Battlefleet Gothic: Armada

 PC
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 128 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 85 out of 128
  2. Mixed: 25 out of 128
  3. Negative: 18 out of 128
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  1. ZaPaAl
    Jul 14, 2016
    6
    The scenery, the ships, atmosphere and voices are great. Gameplay is fun at first.
    Sadly, the story is thin and often not really presented, just some text and voice.
    Campaign has around 31-33 stages with about 2-4 turns (battles) each. You can more or less choose which battle to play, but almost every battle is one out of a total pool of about 5-6 mission types. Only the ships and    The scenery, the ships, atmosphere and voices are great. Gameplay is fun at first.
    Sadly, the story is thin and often not really presented, just some text and voice.
    Campaign has around 31-33 stages with about 2-4 turns (battles) each. You can more or less choose which battle to play, but almost every battle is one out of a total pool of about 5-6 mission types. Only the ships and numbers change. The battles are fun, but the fun very soon starts dwindling away with that much repetition. Not much to do otherwise, except choosing and upgrading ships with minor differences and adjustments.
    Although I only played single player, I don't think multiplayer is very much different.    … Expand
  2. Soulslizer
    Apr 24, 2016
    7
    As a fan of RTS genre with numerous space combat games behind me this game has it's eyes on the mark, but does not quite hit it, yet!
    While the game is complete it has a lot of opportunity to become truly awesome which the game has only tapped into and on some parts just scratched the bare surface.
  3. SigilFey
    Nov 6, 2016
    5
    Disappointing. While I am not very familiar with the tabletop version of Battlefleet, I can safely safely say that this game is a nearly complete letdown. I am very familiar with past PC titles like Starfleet Command, Starpoint Gemini, and Homerworld. The game very much tries to capture the real-time micromanagement of ships and systems that made these games such a joy to play.Disappointing. While I am not very familiar with the tabletop version of Battlefleet, I can safely safely say that this game is a nearly complete letdown. I am very familiar with past PC titles like Starfleet Command, Starpoint Gemini, and Homerworld. The game very much tries to capture the real-time micromanagement of ships and systems that made these games such a joy to play. Organizing your fleets and maneuvering carefully...executing special abilities and utilizing unique ship systems...using environmental "terrain" in the form asteroids or nebula to your advantage...

    However, once again, we have bunch of amateur developers floundering around with a novel concept, trying in vain to pad the oh-so-important "length" of their game and make it more "marketable" by a.) establishing clear rules and mechanics, then b.) immediately allowing the computer AI to cheat and ignore those rules and mechanics in a pitiful attempt to simulate "difficulty".

    Who will -LOVE- this?

    + Die-hard fans of Warhammer 40K Battlefleet.
    + Gamers that enjoy puzzle-based, reload / retry systems.
    + Players looking to exclusively focus on the game's skirmish or multiplayer modes.

    Who will -HATE- this?

    - Players looking for a quality, fleet-based combat game.
    - Gamers that want a single-player game that challenges their strategic and tactical ability.
    - Anyone who finds repeating almost every level of a game 3-10 times annoying.

    What the game does, in practice, is continuously set players up to fail if they try to play according to what they were taught. For example, one of the first things introduced in the tutorial is the mechanic by which enemy craft are unidentified "blips" until something actually brings them into radar range. You may be able to deduce the class of ship you're seeing based on the speed and maneuverability of a blip, but you can't tell exactly what it is until you get closer and can actually "see" it. Then, you're introduced to a mechanic by which ships in nebula are hidden from view -- even their blips -- until they emerge.

    These are stock-standard elements of the genre being reintroduced, and players will naturally assume that these mechanics can be used to mask / hide ships...just like you could successfully employ in games made 15 years ago. But almost immediately, everything starts falling apart. One of the first missions you have to accomplish is escorting 3 trade vessels from one side of a map to the other. The mission briefing even specifically informs the player that splitting up the transports will increase their chances of survival. Well...of course! The player can just use nebula and leap-frog the trade transports from point to point, keeping the enemy guessing...right? Or you can create 3 small groups and ensure they all travel the same speed, so the enemy will have no idea where the actual transports are...right? Or I can hide the main group and send a transport off on its own to draw off the attackers...right?

    Nope! As soon as the mission begins, the enemy (Orks, in this case) know exactly where your transports are and B-line for the nearest. Are they hidden as blips? Nope. Are they hidden by nebula? Nope. And these Ork craft are SUPER Ork craft, able to withstand all critical hits resist outrageous levels of damage. Even though I targeted the engines of their ships on 12 consecutive playthroughs of this mission, several times using both of my destroyers and all 3 frigates concentrating their fire on one Ork destroyer...did I ever, in 12 tries, even once, disable their engines? Nope. See, that's been disabled for this mission so that it's "challenging". And the transports, well, they move at about 50% the speed of all other ships. Because they're heavy, I guess. In space. And Ork boarding parties are automatically successful in this mission -- auto-destroying critical systems and starting fires, even when the little floating message above the victim ship clearly displays "Boarding Failed". Because letting the AI cheat adds "difficulty" and "length" to the game, see?

    And so it continues as the campaign progresses. I played 10 missions, and it never got better. It got a lot worse, but it never improved even a little bit. This is not a fleet-based tactical game. This is a puzzle game that requires the player to know in advance how the AI will cheat. It's like playing chess against a 6-year-old that claims, um, for the next game, uh, he gets 3 Queens to start, and, uhhh, you can't use Pawns to take Queens, and, ummm, every other turn he gets to move 2 pieces at once...! See? Now the game is "hardcore".

    Graphics are very nice. Sound design is fair. Voice acting ranges from acceptable to ear-bleeding horrible. (I want to put the Imperial Commissar out the airlock.) Interface functions, but nothing great nor innovative. Multiplayer is really the game's only selling point, but you won't play more than a match or two at a time.

    Largely garbage. Pass.    … Expand
  4. Captain_Chaos
    Nov 14, 2016
    7
    An adaptation of the Battlefleet Gothic specalist minitures game, Armada was created by, like many recent Warhammer 40,000-derived titles in the post-THQ age, what appeared to me to be a largely unproven developer. Also like many recent 40k games, it is an ok game that falls short of being a great one.

    Thankfully for me, a strong point is in it's campaign: a tale of the famous Gothic    An adaptation of the Battlefleet Gothic specalist minitures game, Armada was created by, like many recent Warhammer 40,000-derived titles in the post-THQ age, what appeared to me to be a largely unproven developer. Also like many recent 40k games, it is an ok game that falls short of being a great one.

    Thankfully for me, a strong point is in it's campaign: a tale of the famous Gothic War, where Failba-er, Abaddon the Despoiler led his 12th Black Crusade against the Imperium's Gothic Sector in an attempt to gain control of the six Blackstone Fortresses, immense and ancient space stations with the firepower to destroy entire star systems. Through the eyes of original character Admiral Spire, you command the Imperial Navy in battle against Chaos, Ork and Eldar fleets, with branching paths and persistent game flow regardless of the outcome of individual battles, allowing things to go better or worse then they canonically did. The 40k mainstays of Gregorian chanting over thundering orchestras and overacting faux-Englishmen help to set the feel.

    However, certain parts of the actual gameplay fall short in portraying the scale and intensity of this war and, I feel, of the setting in general. Gameplay is strictly fleet tactics- there is no base-building or resource gathering, or any other aspects of an RTS. Battles are restricted to a two-dimensional plane and limited by an arbitrary "point value" as in the tabletop game, severely limiting the size of the fleet in each engagement, and for whatever reason, you are almost always outnumbered by enemy vessels. Towards the campaign's endgame I was able to field only my four most experienced ships against Abaddon's infamous Planet Killer, not to mention his infinitely respawning escorts.

    Combat is extremely micromanagement-heavy, sometimes necessitating the use of the game's bullet-time function. Only your ships basic weapons are automated, requiring you to manage active abilities, heavy weapons such as torpedoes, strike craft, emergency maneuvers and virtually everything else directly. The AI is not smart enough to avoid stage hazards such as minefields and asteroids, or to dodge a speeding Ork Kroozer, though this goes for the enemies as well. The more upgrades and skills you install on your ships to give them greater survivability and lethality, the more difficult it becomes to get the most out of them- so perhaps it is better that you have fewer ships. Still, I preferred Sins of a Solar Empire's fleet combat. Armada's tutorial did not adequately explain all the game features, so much so that I was not aware that automating your abilities made them as efficient as those used by your AI opponents until after I had finished the campaign. Still, I was very proud of myself whenever I manually broadsided a Chaos ship with a full spread of my Retribution-class battleship's torpedoes.

    There are a number of other modes, including online multiplayer, custom games, and skirmish vs. AI, allowing for a second player for coop, as well as post-release DLCs that add Space Marine and, if you're into them, Tau fleets.    … Expand
  5. acestealth
    Apr 24, 2016
    5
    They have all the right elements of a tactical warhammer space combat game here, but needs a lot of tweaking.

    Looks For a 2016 release I expected a bit more from the graphics. Its not bad, but when compared to the effects from another rts hybrid such as Sins of a Solar Empire released ages ago its hard to notice a difference not that impressive for a universe that should glory in the    They have all the right elements of a tactical warhammer space combat game here, but needs a lot of tweaking.

    Looks
    For a 2016 release I expected a bit more from the graphics. Its not bad, but when compared to the effects from another rts hybrid such as Sins of a Solar Empire released ages ago its hard to notice a difference not that impressive for a universe that should glory in the details and atmosphere. This is on Ultra settings, I can only imagine if you have to turn them down. Especially when you zoom into the details on the ships which although glorious in their warhammer gothic feel, leave something to be desired. Maybe some flapping banners (i know space doesn't work like that, but realism isn't exactly what we are looking for here).

    Gameplay
    All the right elements, tactical ship combat, broadsides, ramming, upgrades, some rpg tacked on. Its a warhammer pirate wet dream. Except it gets bogged down. Aside from torpedoes, ramming, and some inaccurate special abilities with long cooldowns, most weapons feel rather underwhelming in their damage potential. This combined with very limited number of ships you bring to fights, especially in the early game, makes for a slugfest. Combine that with the fact that coordinating the many manouvers and special abilities even among a small number of ships requires a lot of time slowing especially against the computer. It makes what should be epic carnage a grindish affair.

    Then there are the ship upgrades. You will see a handful of good ones, a few essential ones, and many that just aren't worth it. What's worse is even though the game wants to encourage specialization many times whats best for one ship is best for them all. Especially given with few ships, most are always going to be in the thick of fighting and not playing much in the way of specialized roles in fighting aside from squishy escort and with the ships of the line following the small tank, big tank, bigger tank roles.    … Expand
  6. Emphatic
    Apr 22, 2016
    6
    Cool mechanics and a decent story seem to get bogged down with performance issues, perhaps after a few patches this will be a solid entry. For now pass until the game receives some crash and bug fixes.
  7. asdfjaffsdgk
    Sep 7, 2016
    5
    The gameplay is awesome, but the content and features are extremely lacking. The singleplayer "campaign" is extremely boring and the multiplayer lacks features. A huge waste of potential.
  8. Olrikus
    May 4, 2016
    5
    To all haters who dislike my review, I am a huge fan of 40k and at the same time I will not eat any substance just because it has Warhammer mark on it.

    Can I recommend it? It is a difficult question since nothing is terribly wrong with this game as well as nothing is particularly good. I personally will prefer to play old Dark Omen (single player of course). Battlefleet: Gothic actually    To all haters who dislike my review, I am a huge fan of 40k and at the same time I will not eat any substance just because it has Warhammer mark on it.

    Can I recommend it? It is a difficult question since nothing is terribly wrong with this game as well as nothing is particularly good. I personally will prefer to play old Dark Omen (single player of course). Battlefleet: Gothic actually has many in common with it except the gameplay is way worse and it is really painful for me to say. Real time map is absolutely flat and details like nebulas and asteroids just don't add to gameplay much. With little variety in mission types it became boring and monotonous quickly. Turn based part is good but it is difficult to imagine how this part could be sux anyway.

    Maybe with time it will become better, BGE has a good potential, but as of now I can't recommend the game for it's full price.

    PROs
    - Warhammer 40k art
    - Campaign atmosphere, dialogs and movies.
    - Turn base global part and fleet management

    Mixed
    - Okayish real time campaign missions. Except for a few battles, all missions are based on few templates and became monotonous.
    - Okayish graphics.
    - Fleet size in both multiplayer and single player is rather small.

    CONs
    - Awful tutorial
    - You can't skip cutscenes in the begining of the missions.
    - Mission Design? Never heard of it.
    - Lack of gameplay variety
    - Game mechanics requires a lot of tuning and polish
    - Multiplayer... In it's current state not for me.    … Expand
  9. ShodanSpectre
    Feb 15, 2018
    6
    The game greets you with over-the-top W40K style and atmosphere. It lacks any character models and all cutscenes are basically voiced over slide shows. The "slides" are well drawn.

    There is little backstory of what the heck happened but that's excuseable for a W40K game in 2016 to expect a new player to be familiar with the lore of the world. The graphics are okay, although rather    The game greets you with over-the-top W40K style and atmosphere. It lacks any character models and all cutscenes are basically voiced over slide shows. The "slides" are well drawn.

    There is little backstory of what the heck happened but that's excuseable for a W40K game in 2016 to expect a new player to be familiar with the lore of the world.

    The graphics are okay, although rather simple. It doesn't really feel like a AAA 2016 title, more like an indie title, or a 2006-ish game, but that's fine for me too.

    Where it lacks most is the maps and gameplay. Maps are very small and flat. Basically square maps with very little features - only some nebulae that are supposed to mask ships and asteroid fields which do a bit of damage to ships and can get the AI stuck for a bit trying to go around them.

    The game is very micro-heavy. One would think commanding a cruiser would be a little more strategic, but given the small, flat, mostly empty square maps, and the scripted nature of battles - there isn't a whole lot of strategic positioning or planning to be done. The enemy just spawns at predefined points on the map and does it's thing, there is no way to disrupt or alter the scripted flow.

    After playing games like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade - this feels like a letdown.

    The character icons you see (Commissar, Navigator, Master gunner, etc, as well as captains of your other vessels) - are based on like 5 or so different heads slapped onto the same body. All of them are purposely disgusting-looking, that is somewhat explained by the W40K lore and style. Still, in Dawn of War the main characters weren't so revolting.

    There's a plethora of various upgrades, gadgets and stuff to add to your ships, perks to give to various crew members that increase stats etc, but the core gameplay resembles that of a mobile game.

    Also, did I mention that the game was microcontrol-heavy? So each ship has abilities such as left/right evasive maneuvers, or switching from normal to full throttle mode. which have to be used manually. In addition, there are about 12 active skills to use. On each ship. Of which there are 4 even on the 2nd mission. It's really impossible to use most of them effectively. The amount of manual, real-time control would have been appropriate if there was only one ship to control all the time. Not 4. As a veteran EVE-online player I know how to multitask and control many ships simultaneously to be a 1-man army - but here that's expected of an average player. Also, while EVE has strategic planning and depth - this game does not even try.

    Overall - this may be an ok game to play for a die-hard W40K fan. But I don't feel like playing though on Hard mode would be a rewarding experience. It's one of those games that gains difficulty from just throwing absurd amounts of enemies at you, rather than providing a sophisticated challenge.

    As for stability - well, I had one CTD in about 3 hours I've played it so far, so that's that.

    Didn't notice any other bugs or glitches so far either.    … Expand
  10. Kiseki
    Sep 3, 2016
    7
    Decent fleet action with a basic story. The combat is nice but leaves some to be desired. The scale of battle is not as big as it could be. The points system which restricts the number of ships to be deployed and the power of ships that can be deployed doesnt work out very well. The "fleet" is just too small. Homeworld 2 is still a better game.

    The currency used to unlock ships upgrades    Decent fleet action with a basic story. The combat is nice but leaves some to be desired. The scale of battle is not as big as it could be. The points system which restricts the number of ships to be deployed and the power of ships that can be deployed doesnt work out very well. The "fleet" is just too small. Homeworld 2 is still a better game.

    The currency used to unlock ships upgrades etc is a bit too scarce. It doesnt allow you to swap around your configuration much at all. Some of the common missions are not designed too well. If you play normal mode and win all your battles you end up with too many "favors" that are just useless. But an abundance is alot better than shortage.

    There are alot of things that can be polished in this game. The story while its ok it isnt something I desire to see a sequel.    … Expand
  11. Bloodnes
    Feb 5, 2021
    5
    Довольно скучная игра, вообще не впечатлила, графика в космических рейнджерах будет поприятней, в целом 5/10 банальная леталка в виде стратегии

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 36 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 36
  3. Negative: 0 out of 36
  1. Riot Pixels
    Sep 11, 2016
    72
    Battlefleet Gothic: Armada is really eager to eat your time, and, since this game is chock-full of micromanagement, it can be too overwhelming at times. It can also be a lot of fun when you play online with actual people, so pick it up if you're looking for fresh multiplayer experiences.
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  2. CD-Action
    Jun 29, 2016
    85
    It’s not just the best game set in Warhammer 40,000 universe we’ve seen in years, but also the best modern space strategy. I need to warn you though – it is brutally difficult. [06/2016, p.48]
  3. games(TM)
    Jun 26, 2016
    70
    A great use of the Warhammer license. [Issue#175, p.83]
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