those resources range from silly-named future fuel to units of stomping mechanical warriors.
To the game’s credit, it does try to hold things together with a story and a series of regular challenges. You always know what you need to do next, whether it’s popping out on a brief mission or upgrading one of the aspects of your ever-growing space-base.
The missions are probably the most innovative part of the game. Instead of unleashing your forces then sitting back and crossing your fingers, you actually have some input here. Your units are represented by cards, and you can play them when your recharging power bar hits the right level.
Your hero characters, who are basically bigger and meaner versions of your grunts with faux-latin names, have special skills that use the energy in your power bar too. A lot of the battle might be decided by how tough you are before you start, but it’s nice to feel like you’ve got some say over the outcome.
Warhammer 40,000: Lost Crusade is a beefy attempt at making something pretty lite. It’s all skulls and gloom and horrifying mutations, but that doesn’t quite translate to the plinky plonk rhythm of the tap-to-do-stuff gameplay.
There’s strategy here, of course, but if you’re used to the likes of Dawn of War or the tabletop game itself then you’re going to feel a bit short changed. And if you’re not a fan of Games Workshop, well, it’s hard to imagine you’re that excited about a game that’s dense in lore and shallow in originality.
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