Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 review: "Raises the bar for all Warhammer adaptations"

2024-09-04

GamesRadar+ VerdictWarhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is an exceptional, larger than life shooter that raises the bar for all Warhammer adaptations. A dizzying sense of scale, along with some of the slickest combat around, will leave you often breathless but always grinning.Pros+Blends melee combat and third-person shooting incredibly well+Huge environments prove bigger is better+Operations are great fun with friendsCons-Operations don’t adequately support playing alone-The campaign struggles to make longer-range shootouts feel as impactful-Barebones story

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is an exceptional, larger than life shooter that raises the bar for all Warhammer adaptations. A dizzying sense of scale, along with some of the slickest combat around, will leave you often breathless but always grinning.

Pros+Blends melee combat and third-person shooting incredibly well+Huge environments prove bigger is better+Operations are great fun with friends

Blends melee combat and third-person shooting incredibly well

Huge environments prove bigger is better

Operations are great fun with friends

Cons-Operations don’t adequately support playing alone-The campaign struggles to make longer-range shootouts feel as impactful-Barebones story

Operations don’t adequately support playing alone

The campaign struggles to make longer-range shootouts feel as impactful

Barebones story

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There are just eight bullets in a heavy bolt pistol. In the grand scheme of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, that’s not a lot. You’ll regularly fight hordes of aliens and Chaos-fueled demons numbering 10 times that, but for most foes, just one rocket-propelled shot is enough to burst them into gloopy red chunks. Truth be told, they’re the lucky ones – the grisliest fates are reserved for anyone within touching distance of supersoldier protagonist Titus, who seems to take great pleasure in ripping off heads, arms, and jaws and using them to kill their previous owner.

Space Marine 2 relishes in this excess – every second is spent in shuddering violence and vast, gorgeous battlefields. Developer Saber Interactive has crafted an outrageously over-the-top hack ‘n’ slash shooter, and while Warhammer fans would expect nothing less, newcomers to this grimdark universe couldn’t ask for a better (or bloodier) introduction.

Go big or go home

(Image credit: Saber Interactive)

A large battle in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Fast factsRelease date: September 9, 2024Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series XDeveloper: Saber InteractivePublisher: Focus Entertainment

Fast facts

Release date: September 9, 2024Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series XDeveloper: Saber InteractivePublisher: Focus Entertainment

Though it’s been 13 years since the original Space Marine launched, over 100 years have passed for returning hero Demetrian Titus. After being accused of heresy at the end of the first game – which you don’t need to have played for this – he’s spent the last century banished from his own Chapter of space marines, and fights in the elite xeno-hunting Deathwatch. When a hive-mind of insectoid, scythe-armed Tyranids descend upon a system of planets housing a secretive Imperium research project, Titus is tasked with re-joining his Chapter to save the day.

However, hulking squadmates Gadriel and Chairon are distrustful of Titus' long absence, while Titus himself is frustratingly standoffish. This translates to a lot of catty snark – space marines are many things, but emotionally literate they are not – but we don’t get to explore these tensions in any real depth, which leaves the story a little shallow. Dialogue can be boiled down to 10 hours of the word “brother,” while the straightforward yet serviceable story rarely reaches beyond carrying players from one desperate shootout to the next.

(Image credit: Saber Interactive)

A space marine parrying a Tyranid in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

A large part of what brings that feeling to life is the scope of Space Marine 2. Whether you’re in the overgrown jungles of Kadaku, larger than life gothic city on Avarax, or Demerium’s Chaos-warped hellscape, Saber’s bigger-is-better approach makes it feel like you really are fighting in a planet-spanning war. I lost count of the times I’d stop to admire laser batteries firing into clouds of flying Gargoyle Tyranids, or Space Marines duking it out with their evil cousins across Demerium’s vast purple battlefield. There are some brilliantly claustrophobic setpieces – one Alien-inspired segment starts with Tyranids stalking you through dingy service tunnels, and culminates with a frantic shootout in complete darkness – but Space Marine 2 thrives when it makes you seem very, very small.

Shore leave

(Image credit: Saber Interactive)

Three Space Marines standing together with different guns in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

“The best third-person shooter I’ve played in years”

These planets are also the setting of Space Marine 2’s Operations, six missions that take place alongside the campaign’s events. Operations can be played with three players, but unlike the campaign, co-op feels mandatory for getting the most out of this game mode. While the two AI squadmates are serviceable on easy and normal difficulty, they don’t pull their weight above that. As if to emphasize the importance of playing with friends, Operations can’t be paused, even if you’re playing with AI. This is particularly frustrating as missions tend to be quite long – at one point I was kicked out of my own game for inactivity, which meant losing around 20 minutes of progress. But when playing with other people, Operations are a blast. The six missions currently available are closer to Left 4 Dead than what’s on offer through the core campaign, as ammunition and healing items are scarcer, while enemies attack in more choreographed waves. Your gear is also restricted, as here it’s broken up into classes. This adds an interesting layer of strategy – you might opt for the Assault class, which gets a Thunder Hammer and jetpack to wade into the thick of things, while someone else uses the Sniper class to take out priority targets from afar.

The only part of Space Marine 2 I didn’t get to play ahead of launch due to matchmaking restrictions is Eternal War, a set of three 6v6 PvP modes with Warhammer twists on team deathmatch, domination, and king of the hill. But from the 17 hours I’ve had with everything else, it’s hard to imagine anything outshining Space Marine 2’s PvE offerings. This adventure is a monument to excess, but it’s hard to imagine it working any other way. If anyone tells you that a game doesn’tneedmotorized swords and eight-foot tall supersoldiers who can throw around heretics like ragdolls, consider what else they may be lying about – Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is pure, ridiculous fun, and the best third-person shooter I’ve played in years.

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GamesRadar+ Verdict

Go big or go home

Shore leave

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