Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 - Review

When it comes to Warhammer, you are either a fan of it, or confused by it and there really is no middle ground. A sequel to a 2011 game was not something many were expecting, but here we are as Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is finally upon us. Is it a game, that arrives more than a decade after the first entry, still worth suiting up for?

You are Titus, the same character from the original game, who after those events was banished to the Deathwatch, a group of soldiers that are given missions where death is very likely, a suicide squad if you will. Titus and his fellow squad members deploy a bio-virus on the planet of Kadaku in order of hopefully slowing down the Tyranid invasion. While Titus survives, it is only due to the intervention of the Ultramarines and after some surgery and a little time, Titus is summoned back into the service of the Ultramarines once more. Once up on your feet, you are sent back down to the planet in order to help get some things sorted, before the entire planet is abandoned and while it does feel very linear, the story does take a turn after the fourth mission I wasn’t expecting. But as I won’t spoil anything, I will say nothing more on that, what I will say is that occasionally, you can experience the story from another point of view. One mission required me to locate and extract a scientist and his data, whilst another team were set to delay the enemy and I could have chosen to play that mission.

Story aside, the gameplay is good, not great but still good. The quickest way I can describe it is if Gears of War and Devil May Cry had a baby, this would be it. You generally have with you two guns, a melee weapon and then if you are lucky some grenades. The guns feel punchy and you are often able to swap to different types as the mission progresses, so if you have equipped one from the armoury, you won’t be stuck with it if you don’t like it. The problem with the guns is that they are only good at a distance, because once the enemy swarms you and they will, its melee or nothing. When you get into the mix with your sword or whatever melee weapon you have with you, things require a little more finesse than just blasting everything. Some enemies will attempt to block your attacks, some will leap at you from a distance away and some will charge at you, forcing you to get out of the way. The best part is that if you engage correctly, you will be near indestructible, if you don’t, then your armour and health will plummet very quickly.

Your suits armour will recharge over time, but you can get more back if you melee execute a stunned enemy. Getting an enemy into that place can be done by either bashing them repeatedly or breaking their defence, leaving them open to being taken down. All while this is happening, the other enemies around you won’t be standing still, they will come after you and you have to be on guard at all times. While there are those who shoot at you from a distance, there are some who like to get up and close so if you see a blue icon, that means you can parry the attack, smaller enemies upon a successful parry are often killed, larger ones require more. If the attack has a red icon, then you had best dodge as you can lose a good amount of armour or health from those attacks. When you encounter the boss type creatures, you are going to have to use a combination of guns and melee if you want a chance to survive, but even that will require some good skills.

Before each mission you can visit the armoury to pick up different weapons for yourself, letting you have a little variety, but if you are happy with the default you can just jump right in. Once you have completed the story, you will unlock Operations, which give you classes to equip. Each class has their own skill tree, so you can find the class that you want and then earn the skills that make it work for you. Both the main game and Operations can be played solo or you can team up with some friends and while I played solo, I imagine with friends is more fun. Story mode solo means you are given a pair of AI controlled companions and they generally did ok, they would often shoot at enemies from a fair distance away, but they didn’t run around and get stuck on things. So for the story you are Titus, but for the Operations you are whomever you want to be, which is a nice way to segment the two experiences.

Which is good, as there isn’t much choice in the story missions, as each one is very linear in their flow. There are some larger open spaces, but they are almost always used for enemy encounters, when you are moving forward, the path is quite narrow and if it divides the wrong option will be short and maybe offer a small ammo box as a reward. Of course, it makes sense to keep players pushing forward, but I would have loved to have seen different paths that actually lead to different encounters or even sneaking by, as even without using the guide, its near impossible to get lost. The other issue I had with the game is that it feels so slow, Titus and the rest of the Ultramarines quite literally move like tanks at a time, even when you are dancing around enemies with your sword out. You are unable to jump, though when you dodge they do a little jump to move faster, and while you can’t sprint, you can’t do anything while you are running. The weirdest part is that near the end of a mission early on, you pick up some jetpacks and then lose them just as fast, which is a real shame as with them equipped, I honestly felt less like a human shaped tank.

Speaking of the tank, or the armour in this case, the games look is totally Warhammer. Now I may not be into the painting of figures like many, but I have played enough games now to know what it looks like. The team at Saber Interactive have done an incredible job bringing the world to life, from the grass you stomp through, to the enemies you stomp on, everything looks amazing. You can opt to play the game with helmets on story characters or off and the difference does matter, as with them on, all the characters feel like they are the same, but off you can see their differing personalities shine through. There were a few times when Titus would question command, only for me to spot the other members of the squad showing hesitation on their faces. The size of the levels are decent, some are broken up by load screens, which I get, but the scale of them is epic regardless and when you walk into a space and see just how large this world is, you will be impressed.

Speaking of the load times, they are a little long and what makes it worse is that the progress bar likes to jump backward. There were quite a number of times when I would see the loading bar move backwards, then shoot forwards before going back again. Sometimes the load screens are just black screens and other times you see your squad sitting in the back of a ship heading to the mission. The game always takes elevators from Mass Effect and its made even worse by the fact they want you to walk to the center of them, before they let the button to activate them be pushed. It was just annoying to have characters say things like “we don’t have time for this” only to then spend forever in an elevator.

On the audio side of things there is a lot to enjoy, with the human characters being fun. While Titus is the center of the story the other squad members and humans do a good job of giving weight to events, with their presentation. A lot of the dialogue is presented in a monotone fashion, which makes sense given they are soldiers, but they still have enough inflection to highlight emotions when it matters. The alien sounds are good as well, being hunted in a forest could have easily given off D-grade Predator vibes, but the sound design helped set up a threat, long before we saw it. The games music is grandiose and helps set the stage, especially when swarms of enemies start pouring into view.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a good game, but it has issues that stop it from being great. While busting out a giant sword and laying waste to swarms of enemies is fun, moving like you are part tank is not and when you combine that with the linear nature of the story, it just feels like a by the numbers adventure. The Operations do provide a lot more variety to the experience, but only if you want to invest into it, but if you are here for the story, you might leave disappointed, on the gameplay front. There are times here when you feel like a real badass and when they happen, it feels great, but those happen far too little for my liking. Fans of the series and especially the original game will enjoy what is on offer, but for those without a connection to the series, it might be a slightly harder sell.

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by Focus Entertainment

The Pros

The game looks incredible and seeing swarms of enemies pouring in around you never gets old

The story is fun, but Operations are where the game shines

The Cons

I often felt more like a tank than a super solider, which isn’t as fun

Far too often in the story mode, it feels like you are being forced to go a set way