Review | Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is nucking futs.  Demetrian Titus is back as the protagonist after his harrowing stint during 2011’s original.  In a universe overrun by Tyranids, Chaos is everywhere, and you will carry the flag of your religious zealotry across millions of corpses to save the Imperium.  A meaty campaign is matched with fun (against bots at least) PvP, and co-op-focused PVE mode to round out an impressive package.  I do not think I can overstate just how much fun Space Marine 2 is.  So let me try and put it into words in this spoiler-lite review.

For the Imperium

All but the opening mission of Space Marine 2’s campaign can be played in up to three-player co-op, which is glorious.  You will control Titus, Chairon, and Gadriel.  Each has its special ability tied to the Y button.  Titus gains strength and constantly regenerates health.  Gadriel lets out a howl as he sends enemies flying away from him, causing massive damage.  Finally, Chiron can mark enemies in an area and they’ll take extra damage.  The campaign itself sees you trek across three worlds through six main operations.  It doesn’t sound like a lot but each operation has long sub-missions that lasted roughly 7 hours for me on normal difficulty.

Early on you’ll focus your aggressions on the Tyranids.  A hive-mind, a seemingly endless swarm of bones and teeth, you’ll routinely feel overwhelmed by their numbers as the Tyranids use a mix of melee and ranged attacks to wear you down.  Depending on who you play you’ll have multiple pips of armor which can regenerate if you do not take damage for 5+ seconds.  Once said armor is gone you start to lose health and the only way to regain it is to either use a Stimpak or Titus’ special action (Y). Combat is fast, visceral, and full of gore.  You can gain back armor whenever an enemy is flashing red.  Clicking on the right stick lets you execute them with dozens of animations possible depending on your current melee weapon and the enemy type.

Without getting too spoiler-y I will say that there are multiple enemy types and you don’t have to worry about the entire campaign focusing on the Tyranids.  The latter few levels, especially the final planet, have some of the craziest set-pieces of any game I’ve played.  It’s a testament to the Swarm Engine at just how huge and crazy things can get without it ever feeling like performance is hurt.  The game does have a soft image, reconstructed from a 1080p base resolution while in performance mode.  Thankfully that 60fps felt damned good on my VRR-enabled TV, and I couldn’t give up the smoothness of a high framerate for slightly better looks in Quality Mode.

Space Marine 2, like the original, is a heavy mix of melee and ranged combat.  There are four different melee weapons that you’ll use with the right bumper.  Each has a short list of combos you can access on the pause menu and they mostly break down to tap or hold, though the power sword does utilize hesitation to swap up moves.  Melee is powerful for smaller foes, though it leaves you vulnerable to incoming damage.  Your ranged options focus primarily on bolters of various shapes and sizes, though you’ll get some sick energy-based weaponry as the campaign progresses.

At certain points in the campaign, your special move button (Y) will change into a jump-pack maneuver.  These were some of my favorite sections as I jumped in and out of the fray, holding the right bumper to aim a devastating melee attack at the ground.  You can hover, and jump super high, and the cooldown on it all is nice and snappy. While I could only tinker around with the PvP modes against bots I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the call-back to the “have some fun for a bit” style that isn’t looking to be my everyday game.

While the campaign is the star of the show several repeatable co-op missions let you play as six different class archetypes.  You have sword and board, snipers, and more to go through side-missions that you’ll recognize from the campaign.  These are the times Titus and others needed a different company of Space Marines to help off-screen, and now you get to see exactly how it went down.  I played through a few (again with bots) and they felt different enough from the campaign, thanks in large part to the class system, that I could see going through them a lot with some friends.

Graphically, Space Marine 2 looks stunning the majority of the time.  While the texture work on the environment can occasionally look a bit muddy the Marines and enemies look fantastic.  The game’s biggest accomplishment though is just how big it feels.  You are in an enormous battle against thousands of enemies with particle effects going off non-stop and it always feels epic.  It’s like the tornado sandstorm scene from Fury Road but for hours straight as you progress towards the end of the campaign.

The scope and scale of the level design are matched by a thumping score and excellent voice acting. Clive Standen takes over the role of Titus and he kills it alongside the rest of the cast.  This is the way too serious, over-the-top religious zealotry that is Warhammer 40K’s, Space Marines.  The word brother is said at least 100 times and they always mean it.  These maniacs truly believe in their cause, no matter what, and even the thought of corruption from the Warp (bad guy magic) is enough to instantly point a gun at each other’s faces.

Wrapping Things Up

Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 is an amazing, epic ride through a glorious hellscape.  Visceral combat is matched by stunning graphics to create a title that never relents in being as over the top as possible.  It is one of my favorite titles of the year so far, and one I cannot wait to dive back into as post-launch content starts to stream in.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Played on

Xbox Series X

PROS

• Epic Scope and Scale
• Visceral Combat
• Beautifully Over the Top
• Perfect Campaign Length
• Engaging Secondary Modes

CONS

• Soft Image Quality

9.2 out of 10

AMAZING

XboxEra Scoring Policy

Available on

Xbox Series | PlayStation 5 | Steam

Developer

Saber Interactive

Released on

September 9, 2024

Publisher

Focus Entertainment

Rated

Mature 17+

Price

$69.99

See on the Xbox Store