Space Marine 2 review - Action-packed adventure filled with crunchy combat spattered with gore
Until about eight years ago, I played a lot of Warhammer 40K. It was a joy to field a little army of grey plastic figures - because I’d never find time to paint them - and go to war with my friends. During my time playing, I put out two armies, Chaos Space Marines, and Tyranids. The latter was easily my favourite. The Tyranids are built up to be an infestation moving from planet to planet, killing off anything that stands in their way, operating under a hive mind that causes them to swarm as one.
They’re a fearsome bunch, all teeth, claws, and pointy bits. First meeting them in Space Marine 2 is a terrifying moment. Utilising the current technology of consoles, swarms of hundreds of Tyranids sped across the ground to tear me apart. Well, not me, but Titus, our lead Space Marine. In the opening mission, one where you find yourself part of a death squad, you’re severely underpowered, making the fear more imposing.
While being taught the basics, I found myself stumbling a lot. There were so many aliens to kill and only so many bullets; too many teeth to defend against while I wielded a sword of little power. I found myself frustrated. This is not the fault of the AI, nor the alien threat, but the controls. It took some time to overcome the issue, but I still found myself wondering why the developers had gone with such an obtuse configuration.
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Why are all melee attacks on a shoulder bumper? I press ‘RB’ once to swipe my sword, then again to keep up a combo. Yet, I can also hold the button for more powerful attacks to break shields, or add a held attack at the end of a combo for a crowd-control ability. Having every attack exist on just one input makes for some missteps in attacking.
Pressing ‘down’ on the d-pad to change weapon is also an odd choice when so many other games choose ‘Y.’ I played on Xbox Series X, by the way. This is a small quibble, but muscle memory from so many other games kept forcing me to use my special ability when all I wanted to do was cycle to my sidearm. To be fair, there are other layouts to choose from, but this obtuse nature carries on throughout.
Like in the core of the experience. Space Marine 2 seems, clearly, to have been made with co-op in mind. That’s fine and dandy if you plan to play that way, but while playing on my own it was easy to see that certain situations or set-pieces were designed with more than one player in mind.
Take, for example, one section where you have to move through a darkened area filled with Rippers. Rippers are basically ravenous 40K rats. To hold these back you need to walk along blasting gouts of flame from a weapon. This pushes them back. However, once the Tyranids started attacking, I found myself constantly being swarmed while using the flamethrower.
It felt like, with competent friends, one would use the flames to hold off the Rippers, while the other two would deal with the Xenos.
Whether this is a poorly designed section, or a sign that the AI doesn’t target the the correct problem is hard to say. However, it happened a little later too. I had to dash around a large area operating wheels in a huge machine and the AI seemed to never have my back, usually causing me to get attacked while trying to activate the machine. They’re pretty good at picking you up when you succumb to your injuries though, it must be said.
Saber Interactive does get a lot of things right, though. The campaign is as gritty as you’d expect with the setting surrounding it; the environments are consistently stunning, as are the character models. I had far too much fun randomly pausing the game and heading into Photo Mode to catch the action with gore and spatter raining down around me.
Saber has also managed to capture that sense that these are hulking great humans clad in hefty armour. There’s a feeling of lumbering motion that doesn’t hold back the game and brings out the characteristics of a Space Marine. This extends to the weapons too, which each feel different, if only subtly when using bolters, but when you step up to plasma weapons, the screen comes alive with colours while the sound booms and fizzes in the appropriate ways.
Now, you’ll have to excuse me as during my time with Space Marine 2 I wasn’t able to try out the co-op directly, so I’m going to assume that as long as your connection is good and your teammates are sound, it’ll be a rollicking good time. What I can attest to is the actual meat and gravy of the game - the combat itself - feels awfully authentic to the idea of super-powered men of meat blasting everything to bits.
Shooting big guns and swinging a melee weapon is always going to be a lark, and while it can feel a bit old by the end of the game, it’s interspersed with some of the most awesome execution kills I’ve seen in recent years, as Titus tears into enemies with gusto, often spattering himself and the surrounding area in gore.
Doing this replenishes your armour bars which protect your health bar, so whenever an enemy is flashing red, it’s worth getting up close for a performance in brutality. To fill up your health you’ll either rely on medkits, or you can use Titus’ special ability which buffs damage, defense, and heals over time. There are more abilities to be discovered with other characters, too - some push enemies away and others scan the area for foes.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a modern action game without a parry system and while I don’t think it really suits the action on display, the subsequent animations after executing a parry are exquisite. Overall, combat is a mixed bag and really depends on your loadout arsenal and your patience for repetition.
I want nothing more than to tell you Space Marine 2 is brilliant, but despite my adoration of the 40K universe, I can only do so in part.
During the opening hour or two, I would gladly have said that it’s a superb action game nearing the brilliance we once saw in Gears of War. However, after those opening hours had passed and I was still trudging through small arenas linked by endless elevators or large doors activated by nearby buttons, I felt fatigue setting in.
It didn’t help that the Tyranids that once terrified me were now feeling repetitive and uninspired. Sure, it’s great laughs to execute a Xeno by stabbing it with its own horn or tearing it apart with your hands, but that thrills only for so long.
However, at the halfway point it seems Saber Interactive found a new gear and the game stepped up the action. While I’d refrain from spoiling the story and certain setpieces, I do want to say that suddenly the game reaches outside the box and pulls in inspirations from elsewhere, delivering many back-to-back moments that had me grinning ear to ear.
It’s a shame that Space Marine 2 takes a while to get here because once a turning point is reached, the proverbial hits the fan, and the game becomes a very different beast. Yes, the combat itself is still relatively repetitive - there’s just not enough variation in mechanics and weapons to see a lot of difference - but now I felt like a bigger part of an encompassing universe and one that starts to surprise from minute to minute.
Perhaps my favourite feature of Space Marine 2 is the side missions. While you, as Titus, stomp along through the story of war across several planets, with your brothers in arms, there are other things happening. Usually another squad of three who are off somewhere else on the planet setting up a distraction, or storming a point to back up Titus. These moments are mentioned when on the battle barge before each mission, but you can actually go off and play through those aside moments.
These extra missions do a lot to further expand the idea that the war is bigger than Titus and his brothers, because the ongoing war is huge, larger than imagination can comprehend and Space Marine 2 nails this, despite limiting the variations of armies that exist in the Games Workshop canon.
While I’m on the subject of world-building, here is where Saber Interactive deserve a medal. I can’t list the number of times I stopped and took in a scene that was playing off to the side. It might have been a sermon being delivered on the battle barge, one was of prisoners of war being lined up for an emotional execution, and another was simply other Ultramarines standing around discussing their missions or their lost brothers in arms.
Sure, you can stomp through each area and battle through swarms of aliens and have a romping good time, but if you stop when you hear a conversation happening it’ll paint a much bigger picture. As do data slates found throughout the areas you’ll battle, often giving background information on integral characters or wars long past.
When I came to the end of Space Marine 2, despite the irritations I felt at the controls, the sometimes obtuse gameplay that was obviously designed for co-op, and the repetitive nature of the combat, I felt sad it was over. But, then I realised it isn’t really. I can replay the whole thing with friends, and the year-long roadmap Saber released looks to support the game for some time.
And I’m definitely eager to jump back in, maybe even tackle the game on harder difficulties, because I was filled with joy by the end, and a little bit of awe. The idea of galactic battles being fought by grunts has been realised with superb levels of detail. It’s not quite the game I hoped would tide me over until the next Gears of War, but it did enough to keep this Warhammer nerd very happy.
Pros: Terrific world-building, crunchy combat and weapons, over-the-top gore and action
Cons: Repetitive combat, slow middle section, some obtuse moments
For fans of: Gears of War, Helldivers 2, Warhammer 40K
8/10: Excellent
Space Marine 2 is available 9 September 2024 for Xbox Series X|S (version tested), PlayStation 5, and PC. A review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.
Topics: Warhammer, Xbox, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation 5, PC, Steam