It’s the sequel that many of us wanted but never dreamed would happen. Over 13 years ago now we got introduced to the original Space Marine game and, for me at least, it set the bar for games that want you to indulge in that super soldier power fantasy. Many other games have come and gone in this IP since then and none really managed to capture that same core of brutal, unrelenting action that I found so enjoyable. To say hopes were high for this title would be an understatement to say the least and whilst Space Marine 2 hits a lot of the right notes it’s managed to already trip over its own feet many times.
It has been some 100 years since the events of the original Space Marine and Captain Titus now finds himself as a servant of the Deathwatch chapter. Sent to a tyranid infested world to save the adeptus mechanicus and their Project Aurora he quickly finds himself as the only survivor. He manages to launch the viral bomb, pushing back the invasion, but is mortally wounded in the process. However his life is saved by going through the Rubicon Primaris procedure, uplifting his capabilities to that of his newly minted Space Marine brothers. He is then sent back to his original chapter to complete his redemption and continue to assist in the realisation of Project Aurora.
I am very much a fan of 40k’s gothic, grimdark aesthetic and it’s on full display here in Space Marine 2. The environments are overflowing with detail with many of them featuring absolutely epic backdrops to the main levels. Much like the original this is done to give you the insane sense of scale that the 40k universe covers, giving you that impression that you’re just a small cog in a much more vast machine. This isn’t one of those games that’s good from afar but far from good though as the claustrophobic environments you get thrown into every so often are given just as much care as the big set pieces are. Performance remains good throughout as well, even when you’re being swarmed with giant numbers of enemies. The sound work is also worth mentioning too with the foley giving you a real sense of weight to all the interactions (I am absolutely in love with the sound the Melta Gun makes).
The campaign follows the original’s footsteps, giving a more modern flavour to everything. Whilst it’s still a third person shooter at its core, there’s more ancillary mechanics that add a bit more diversity to the overall experience. For those who don’t play soulsborne games you’ll quickly get familiar with dodge rolling, parrying and managing your health between checkpoints. There’s a variety of weapons to choose from with a few heavy type weapons that you can pick up for a particular section. The main game has no real progression per se, but you do unlock additional abilities and weapon types as the game goes on. Of course this wouldn’t be a modern shooter without some kind of live service aspect to it, but at least it’s done in a way that both ties into the main game and provides a lot more variety to the space marine experience.
Combat is, honestly, fantastic. You’ll be placed in front of endless hordes of tyranids and chaos, given as many bolts as you can carry and let loose to decimate them. You’ll quickly figure out which weapons suit your playstyle the best and for the campaign that ended up being a mid-range all-rounder for me. The co-op is a completely different matter though as you have a much larger selection of weapons and abilities to choose from and, should you have a crew you play with, selecting complementary equipment and skills is almost a necessity. Whilst you’ll never become the unstoppable killing machine that you were back in the original it is a far more interactive experience, requiring much more of you as a player. That doesn’t take away from the power fantasy though as a well executed parry into dodge roll then bolting an extremis right in the face is a very, very satisfying thing to do.
Progression in the co-op operations, in which you play as the “other team” that is alongside you in the main campaign, feels a bit slower than it should be. Granted I wasn’t rinsing this game for multiple hours each night but it did feel like it was taking me longer to unlock levels in things than it did in other comparable games. Most of the things you’ll unlock are minor upgrades from a game perspective, but given the right build crafting they could all add up to something pretty powerful. I definitely noticed a bump in the effectiveness of the melta gun once I’d tweaked my settings slightly. It also helps that the operations themselves are pretty fun too, so the slower progression isn’t as big of an issue.
What was the issue though, was the bugs.
My crew, like many others, experienced the dreaded getting kicked back to the launch bay area bug. Initially this was just an annoyance as once you knew to go back to the launch bay square thing the trigger would go off again and you’d be into the mission. However a follow up patch made this worse by then keeping your screen black during this whole process, meaning we’d either be stumbling around in the dark for 5 minutes trying to make it load or simply give up and try to load in again. We’ve yet to go back to the game since the last patch to see if that part is fixed, but in all honesty I don’t think we will be any time soon.
Because, frankly, it looks like they’ve made the game less fun for no reason. Whilst I don’t envy anyone who has the task of balancing games like this it’s safe to say that most people don’t enjoy it when you take their power fantasy away. I get that you want to encourage players to try all things, and hopefully to make them all viable, but bringing other things up is a much better approach than dragging other things down. To their credit the devs appear to be listening but it feels like a rather sad state of affairs when the game can be so well received on launch to hit the pavement so hard in their first major patch release.
I’m in two minds about the game’s narrative. On the one hand it feels like an organic progression of Titus’ narrative, one marred by trying to do the right thing whilst remaining loyal to the emperor and the Codex Astartes. On the other it kind feels like it’s treading the same ground as the original without making much progress on any front. To be fair this is kind of 40k’s schtick, with infinite numbers of similar stories happening all across the imperium but none of them really changing the galactic scale conflict that’s occurring elsewhere. I will say though that some of the interactions were unintentionally hilarious though with a friend aptly describing most of the interactions having “divorced dad energy”. They don’t seem to know why they’re angry, they just are.
Is Space Marine 2 a worthy successor? I would say so as it took the decade+ old game, gave it a modern incarnation and continued a narrative that many of us thought we’d never see any more of. It’s exceptionally well crafted, from the visuals to the viscerally satisfying game play that tickles all the right parts of my brain. It can’t seem to get out of its own way though, with a persistent game breaking issue on the co-op side along with balance changes that have left the community extremely frustrated. I’ll still recommend people play it but it’s probably one of the fastest games to go from “grab it now” to “you won’t miss out on anything if you wait for a sale”.
Rating: 8.75/10
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S right now for $89.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 14.1 hours playtime and 38% of the achievements unlocked.
