Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 review — A cathartic co-op experience

As Melta blasts collide with screeching alien nightmares, I stand implacable, the only light the brief sizzle as Hormagaunts are vaporized a handful at a time. One of the daring creature leaps in midair and is immediately kicked down, the quick parry restoring a portion of my armor. The grin on my face gets a little wider. 

So goes dozens of battles I've fought in with Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a game that is finally here years after first being announced back in 2021. This sequel arrives 13 years after its predecessor, something that many (myself included) never imagined would be happening after the collapse of publisher THQ. 

Under Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment's guidance, Titus and the Ultramarines are back in action with a gore-drenched experience that looks great, sounds great, and just feels fun practically every step of the way. The story isn't anything revolutionary, but it serves its purpose of delivering the 40K experience in an adrenaline-fueled romp. A few technical issues do need to be addressed sooner rather than later, but I'll still be playing as more missions are added in the future. 

What is Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2?

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a third-person shooter developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. Set in Games Workshop's titular Warhammer 40K universe, Space Marine 2 is a sequel to the 2011 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, bringing back the Ultramarine Titus in a new era.

Like its precursor, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 tasks players with slashing, bashing, punching, crushing, melting, shocking, and otherwise obliterating the enemies of the Imperium. This is accomplished with a number of iconic weapons straight from the tabletop figurines, including Power Swords, Thunder Hammers, Plasma Incinerators, and more. 

These instruments of war are sorely needed, as players have to face unending hordes of Tyranids, with flying, crawling, and swarming monstrosities barreling toward you, dozens at a time. The traitors of the Thousand Sons Legion are also a threat, bringing in reserves of cultists, Rubric Marines, and more. 

Players can go it alone, but they can also team up with others. The main campaign supports up to three-player co-op, and the player vs. environment (PvE) Operations mode is specifically built around co-op teams. Finally, the Eternal War mode splits players against other players (PvP) with loyalists vs. the forces of Chaos.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

As Titus, players must lead a team of Space Marines against the dark forces of Chaos and the unendingly-hungry Tyranids. Fun combat and well put-together PvE missions make this a treat to play. Launch is only the beginning, with new foes, missions, and more coming in the months ahead.

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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 review — Story and characters

Scores and scores of years after the events of the first Space Marine, Titus serves with the Deathwatch, with deadly mission after deadly mission as a kind of penance for the accusations of heresy that were leveled against him. As Space Marine 2 kicks off, events conspire to bring Titus back into his chapter, the Ultramarines, as they are called on to stop a Tyranid invasion.

While there are some neat themes explored, such as the nature of secrets and what suspicion does to a brotherhood under the zealousness of the Imperium, things are by-and-large played fairly straight here. New foes are revealed and secrets are uncovered, but it's always in service of providing more targets for your Bolters. 

To be clear, I don't think this is a bad thing at all. The writing is doing what it needs to, with Titus firmly cementing his place in the halls of the greatest champions of humanity, even as supplemental dataslates and snippets of conversations hint toward the true horror of life under this kind of regime.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 review — Gameplay and features

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 feels like a game with Xbox 360 design sensibilities married into modern processing power, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. Controlling a Space Marine just feels fantastic, as you stomp and roll to meet your foes with heavy strides that even Gears of War characters would be impressed by.

The array of weapons similarly feel great, and the developers have achieved a careful balance of melee and ranged combat as you take on aliens and heretics alike. One minute you'll be mowing down a horde with Heavy Bolter, the next you're using a Power Sword to duel an enemy Tyranid Warrior. Parrying and dodging are critical, with careful timing rewarding you by replenishing your Armor, which absorbs a certain amount of damage before your health is affected.

Saber Interactive's proprietary Swarm engine is utilized here to great effect, as you are consistently outnumbered 100 to 1, fighting back desperately against a living tide of claws, teeth, venom, plasma, and sorcery. 

The mission variety in the campaign does lose some steam toward the end, with the more unique encounters mostly replaced with pushing through yet another enemy position. The game doesn't overstay its welcome however (I finished my first playthrough after 11 hours) so it's not a huge problem. 

All of my praise for the combat mechanics remains true in the co-op focused Operations mode, which is something of a secondary campaign. These missions (at least the ones available at launch) tie into the campaign, referencing secondary events and characters that are unfolding alongside story beats in the main narrative. 

This even extends to some boss battles that are unique to Operations, and I highly recommend playing through each mission at least once. Even if you don't like playing co-op, the lowest difficulty is perfectly doable with bots that fill in for other players when you're by yourself. 

While players have to take on the role of Titus and his compatriots in the campaign, Operations and Eternal War allow complete customization as you unlock new paints and armor parts, letting you build the Space Marine avatar of your dreams. I've personally decked my boys out as Space Wolves like my tabletop armies that I need to get back to working on, but you can opt for Imperial Fists, Iron Hands, or even create your own custom chapter.

The final game mode, the PvP-focused Eternal War, is one that I unfortunately can't speak to at the time I'm writing this review. Cross-play functionality (which is in the full game) was not available during the review period, and as such as I was not able to get a game lobby full in order to test out having Loyal Space Marines clash with the forces of Chaos. 

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 review — Visuals and audio

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 looks extremely good, with some fantastic texture work across the ceramite armor of the titular superhuman soldiers and the jagged alien hides of their opponents. These are designs that hold up well even in the thick of combat as foes blur together as a seething mass, and watching a Tyranid horde charge your position is genuinely stunning. 

The audio design is similarly great, with the thunder of Bolters and the sizzle of plasma never getting old. There are a number of distinct audio cues that help to cut through the chaos of the battlefield, like the cry of a Sentry calling for reinforcements. It would be easy for the layers of destruction to fall into cacophony, but instead the battles sing. 

Unfortunately, one major complaint is a complete lack of HDR support. This is a real shame, as even basic implementation can make a game look radically better, and the art direction here is certainly well-suited to the enhancements HDR can provide. This is something I really hope the team chooses to add in the future.

There are two modes to choose from when playing Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 on Xbox Series X: Quality, which is set to 4K 30FPS, and Speed, which instead targets 1080p 60 FPS. Quality mode looks superb, and while 30 FPS certainly doesn't feel amazing with a frenetic third-person shooter, it's perfectly playable this way.

The resolution loss when choosing Speed mode is immediately noticeable, with less detail and a grainier appearance around tiny objects. At the same time, it certainly feels a lot better, and the framerate held up well considering the action that's constantly on screen, with some occasional dips as explosions went off and one brief but prolonged drop in a particularly taxing campaign encounter.

Load times were usually fine, if a tad longer than many other games, with new levels and missions taking around 15-20 seconds to load. I did encounter a nasty snag twice, with two missions getting stuck and failing to load or crash even after I'd waited a couple of minutes. Closing the game and relaunching it solved the issue both times, so hopefully this is a rare issue the developers can isolate and fix quickly.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 review — Accessibility and approachability

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 does sport a handful of accessibility options like the ability to adjust motion blur and customize the game's subtitles, including allowing players to increase subtitle size and identify speaker names. There are also some colorblindness settings for the game's Parry and Dodge warnings. It's not a super comprehensive suite, but combined with the game's difficulty settings, it should be enough to ease the experience for anyone that has a hard time dealing with motion blur or tiny text. 

This is a sequel, but anyone who hasn't played the first game can jump in just fine, as the passage of time and new cast means that connections to the prior game are mostly limited to brief references that are easily grasped in the context of the moment. There are a couple of exceptions, but for the most part, Space Marine 2 stands on its own.

As for newcomers to 40K altogether, Space Marine 2 is a decent entry point, introducing a number of topics and factions slowly enough that players not neck-deep in lore discussions can still follow along, such as providing overviews of the Space Marine chapters that each heraldry pack hearkens from. There's certainly better starting points to be found, but if you've never encountered anything from Warhammer 40K before, you won't be too lost. 

Should you play Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2?

Overall, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a blast. It feels like the kind of game that used to be frequent in a bygone era but with bigger enemy hordes and better image quality. The story doesn't attempt anything extraordinary, but it's appropriately steeped in the reverence and terror of humanity's stalwart defenders, with the opportunity to unleash abject carnage every step of the way. 

Warhammer 40,000 enthusiasts will appreciate the finer details, but anyone that just wants to carve a path through teeming alien mobs will have a lot of fun, especially if they're playing in co-op. There are some technical problems to address, but with a robust roadmap of new missions and enemies in the coming months, I'm looking forward to taking up arms with the Emperor's Angels again and again.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 launches across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5 on Sep. 9, 2024. Owners of the Gold or Ultra Editions can start playing early on September 5.