Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 PC Review
Summary: The game’s gory combat feels much more immersive thanks to the beauty of Swarm Engine and facing Tyranids feels like a unique gaming experience. Yet, the game fails to remain fresh and engaging till the end.
3.6
A Solid Third-Person Shooter
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine was a great third-person shooter released in 2011 that old-school fans of the Warhammer 40K universe and casual shooter fans could enjoy equally. The success of that game made its sequel, Space Marine 2 one of the most anticipated games of the year. With the fate of General Titus hanging in the balance at the end of the first game, Saber Interactive’s Space Marine 2 gives players the chance to follow his quest after thirteen long years of wait.
The game follows Titus after the events of the first game. After fighting off the forces of Chaos and neutralizing the Chaos artifact, Titus faces heresy accusations by the Inquisition because of his resistance to Chaos energy. Thus begins his 100 years of serving in the Deathwatch -the elite regiment of ultramarines- as penance. After a Tyranid invasion threatens the galaxy, Titus and his kill-team are sent on a mission to use a bioweapon against the horde.
This is where the game begins and the players follow Titus in the fight against Tyranids and other threats as Titus’ past demons return to haunt him. The story in Space Marine 2 is mostly just an excuse for the bone-crushing action to exist. Nevertheless, there are enough plot twists as well as references to Warhammer 40K universe lore and history to once again keep both hardcore fans of the franchise and casual shooter enjoyers happy at the end of the day.
Facing the Tyranid horde is turned into a pretty satisfying experience thanks to Swarm Engine; the game engine previously used in Saber Interactive’s World War Z. Most of the gameplay mechanics are just the same as the first game or any other third-person shooter. Titus can use a variety of ranged and melee weapons to deal with the horde. Newer weapons are unlocked as the story progresses and players can also find special weapons or healing items by going off the beaten path and exploring each level. Space Marine 2 reprises the same healing mechanic from the first game with a little bit of change. Now, killing enemies using Executions restores Titus’ shields instead of health. When enemies are sufficiently damaged, they are stunned and open to Executions.
Titus also has different special abilities during story missions. Most of the time, he can enter a rage-like mode during which he deals more damage and regains lost health. On other occasions, he is equipped with a jetpack that allows traversing canyons and other special obstacles in a level while enabling Titus to hover in the air and engage in aerial combat, adding more verticality to the game.
The best thing about Space Marine 2 is its dedication to creating a real hierarchy in the Tyranid horde. Tyranids are insect-like creatures that follow a hive-mind through interstellar space and prey on other living beings -something like the Zerg from StarCraft-. Consequently, the Tyranid army consists of weaker but numerous low-level Gaunts under the leadership of bigger elite units such as the Tyranid Warriors or the flying Neurothrope. While Titus can deal with a group of Gaunts quickly using his sword, they enter a buffed state and become more powerful when an elite enemy is nearby. Thus, players need to prioritize their attacks and plan each encounter with Tyranids and take care of elite enemies first to prevent them from buffing the Gaunts. Consequently, the situation escalates when multiple types of elite enemies are present at the same time in a combat scenario, each with their own special abilities.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the second enemy faction, the Legion of Chaos that the players have to face in the second half of the game. Fighting forces of Chaos is no different than fighting Locust soldiers from the Gears of War franchise or any other generic third-person shooter. Of course, they also have different classes like the Tyranids, but fighting them no longer needs a specific strategy because the buffing effect previously mentioned is no longer present here. That, along with the lack of a progression system, repetitive combat scenarios, and duplicated boss fights make the game feel stretched too thin for its own sake.
Albeit, the lack of progression is limited to the campaign mode as Space Marine 2’s PvE mode called Operations has its own well-thought progression system. Operations consist of six missions that take place during Titus’ story missions but in a different part of the battlefield. The player joins a squad of three Ultramarines that follow Titus’ orders across the battlefield to jointly accomplish a bigger mission. There are six classes of Ultramarines each armed with their unique special abilities like jetpacks, grappling hooks, scans, and different weapons. Completing missions with each class and weapon rewards the players with mastery points that can be used to unlock perks for the selected weapon and character class. It’s unbelievable that the devs went through such a well-rooted progression system just to exclude it in the campaign mode.
On the technical side, Space Marine 2 is kind of a mixed bag. The game’s visuals look amazing and exceptionally photorealistic. Yet, the game does not support any special graphical technologies such as Ray Tracing or even some of the well-rooted and old features such as HDR coloring options. The game’s performance is also within an acceptable range as rendering an interactive Tyranid horde with all its character details is a herculean task to pull off. I personally had an unsolvable performance issue that rendered my gaming experience mostly below 60FPS and changing graphic settings wouldn’t affect the frame drops at all.
Space Marine 2 is a solid third-person shooter and a memorable experience for Warhammer 40K. The game’s gory combat feels much more immersive thanks to the beauty of Swarm Engine and facing Tyranids feels like a unique gaming experience. Yet, the game fails to remain fresh and engaging till the end as players need to go through almost identical combat scenarios with almost the same loadout for just about half of the game. Lack of innovation is the greatest shortcoming of the campaign mode but the PvE and PvP modes that are available afterwards make Space Marine 2 a game to be enjoyed for quite a while.
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