We spent hours blasting our way through the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 campaign and made the Emperor proud
No other shooter I’m looking forward to in 2024 as much asSpace Marine 2, and no other shooter I’m as worried about.
On the one hand I’m excited because Space Marine 2 could be a shooter dream, and not just for Warhammer fans: Thrilling, spectacularly staged co-op battles against hundreds of aliens at the same time, a potentially great single-player campaign, optional co-op missions, PvP multiplayer, so once again a really plump package!
On the other handI’m worried because I played Space Marine 2 last year – and it was terrible. Performance problems, crashes, stutters all the time despite having a pretty competent Geforce 4060 under my hood. And that regardless of the graphics settings
No wonder the game was delayed by almost a whole year – it’s finally supposed to be released on September 9, 2024.
To back up this release, a year later I was able to play a few hours of the campaign in Space Marine 2 again and I’m proud to report: This game not only runs much better than 2023, but is also so much fun that Inquisitor Eisenhorn’s ears are ringing with joy.
The strengths of Space Marine 2: Story
Just a quick background: Space Marine 2 is set in the current Indomitus era of Warhammer 40K and, as a non-fan, all you need to know is that the Imperium of Man, with the Space Marines as its spearhead, wages war throughout the universe. For example, against the Tyranids, hordes of murderous aliens who play a central role in Space Marine 2.
Main character Titus has spent the last 100 years sinceSpace Marine 1in captivity and torture (you’ll find out the details in the game itself), now he’s back to blast away enemies in the name of the Emperor. So much for the story, which starts off more exciting than expected in the demo
Without spoiling too much: Titus’ special relationship with chaos is a central theme, including that of his two co-op companions, who can optionally be played by your buddies.
In aKill Tyranids
campaign, I don’t expect so much character drama, but developer Saber seems to have really gone foran entertaining Warhammer storyhere. Very nice
So, now to the gameplay.
The strengths of Space Marine 2: Gameplay
Space Marine 2 really shreds! My playthrough mission throws me straight into battle against hordes of Tyranids
I choose between bolter guns with different characteristics: Some bolt powerful single shots, others rattle off as assault rifles and then, of course, there are particularly heavy Gatling variants.
None of these are innovative missiles, but in Space Marine 2 themix of different weaponscreates an incredibly fun flow: Titus harasses onrushing enemies with bolt fire, Tyranids splatter before he plunges into close combat with the energy sword.
Like Space Marine 1, the sequel sometimes plays like a classic third-person shooter, sometimes like a God of War-style action brawler. If you’re not constantly on the move, you’ll quickly lose track – especially on higher difficulty levels, you’ll want to have co-op buddies, because theHorde management
is not that easy.
You can parry particularly powerful enemy attacks with your blade, for example, but you’ll have to get the warning about such attacks in the swarm of Tyranids in the first place.
In short: In Space Marine 2, you don’t just bluntly bolt at it, but have topermanently thinkand use all your gadgets, for example your jetpack, with which you can reach sniper positions and reposition yourself in no time at all.
In addition, in the demo I not only fight against Tyranids, but also against the arch-enemy, the treacherous Chaos Marines, who mirror my own skills in the game.
And I’m telling you: unfolding a Chaos Terminator by execution maneuver … Chef’s kiss.
The strengths of Space Marine 2: The visuals
The fact that Space Marine 2’s battles have so muchOomph
to offer is down to many factors; the sound design, the collision feel, but also the spectacular visuals. Space Marine 2 will be the most beautiful Warhammer game ever – andone of the prettiest shooters of the whole year
While you explore the levels, myriads of creatures fly in the sky in the background, impressive explosions tear the air apart, tanks roll across the horizon. And this attention to detail is second to none
As a Warhammer fan, I kept stopping to watch the pathetic guardsmen as their captain yelled at them. Amidst warp fluctuations, the Empire’s Astropaths scream in the background as I traverse their base. If you want to soak up details of the Warhammer world, Space Marine 2 gives you plenty to do.
And with my Geforce RTX 3080the version in WQHD Ultrawide ran smooth as butter on almost maximum detailsabove the 60 frames. There was no longer any trace of the horrendous technical problems of 2023
Open questions
This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, of course. Once again, I was only able to play a tiny snippet of Space Marine 2; who knows how the final version will ultimately fare?
Perhaps the gameplay runs out of steam at the end because the weapons play too similarly! Even hordes of aliens and Chaos Marines can get boring at some point. Warhammer 40K: Boltgun was the latest example of this
Boltgun again offers more variety in the weapon arsenal: In addition to bolters and melters, there are also shotguns, plasma launchers and countless other Warhammer-universe bolides that I would also like to see in Space Marine.
So there are still various unanswered questions: How varied is the campaign in the long term? How stable is the technology beyond the polished demo mission? How good are the separate co-op missions, which take place separately from the actual campaign? And how exciting is the story?
But the fan in me is delighted that the demo plays so smoothly so shortly before release. And that’s quite something
Conclusion of the editors
If everything goes smoothly, I’ll be spending a lot of time in Space Marine 2, because it ticks all the boxes for me as a shooter and Warhammer fan. I’ll be browsing through the campaign story solo, taking down hordes of Tyranids with my buddies in co-op in the evenings while I talk about my day – and then off to PvP, where it’s all about the sausage.
Hopefully, because everything has to be right on the technical side on day one. Stable servers, clean performance, no crashes, in short: not what happened to Modern Warfare 2 2022, because a rather small project like Space Marine 2 doesn’t survive a miserable release.
And a failed launch would probably be my biggest disappointment in 2024. The shooting is great, the switching between ranged and melee combat provides just the right amount of chaos and at the same time I see a learning curve that I can master together with my co-op squad.
Space Marine 2 has what it takes to be the best 40K game since Dawn of War 2. And that’s saying something, as the quality of Warhammer games has increased significantly in recent years. Please don’t mess this up
