As I was discharging bolt rifle rounds with my two squadmates on the first level of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, I could not help but smile at how fantastic it felt to be back in this futuristic grimdark battle. Even though Space Marine 2 was released more than ten years ago, it manages to bring the squad-based shooter series back to life quite well. Running and gunning feels fantastic, the locations are varied and stunning, and fighting with your team—whether they be friends or bots—can foster a fierce sense of camaraderie. I had a great time playing through its twelve-hour campaign even though it did not innovate anything for its genre.
Let us address this first thing right away: It is obvious that Gears of War influenced the first Space Marine, and this sequel does the same. In this squad-based shooter, heavily armored guys fire firearms or swing Chainswords to slay extraterrestrial invaders while growling in conversation. I am not at all bothered by the parallels, especially in light of the possibility that Gears originally lifted ideas from Warhammer. Space Marine 2 makes its own unique identity by drawing heavily from the rich Warhammer 40k lore, something I have not done in years.
This is the case for the robust campaign, which can be played in solo or cooperative settings, as well as two extra modes designed to entice you to return after the credits roll. In these games, you can modify your armor and improve your weapons in between rounds.
the campaign places you squarely in the shoes of the first installment’s hero, Demetrian Titus. Whether you played the original game or not, it does a fantastic job of conveying all you need to know when it picks up more than a century later. Our stoic hero has not changed much in the century since we last saw him. He still has a gravelly voice and is an experienced soldier who, because of his genetically altered lifespan, does not seem to have aged at all. He has served in the Space Marines’ Deathwatch chapter, which does the most hazardous operations, for the past 100 years. Following a challenging first level in which you must use a “Virus Bomb,” your bravery and commitment are rewarded with your reassignment as a blue-armored Ultramarine.
Your team will visit fascinating locales on multiple planets as the tale progresses quickly and is more than adequate. Intriguing inter-squad conflict adds flavor to the story, and a few unexpected turns and twists take it in unexpected directions. Having said that, the entire affair is rather monochromatic: it is all very serious. Although I understand that there is a war going on and lives are at stake, a little comedy, even the kind of gallows humor that many other 40k games employ, would have been a welcome addition to the story.
There is enough variation in enemies to make me rarely get tired of blasting them.
By default, your two squadmates on missions are bots, but you can invite pals to take their place. The bots are useful allies who can help repel opponents and bring you back to life when you are wounded in combat. However, as is the case with most similar games, playing with friends is more enjoyable, and you may arrange this from the Battle Barge, your home base.
The Tyranids are humanity’s newest interstellar foe, replacing the vanished Orks from the first Space Marine. These extraterrestrial monsters can take many different shapes, ranging from massive Carnifex animals to swarms of smaller creatures resembling velociraptors or xenomorphs. To assault you and the other Imperial Guard soldiers, some of them can fly, while others swarm across the ground, stacking on top of one another to mount cliffs. As the story goes on, you will also come across additional opponent kinds, which offer enough variation that I seldom grew tired of destroying them using a variety of Imperial and extraterrestrial weapons.
You will be using guns and melee weapons for much of your time in Space Marine 2, therefore it is a good thing they feel pleasant to use. Between missions, you can switch up your loadout by starting with a different main weapon, sidearm, and close-combat accessory. Along with a plethora of weapon caches strewn throughout the levels, you can switch out sticky bombs, shock grenades that cause an electric area of effect, sniper rifles, power swords, flamethrowers, and plasma blasters. Every type of encounter has a weapon, but when you have to make a decision, you rarely know what lies ahead. However, there are often checkpoints, so even if you get erased, you can learn from it and make a better decision next time.
Any of those weapons will splatter blood in a gratifying way when you hit an adversary. When a larger enemy is about to die, it will become red, letting you use a gory finishing technique to take them down. Executions are useful since they replenish your shields. You can also use Medicare Stimms to heal yourself or activate Titus’s special ability, Righteous Fury, which increases your health bar while you cut through opponents with your melee weapon. I always like it when in a shooter, getting better is linked to hurting your opponents.
Space Marine 2’s movement feels fantastic just by itself. Walking feels suitably heavy because you are a massive, heavily armored soldier, but you are also more agile than in the last mission, so the weight is never too much to bear. It feels perfectly comfortable.
The dull brown and gray color scheme of the original Space Marine was one of its worst flaws; it was an unwise fad at the time it was released. Thankfully, the sequel’s settings are far livelier and more vibrant than the original. In certain stages, you must stomp through green, purple, and verdant alien worlds brimming with exotic vegetation. Others take place in grandiose cities filled with gothic structures and stained-glass windows. The art style is consistently exquisite, making it justifiable to abandon the previous generation of consoles no matter where your squad is stationed.
The majority of the places are still in conflict, with human warriors battling legions of foes in both the background and the front. There are moments when you are supporting squads of Astra Militarum soldiers while trailing a tank through a city’s ruins. against other times, platoons of soldiers would fire projectiles against swarms of flying Tyranids that resemble a murmur of starlings. Space Marine 2 gives the impression that there is a genuine war going on and that you are merely a small part of the effort, more so than most military games. Although I do not often take screenshots, I found myself going into picture mode on practically every level to capture the beauty.
Space Marine 2 offers more than just the campaign, which is a good enough portion of the game in and of itself. Apart from Titus’s story, there are two non-linear game modes that you can play: Operations and Eternal War. Both of these modes are interconnected.
Although Eternal War has a PvP mode, I was unable to test it out for this review due to the extremely small pre-launch population. I will provide my thoughts in a subsequent update. However, I was able to spend some time with Operations, which allows you to perform side missions that are handled by other teams while Titus does his thing and is explicitly mentioned in the main plot.
You can select from six different classes of Space Marine in both Operations and Eternal War, each with unique loadout possibilities and special powers. Vanguard has a grapple launcher to draw himself into close-quarters combat; Assault has the Jump Pack that Titus uses periodically in the campaign; Heavy receives a bubble shield; Sniper has a limited-use camouflage cloak; Bulwark plants a banner flag that restores the shields of any nearby squad members; and Tactical, which can use an Auspex Scan to highlight and weaken enemies, among others. Using each ability in battle is enjoyable and beneficial.
It is a lot of fun to upgrade your weaponry and add decorations to your armor when you play these modes since you earn different currencies. For every piece of armor you acquire, you can find a ton of interesting charms and emblems to go along with new colors that correspond to the many Space Marine chapters. You may accessorize your fellow with chains, skulls, and other embellishments that would not seem out of place on the cover of a heavy metal album. Almost all of the colors are awesome.
The Operations levels are a touch less thrilling than the campaign’s since they are not all that different from the latter and even take place in the same settings. There are presently six missions available, and although completing them once was enjoyable, particularly with a group of friends, I do not feel particularly motivated to do them again, not even to gain money to improve my armor and weaponry. Although the developer Saber Interactive’s post-launch roadmap promises more modes, including the PvP Eternal War mode, I am still excited to give them a try. However, for now, the PvE options are more of a quick laugh than a mode I will regularly play.
Verdict
Great third-person shooter Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 features an engaging story, an abundance of fun-to-use weapons, and a diverse array of adversaries to take out. Once more, it takes a lot of inspiration from the Gears of War series, but Space Marine 2 does a great job of adapting these themes to suit its own needs. And if the post-launch enhancements go as planned, the extensive personalization choices for your Space Marine do seem intriguing, even though the accompanying Operations PvE game does not now offer enough to keep me coming back. Besides, it is difficult to be dissatisfied when you are slaughtering aliens on planets as beautiful.
