While Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 follows the steps of the previous game, the new Swarm engine makes it feel like a whole new experience. Since Warhammer 40K is about a never-ending war among different factions, the game perfectly uses its new engine to capture the essence of war by putting thousands of moving models in a single frame.
Just as you start the campaign, you’ll already see a visually breathtaking scenario that puts you in the middle of the war against the Tyranid swarm. The odds are always against you, but we all know how tough these Space Marines are. Saber Interactive was able to capture the essence of a Space Marine by demonstrating the movement and capabilities of a superhuman in a Space Marine suit.
A Perfect War-Torn Beginning
Upon beginning, players are treated to a tutorial to learn the overall gameplay loop of the game. As you start Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2’s campaign, you’ll get introduced to all the necessary mechanics, but you are also deployed in the middle of the war. You’ll start learning the ropes at a great pace before the game quickly throws a whole swarm at you.
Judging by how detailed the physics are in the game, I was surprised that Space Marine 2 ran smoothly upon seeing hundreds, if not thousands, of enemies flooding your screen.
For those interested in the story, some lore is necessary to understand the game’s narrative. Apart from the Space Marine 2 setting picking up centuries after its predecessor, Warhammer 40K’s lore is about as deep as it gets. However, Space Marine 2 is far from over once you’ve finished the roughly 10-hour campaign; there’s a deep and customizable PvE Operations mode for co-op shooter fans and a competitive Eternal War PvP mode for those who want to fight each other.
Stagnant Gameplay Loop
After playing with most of the toys and performing some of the most gruesome finishers in a video game, it does start to feel repetitive once you get accustomed to the core combat mechanics. You’ll eventually feel the lack of customization early in the campaign when you can’t freely choose your weapons (you simply take what is available), customize them, or add any perks and talents to your Space Marine.
While the campaign’s gameplay loop is great on paper, after experiencing Operations mode, you’ll wonder why they wouldn’t add this same level of customization for the game’s main story mode.
Either way, the campaign can be treated as a long tutorial for anyone interested in the co-op grind, similar to games like Warhammer 40K Darktide and Vermintide.
To end the gameplay section on a more positive note, the attention to detail for the finishers is amazing. After performing some nifty dodges and parries, you’ll eventually bring some enemies down to an execute range through some cool-looking kill shots. Once you get near them, you can execute them in the most gruesome way you can imagine.
“While the campaign’s gameplay loop is great on paper, after experiencing Operations mode, you’ll wonder why they wouldn’t add this same level of customization for the game’s main story mode.”
Each melee weapon has a unique finisher for each enemy. Apart from the exclusive melee weapon finishers, there are also default finishers for some of the enemies. In short, you are looking at more than 50+ unique finishers, which is also an achievement, by the way. As someone who played a few Warhammer 40K games in the past but never got into the story, these finishers alone pulled me through the campaign.
Are Operations Worth Playing?
Some players love playing games like these for the story; however, for overall gameplay, the Operations mode is where everything is at. In the campaign, you come across various generic weapons like the Bolt Rifle, Heavy Bolt Rifle, and Bolt Carbine. Their similar names might be confusing at first due to their subtle differences, but everything will make sense once you play the Operations mode and get introduced to a class system.
These weapons have different masteries and upgrades to unlock, which also changes their name and skin to something more slick. A Bolt Rifle can turn into an Opehlian Liberation weapon and an Occulus Bolt Carbine into a Gathalmore Crusade weapon.
These masteries and upgrades drastically change a weapon’s power, capacity, reserve, speed, and much more. There are so many weapons to battle test. But you’ll have to play hours and hours of Operation mode to unlock the best ones.
Apart from new weapon customizations and potential builds, there are also perks and new Space Marine abilities tied to each of the six classes: Tactical, Assault, Vanguard, Bulwark, Sniper, and Heavy.
You’ll go through increasingly difficult missions in Operations mode and test out these classes with other players. The potential is limitless, and this mode really adds a new layer to the game, especially if you have only played the campaign. You can expect the same level of customizations in the Eternal War PvP, but that’s a mode that I haven’t had a chance to try yet.
Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2’s Exciting Future
With the core gameplay loop primarily focused on the game’s Operations and Eternal War modes, you can expect several updates revolving around these features. Saber Interactive already has a roadmap planned out for Space Marine 2, including several free core updates.
You can expect new weapons, PvE missions, cosmetics, private lobbies, PvP arenas, prestige rankings, upgraded Battle Barges, enemies, and even a new Horde mode.
All of these items are free and are expected to be released between 2024 and 2025. A well-designed plan like this should attract players to join the game early, as you will definitely get your money’s worth with all this planned free content.
- Decent campaign length
- Stunning and brutal game design
- Engaging co-op gameplay loop through Operations
- Best Space Marine physics out there
- Deep customization systems outside the campaign mode
- Generic missions hurts replayability
- Some inconvenient NPC AI issues
Published: Sep 4, 2024 12:00 pm