Games to Play While You Wait For Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters finally releases on the 5th of May this year — that’s still almost a month away! So what will you play until that day comes? Luckily for you, I have a list of other games that you should check out right now; keep in mind these are not exactly the same as Warhammer but should tide you over until May.

In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you are in command of a secret paramilitary group known as XCOM. As the leader of this group, you will have to fight against a global alien invasion by creating a base, managing resources, researching cosmic technologies, and using various combat tactics and strategies to take down the alien enemy to save the Earth.  

The narrative in the game is great, and being able to name your team members and customise them makes it all the more tragic when they die in battle; many will surely be named after friends and family members, making those deaths extra brutal. You can always name a new soldier after the one you lost, but it’s never quite the same. It’s refreshing to play a game where your crew isn’t just a bunch of cannon fodder.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 has gorgeous watercolour-like visuals, and a great story to accompany it: one of a continent that is taken over by war; and the childhood friends that have to fight together to take on the waves of imperial soldiers, brutal blizzards, and the incredibly powerful Valkyria to save their home.  

The game is part RPG, part real-time third-person shooter, and part overhead turn-based strategy. There are multiple classes to use for your fighters along with a multitude of offensive and defensive support options, and the chance to use a “Last Stand” action before death makes this a fun and unique title to play. Will the friends feel the pain of war, or will they be victorious and defeat the enemy?

RimWorld is a sci-fi colony sim that starts with three survivors of a shipwreck on a distant world — they are stranded on the procedurally generated planet they are currently on. Players choose their starting story scenario and all the characters on the planet are then randomly generated, with positive or negative traits that can help or hinder your mission. To be successful, the player has to first create or find a broken-down spaceship on the planet; the decisions you make matter and will affect the rest of the game.

Once you create or find this ship, you will have to defend it for 15 days as other inhabitants of the planet try to take control of it; you succeed when the ship is launched. Your AI system will guide you to another planet, which may be located within the same solar system, or the AI may take you on a long journey to a different star; you will never know until you wake up!