Space Marine 2 brings Warhammer 40,000 fans a great gaming experience

GHENT, WV (WVNS) – Space Marine 2 is a game many fans of Warhammer 40,000 have looked forward to for a long time. Ever since the game was announced back in December of 2021, Warhammer fans have eagerly watched new trailers and gameplay videos and waited with bated breath to see if this new game would live up to the legacy of the original.

Space Marine 2 is a game more than a decade in the making, coming out just over 13 years after its predecessor. When it takes that long for a sequel to come out, there are always concerns about whether it’s going to be good or do well.

The game is out now, and the verdict is in – Space Marine 2 is a great game, receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews from users on Steam and from sites like IGN. Of course, talking about critic scores is one thing, but what’s the game experience like to someone who loved the original game and loves Warhammer 40,000? Does it really live up to the hype?  Personally, I think it does. And here’s why.

The game very much takes the approach of ‘it’s not broke, so don’t fix it.’ It draws heavily on the relatively simple but very satisfying gameplay of its predecessor. A third person shooter, the game re-introduces us to Titus of the Ultramarines, the main character of the original game. We catch back up with Titus as he is rejoining the Ultramarines after spending the past century serving with the Deathwatch.

Instead of the original game’s Ork enemies, we find ourselves fighting Tyranids, a monstrous alien race made up of inhuman creatures and guided along its purpose by an inscrutable hive mind. The developers did a great job portraying these creatures, from the small, scurrying Hormagaunts that try to swarm you and bury you under a mass of bodies to the larger, more imposing Tyranid Warriors. These creatures come in many varieties, from close combat specialists that charge in close to sniper type varieties who stand back with their big guns. There are other enemy types as well, but I don’t want to spoil anything, so we’ll leave it there for now.

The gameplay itself is very satisfying. Titus moves like you would expect an 8 foot tall super soldier in what amounts to main battle tank armor to move like. Each step has weight, and when you run, it’s like a little rumble of thunder. Just like in the original game, you can quickly switch between your primary gun and your melee weapon, allowing you to slash at enemies with an assortment of melee weapons if they get too close before easily switching back to your ranged weapon to keep thinning out the swarm.

There’s a very rudimentary parry and dodge system reminiscent of some of the Soulslike games, allowing you to get some cool pistol execution moves if you time a parry correctly. Speaking of execute moves, when larger enemies have taken enough damage, they become stunned or dazed, allowing you to run up to them and perform an appropriately gory execution blow on them, which also has the mechanical effect of restoring some of your armor bar.

Titus can wield a selection of the iconic bolt weapons of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. There are varieties with scopes, ones with burst fire, ones with faster fire rates, some are semi-automatic, others are full auto capable. There are also a few different varieties of other iconic Warhammer 40,000 weapons like the plasma incinerator or the meltagun.

When it’s time to get up close and personal, you have a few options as well. The chainsword is a Warhammer 40,000 staple, and no game about Space Marines would be complete without it. You also have the ubiquitous combat knife, the versatile and deadly power sword, and the imposing thunder hammer. The thunder hammer in particular is another place where I think the developers did a great job of building the world. When you hit smaller enemies with it, they don’t just die or get knocked aside. They get vaporized. Wading through a horde of Hormagaunts with a thunder hammer and just vaporizing swathes of them at a time is such an impressively Warhammer 40,000 kind of experience and I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired of it.

The game also has multiplayer – you can have up to two friends join your squad in campaign mode, taking on the roles of Gadriel and Chairon, Titus’ other two squadmates in the story. In addition, there are a series of side story missions called Operations that are designed exclusively for multiplayer. These missions follow several other squads of space marines whose missions are connected to the main plot of the game.

Multiplayer has its own system of classes, allowing you to take on various roles and wield different weapons and special abilities. These include the jump pack equipped assault marine, the big gun toting heavy, the sword and shield armed bulwark, and several others. Just like in the campaign multiplayer, you can bring up to two friends with you for operations, and successfully completing them will earn you experience points for the class and weapon you played as well as in-game currency that you can use to unlock different armor colors so you can represent your favorite space marine chapter.

There’s also PVP multiplayer, with two teams of 6 facing off against each other in various game modes.

Even better news – crossplay is enabled and perfectly functional, so you can game with any of your friends regardless of if they are playing on PC, PS5, or XBOX.

The campaign is short, I think it took me perhaps 8 hours or so of gameplay to get through it, but the multiplayer provides a good deal of extra time, and Focus Entertainment, the game’s developer, has already put out a roadmap detailing upcoming plans for new PvE missions, new enemy types, and later on a horde mode style multiplayer.

Overall, Space Marine 2 is a game that Warhammer 40,000 fans will not want to miss. The developers have done a good job of realizing the setting, showing us in beautiful detail all kinds of cool environments like death world jungles and sprawling hive cities. The game is full of little details that Warhammer 40,000 fans will love to see, like the way smaller Tyranid beasts cower back when you take out a bigger foe, the satisfying boom of a bolter being fired, or the thundering steps of your power armored boots as you dash towards the next enemy.

Most importantly, this game is fun and satisfying to play while being a great homage to everything Warhammer 40,000 fans love about the setting.

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