Hello this is the written review Steam Curator: TotalHabile
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXBiV3dni8c&ab_channel=TotalHabile


Base Information
Game Genre: Strategy
Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Cross-Platform Mutiplayer
Platform: PC
Developer: Proxy Studios
Publisher: Slitherine Ltd
Version of Review: 1.8.4
MSRP: $39.99 USD
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Final Grade: C
Playtime: Varies between settings
Total Playtime: 15.5



Gladius is designed as a top down 4x strategy game. The four Xs meaning to Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate. The player will choose one side and essentially expand their chosen faction until all other factions have been exterminated.

In the base game, you can select one of four factions with the other factions sold separately at a rather steep rate if I may add. In your forty dollars purchase you receive the Imperial Guard (the Starship troopers of the Universe), Orks (which are just space orcs,) Necrons (ancient Egyptian terminators), and the poster boys of the series, the Space Marines (imagine Armies of Hulk Hogan covered in 50 trucks worth of metal that fight space devils).

The game is set in the absurd Warhammer 40,000 Universe, a fictional setting of the distant ‘grimdark’ future made for a tabletop war game that gets semi canon rewrites on the occasion while being own by an uncaring company.


The Gameplay can be simply summarized in this gameplay cycle, Research, City Improvement, Unit Production, and Expansion.
You will research technologies to gain either a bonus to resources, unlock certain abilities, or unlock new units and buildings to produce. City Improvement only serves to increase yields of resources to allow the player to increase the unit production which leads towards further expansion across the map.

This gameplay style is more akin to a stripped-down version of Sid Meier’s Civilization series of games. Practically everything this game has Civilization has and then some. It is blatant that this game takes several queues from Civilization 5, everything from the hex grid of the map, the non-stackable military units, City improvements, Citizen growth and research. Gameplay can be summarized as simply a Civilization 5 with domination victory only enabled with Warhammer 40,000 painted over top.

The game does give the strategy level some flavor with each faction by giving them a few unique gimmicks to give more variation between the factions other than the visual aspects of them. For example, the Imperial Guard has inexpensive infantry, long range artillery and abilities to increase resource yields for your cities.

Though this does go a long way in helping to create more dynamic gameplay between the factions, I believe it needs a little more to become more strategic. The reason why is because it shares the same problem with civilization 5’s problem with combat, you just out produce and drown your enemy in a sea of combat units.

If I can apply the same strategy to every faction, then there might be something wrong with the factions and how they are setup.
One thing to add is that the maximum number of ai in the game is 15 with the player being the sixteenth player, so if you like to do a large-scale arena strategy game fight then this game does have that going for it.


Although story in this game is nonexistent, there is enough to explain why each faction is there in a cutscene the lasts at most a paragraph. In short, the chosen faction lands on the planet and must fight and conquer said planet.

Other than that, don’t expect anything story related or anything else that could bring new light to Warhammer 40,000. The game does give little optional quests to your faction which seems to showcase certain abilities but are not required to finish to complete your campaign.

One little touch I honestly liked was that when you meet a faction in game for the first time you get a little introduction piece written in form to suit the faction.

For example, if you were T’au and you meet the Chaos Space Marines, they will reference that they are fallen warriors and draw parallels to their own like Commander Farsight. I like that angle they had but its only used in these instances only once. I honestly wish there was more attention to detail like this spread throughout the rest of the game.


There isn’t much to write about the visual and sound design as the visual design is strictly based of Games Workshop’s intellectual property and the sounds the accompany it feel rather bare bones and is only serviceable. Nothing seems to standout, noting seems to be impactful. For example, when you fire a shotgun, you should get a sense of power from the sound, while the artillery and the sci-fi sound in the game just seems a tad generic.


When looking at the price to content on offer for $39.99 USD, you get the framework to play the game, 1 game mode, and four factions. This would be alright for an indie game but do understand that this game came out in 2018 and is 3 almost 4-year-old game. Games usually depreciate; thus, their barrier entry will be lowered. Not for this game as it a licensed product meaning that it will never drop in price unless it is on sale. This includes the downloadable content that is already overprice for what you get.

Let’s say you play the T’au on the Tabletop variant of Warhammer 40,000. Well, if you like to play them in the game you would first have to purchase the base game then the faction themselves for additional fifteen dollars. So just for those two things alone is fifty-five dollars. That is only with one piece of the downloadable content. To me that is not worth it.

To add insult to injury if you do not purchase any Downloadable content, you will still them in your game but inaccessible which makes the game feel less whole for what you pay for. There is a reason why a good number of other games hides content you don’t own. You don’t want the end user feeling like their getting nickeled and dimed at every possible second. If that does happen it only devalues your game.

Back to price to content, why is each faction fifteen dollars. When I make a purchase, I base the downloadable content base off the original asking price for the game. going off that each faction should be around six dollars but when it starts asking around a third of price of the game for a single faction that is an instant no.

Better yet when it comes to downloadable content there is DLC for your DLC. Like let’s say you play another faction that is not in base game, you don’t get all units for that faction as their content packs locks away a unit or two behind a paywall. Units should never be sectioned off into separate content packs from their faction. That is scummy, almost Electronic Arts level of Scummy business practices.

Gameplay gets stale very fast after one or two games. Unless you want to play all the factions or have friends to play with, this game will mostly likely be played once and forgotten about. For what it does there more competent games that do it better and at a cheaper price.

For 40$ you get a stripped-down overpriced version of Civilization, the only reason why you would get and play this is because its Warhammer related, other then that please look elsewhere to spend your money.

I want to close this on the fact that they sell digital wallpapers for 2 dollars, something you get for free by other game developers and you can’t even leave a review on it. I’m surprised I don’t have to pay for patch notes.