Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach

Did You Know?

• The game was announced on August 2, 2016, with a planned release before the end of 2016.
• On November 29, 2016, the release was delayed to January 19, 2017.
• Three downloadable content packs were released: Legacy of the Weirdboy, Sons of Cadia, and Horrors of the Warp.

Reception

Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Quest landed to a mixed reception from critics, as reflected by its "mixed or average" score on Metacritic. GameSpot's Daniel Starkey described it as mediocre at its best and frustrating at its worst. Rock Paper Shotgun's Fraser Brown praised the unit and faction design along with the flexible mechanics, but felt they were let down by a campaign that needed improvement and objectives that were too often reused. Strategy Gamer's Joe Robinson offered a more positive take, calling it a solid and satisfyingly tactical turn-based strategy game set in the grimdark future, with only minor teething issues. He later reviewed the second DLC, Sons of Cadia, noting that while it could feel like more of a slog compared to other campaigns, the developers' creativity and reverence for the setting still shone through in moments of glory. Alex Connolly, also writing for Strategy Gamer, reviewed the third DLC, Horrors of the Warp, and suggested that if Straylight could refine the finicky interface and bring more flair to map and mission design—matching the quality of the unit models—such expansions would truly excel. As it was, he found the expansion merely good, with enjoyment depending on one's affinity for Chaos. In a retrospective, PC Gamer's Jody Macgregor summed up the game as not bad but basic, criticizing the presentation—from unit types to animations to level details—as feeling like the absolute minimum, which clashed with Warhammer 40K's ethos of maximalism.