“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”
That one line from an opening paragraph from a rulebook for the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game has become the tagline of this rich universe Games Workshop has built. That line is how we got the phrase “grimdark,” a setting beyond parody in how bleak and gruelling the 41st Millennium is.
And it’s fitting for a game like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marines 2 to open with this quote.
Developer Saber Interactive had a massive task at hand. The original Space Marines game was an unexpected cult hit. Not that it’s so bad it’s good. But it came from an unexpected developer, Relic, the people who made the Warhammer 40,000 Dawn Of War games. They’re an RTS specialist that never made a third-person shooter. It’s the early 2010’s version of Alien Isolation in that it’s a game borne out of a studio exploring outside their usual wheelhouse.
Over a decade has passed, and now a new sequel to the third-person shooter with a new team at the helm. The world has moved away from the brand of third-person shooter Space Marines were adhering to. So how does the team at Saber even follow this up?
The answer to that, as presented in the full release of Space Marines 2, is twofold. One is to portray the fascinating grimdark world with the highest fidelity possible. And the other is to do what they do best using the tech they know.
Did they achieve that task? Partly, I reckon.
Presentation
The world of Warhammer 40K is getting more and more portrayals in big-budget AAA games. And if you think 2022’s Warhammer 40,000 Darktide was already peak, here comes Space Marines 2.
The Adeptus Astartes look immaculate and appropriately intimidating. These modified superhumans with extra organs are literally larger than life. Thanks to regular-sized humans appearing often, it’s easy to grasp what an absolute unit each Space Marine unit is. They’re huge!
And they have plenty of little details on their person that would make any person that has painted Warhammer 40K miniatures point at the screen on the regular. And to a regular gamer who stumbled into this franchise, the Space Marines look cool and badass.
I love the heft in the steps the Space Marines have when walking. When they sprint, you feel like a (Space) Hulk barreling at top speed with all the mass and momentum carrying that forward. The regular movement when they are armed doesn’t feel quite as good, however, likely so that it doesn’t compromise gameplay.
And if you’re familiar with Warhammer 40K, you know that there’s a standard that has to be met when it comes to voice acting. And boy do the voice actors and performers nail this one.
Space Marines speak with this religious zeal paired with a good dose of stoicism, and of course they have a British accent (that includes one that speaks like a Scot), making them even more imposing. Don’t be weirded out that they say Lieutenant as “Leftenant,” that’s how the Brits say it.
(Side note: it’s also how in Bahasa Malaysia the Lieutenant rank is simply spelled out as how you say it, “Leftenan.”)
Apparently, there are no Americans in the grim darkness of the future, but thankfully there are people with other European accents.
The delivery of these voice lines lands exceptionally well. Titus, his squad, and the immediate people they directly interact with are very economical with their word count per sentence, which just makes every time they even blurt out a line much more profound. But yet you can feel the held-back emotions the characters have when uttering them.
A simple shout of “Brother!” has so many variations used to subtly convey the real humanity that these Astartes suppress so that don’t act out of line and be accused of heresy. The facial expressions from the motion capture performance are also just as strong to sell these Space Marines as (excessively modified super) humans.
So is the voice acting good? In Titus’ own words, “very good.”
The soundtrack lacks punch, though. It sure is befitting the Warhammer 40K setting. There’s a rousing orchestra and all. But it’s always just rumbling in the background and never the star. Don’t come in expecting Warhammer 40,000 Mechanicus levels of goosbumps-inducing music. It’s just okay.
On the PS5, you can opt to prioritise graphics or performance. Going for performance means the game targets 60 FPS performance, though it dips below 30 on the regular. Even down to a crunch sub-20 FPS sometimes. On performance mode.
And on performance mode, it also looks rather blurry. Too many soft edges likely due to aggressive upscaling being used. It also affects textures, so the U that is the Ultramarines symbol seen on the pauldron of some Marines can look like an O when it’s not loaded in full resolution.
The game’s a looker. Photo Mode shows how immaculate the character models are, as detailed as you’d expect a game based on a tabletop game with very elaborate minature kits. And the Tyrannid swarms you see in great numbers are a spectacle.
Due to the scale of the game, I understand the compromises the developers have made to achieve that high performance target. This game should do well for benchmarking on PC. But on consoles, I was hoping it looked good without much impact on performance. But alas.
Overall, Warhammer 40K fans will be happy that the setting they love is portrayed in such lavish detail and with utmost care and adherence to the lore. And for the non-40K fan, I can see this game being the gateway drug that leads them into purchasing “plastic crack” on the regular.
Gameplay
The story of Space Marines 2, surprisingly, follows up the conclusion of the original Space Marine game. Captain Titus is no longer captain and serves in the Deathwatch chapter of the Adeptes Astartes following the events of Space Marine.
Space Marines 2 picks up from there, where he served enough time to join back with his brothers of Ultramar and don that blue power armour again. And he’s also slightly bigger, as Titus had to undergo Rubicon surgery, which turned him into a Primaris Space Marine. And just like 40K fans, Titus’ new squadmates aren’t too keen on the sudden introduction of a Primaris into their fold, let alone him taking leadership now as Lieutenant Titus. With a new squad not quite united, Titus continues his service for the Emperor in this new campaign.
This feels like a lot of exposition, but thankfully Space Marines 2’s story likes to show, not tell. Expositions are short (the Astartes sure have their way with words). Performances are so captivating that you’ll be enthralled to see what happens next. And there’s a good flow to the developing story. Even if you don’t play Space Marines like me, you’ll learn enough of that game’s past events that you will eventually be up to speed with the current story arc. The writing team did a tremendous job in telling the story and making it captivating.
The biggest thing you need to know about Space Marines 2 is that it is a third-person horde shooter. And Saber is channelling their World War Z expertise here. It’s likely running on the same in-house tech.
You don’t face the Orks in Space Marines 2, and in their place come the Tyranids. The bug swarm makes a perfect swap for the fast-moving “zeds” in World War Z. Instead of hordes of zombies, it’s now hordes of exoskeleton menace. And they also pile on top of each other to climb up to reach the platform you’re defending, just like the not-zombies.
It makes perfect sense for the developers to just base Space Marines 2 around the gameplay designs they’ve worked on before. World War Z was relatively well received. And horde shooters are in vogue these days. And thankfully it’s a different enough flavour and fantasy when compared to Darktide (that game has you play as rejects that are not even good enough to be part of the Imperial Army).
That aspect of gameplay is fine, but to really portray the Space Marines, the game also has a melee combat system, and this is where I find the game doesn’t hold up well when scrutinised.
The opening segment is a tutorial, and it introduces the layers of combat mechanics one by one. Your melee attacks are a one-button affair, but the timing of the button presses and button holds can lead you to different combos, like a character action game of sorts.
There’s also a parry, strictly a parry, not a block, as you can’t hold the button. And it’s funny how long the parry window glows; it seems too forgiving. And then there’s a Bloodborne rally mechanic where you can partially gain back lost health if you hit enemies back within a limited time window. Huh?
And if you do a specific move, you can follow it up with a good blast from your off-hand weapon, but it only works when the crosshair trigger icon prompt appears. And you need to finish off larger enemies with an execution move by going up close (or just blast them with a well-aimed headshot).
And then all of these are combined with a horde swarm.
And now it falls apart.
I get why some of these mechanics feel off when they are sperated out on their own. That long parry window? It’s so that you have enough time to react when you’re busy holding down the trigger to mow down hordes of xenos. That rally mechanic? Because it’s very easy to lose health and potentially die when swarmed, and it’s supposedly easy to regain health when you’re in a swarm. The context-sensitive off-hand weapons blast? To reward you for doing the Emperor-approved combos with style and a window of invincibility.
All of these are good ideas with understandable compromises, but I keep struggling to find a good flow and a good rhythm through the onslaught. These disparate systems are clunky when they are all within reach.
A lot of times I feel overwhelmed rather than feeling all-powerful. In some ways, I guess this fits the lore because, in canon, the Space Marines, despite their superhuman individual prowess, will always be overwhelmed by numbers and are always barely winning. But I didn’t find that fun.
You can make a game where the main fantasy is being severely underpowered and fighting against the odds (see Helldivers 2), but Space Marines 2’s mechanics just don’t mesh together well enough for me to buy into this fantasy. I don’t feel like the game is unfair because the odds are stacked against me. Rather, I feel like the game is rigged because the gameplay mechanics I’m interacting with aren’t good enough.
I think the problem is exacerbated when you face a horde swarm as unrelenting as the Tyranids. When faced against the forces of Chaos, which are a mixed bag of heretic human soldiers, Chaos Space Marines, and whatever macabre units these false gods have in store, I was pretty much okay with the combat system.
There’s a cog somewhere in this Dark Age machine that’s not working well, and even with the current levels of Omnissiah praising, it’s still not coalesing into a cohesive gameplay flow filled with inspired choice of mechanics. While there are many cases where throwing disparate mechanics together can end up something special, Space Marine 2 just doesn’t quite add up in that way, unfortunately.
That isn’t saying the game is bad and there’s no fun to be had, no.
And I can see some folks enjoying it more than I do and are now reporting me to the Inquisitors on the account of heresy as you read this.
The gunplay is great. The bolters, meltas, and plasma weaponry at your disposal serve very different niches and are all fun to use. Titus still has his special ability from Space Marine, where he gets a buff and regenerates health. And I love the “three strikes and you’re out” deaths where you can be revived by a teammate twice, and by then you’ll be inflicted a mortal wound (a Warhammer 40K tabletop thing). On the next death, you either need to have acquired a guardian relic to revive or it’s game over for you.
The melee does sometimes work great. I find the Thunder Hammer clicking well with me, unlike the iconic chainswords.
And the game is sort of more fun in multiplayer. With a squad of three players, it should be a fun time blasting xenos and heretics with fellow battle brothers. Though the multiplayer sessions I had with random players mostly boiled down to all three of us mowing down the horde on our own eventually leading to our doom. People just don’t gravitate toward working together.
The single-player story campaign also lets you play with two other friends, but by default those are AI bots in your squad. And it’s a shame Space Marines 2 is built to focus on online multiplayer rather than going all in as a squad-based single-player game.
I wish I had the ability to issue orders and commands to Gadriel and Chairon. They have special abilities that they trigger at random; it would have been much better if we got to command them when to use those. There are level gimmicks where you are recommended to equip a particular weapon, and I wish I could have one of my bros of flamethrower duty. I wish I could issue orders to prioritise ad-clearing while I focus on the boss, because by default they’re barely helping, not even drawing aggro. So boss fights designed for three players working together by dealing with the different aspects of the encounter become less fun.
If this were in the 2000s, this game would allow you to issue orders to squadmates like SOCOM, Rainbow Six, and Star Wars Republic Commando did. Instead of money being wasted on investing in generative AI, we would have seen AI technology that makes our bot brothers seemingly smart, loyal, and adept as an Adeptus Astartes should. But those days have long past, I’m afraid.
At least they’re very quick at ressurrecting you, so they’re not totally dumb and useless.
Overall, Space Marine 2’s brand of horde shooter has its moments, but the many mechanics the combat hinges on don’t gel together well, making it feel like a clunky mess. Which can still be fun, especially with friends.
Content
Space Marine 2’s story takes about 10 hours to complete. And it’s a fun ride with enough set-piece moments and drama to keep you locked in to purging xenos and heretics for the Emperor. The story is fine, but the storytelling punches it up greatly so that many moments where it was supposed to be dramatic ended being so.
The real Space Marine 2 is friends you make along the way when playing the multiplayer modes. It has co-op missions, six available at launch, all structured and tied to the main story campaign. And there’s even PVP modes for some reason.
In multiplayer, you get to play in different Space Marine classes, using weapons and abilities that Titus and his squad don’t use in the campaign. There’s the Bulwark, a straight-up melee class that dons a shield. There’s a Heavy that only uses the Heavy weapons. The co-op missions aren’t that long but are repeatable thanks to the unlock and progression system. Want to dress up in the colours of other Space Marines chapters? Want to unlock other weapons in the loadout available in your class? Keep playing these missions over and over again.
If you do like multiplayer fun, then content-wise, Space Marine 2 is a pretty hefty package. But if you just play single-player, that campaign is still worth the entry price if you’re a big Warhammer 40K fan.
Personal Enjoyment
I don’t dare call myself a Warhammer fan. But being a gamer for this long, it’s hard not to see its influences. We wouldn’t have gotten StarCraft and WarCraft if it were not for their Warhammer 40K and Warhammer.
That said, the only Warhammer game I ever played was Dawn Of War 2. But I do know enough lore thanks to the many, many lore explaining content out there, all derived from the rich world Games Workshop has constructed around this tabletop game.
And to see a part of this world manifesting as part of a big-budget game is a sight to behold. Space Marine 2 captures both the badassery of its setting and characters without downplaying the utter bleakness and messed-up state of the world. Come on, everyone knows there’s no good guys in the 41st Millenium, especially the humans. But it’s so cool to see a story from their point of view, where we see humanity continues to fight against all odds. The Imperial Millitary force you see in Space Marine 2 is specifically from the now-destroyed planet Cadia, and here you get to see their unrelenting spirit marching with lasguns and tanks against a wave of hivemind-controlled bugs. “The planet broke before the guard did,” so the saying in the lore goes. And they lived up to my expectations. These people are insane—that’s what having lived a radically militarised life due to being at the gates of unknown horror does.
For me, personally, it’s these little scenes where we get to see people interact outside of combat that really sold me on Space Marine 2. The little moments where you see soldiers prepare for battle and disciplining the regiment. The support staff at the Battle Barge is doing everything to keep the Space Marines stocked up and ready to fight. I can feel that the people who are working on this game ultimate are just as much of a geek that loves this setting as the fans are. And it shows.
And they went above and beyond to capture that Warhammer 40K feel. A lot of the game design decisions and gameplay mechanics have in-lore explainers when they don’t need to. Why is the squad only three people? The commander is shown to be really stingy with deploying extra men. How do you frame these co-op missions so they don’t appear as an afterthought? There are story moments where Titus requests an extra squad or two to complete objectives concurrent to what his squad is doing, and the co-op missions are from the POV of those squads. So whenever Titus calls the other squad on vox during the single-player campaign, you also get to hear the same conversation playing but on the other side.
The wildest in-lore explanation was a series of sentences just to justify why you need to hold on to a control point. I don’t think I would be awake in bed thinking why these Space Marines would have the ability to take a control point from the Archenemy. But if you do, apparently the reason is that they just exude their air of contempt, a hatred strong enough it can capture a control point.
Ridiculous? Yes. But this is the setting where the Ultramarines are named as such because this chapter originated from the Ultramar subsector; this is perfectly ridiculous, and I love that they went this far.
All of this still won’t wash away the slightly odd taste I had with the gameplay itself, but let it be known that this depiction of Warhammer 40,000 is exceptional.
Verdict
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 managed to transition well into a third-person co-op horde shooter. Its combat mechanics don’t seem to add up to be more than the sum of its parts, but there are some good aspects that can provide a fun time.
Its main focus on being a co-op shooter first meant it didn’t go hard to have a proper single-player squad-based campaign with decent squadmate AI.
However, Space Marine 2 tremendously succeeds in bringing the grimdark world of the 41st Millenium alive. Fans of the franchise will get a good kick of seeing the world, the characters, and the story being brought to life with big-budget production powered by a AAA-quality team of developers.
If you are a Warhammer 40K fan, the various issues brought up here are merely the words of a heretic. You’ll likely be having a good time with Space Marine 2. If you’re not a Warhammer fan yet, you’ll likely become a convert after playing this.
Played On PS5. Review code provided by local distributor Game Source Entertainment.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
Space Marine 2 tremendously succeeds in bringing the grimdark world of the 41st Millenium alive. Fans of the franchise will get a good kick of seeing the world, the characters, and the story being brought to life with big-budget production powered by a AAA-quality team of developers.
- Presentation 9.5
- Gameplay 7.5
- Content 8.5
- Personal Enjoyment 8