As a Warhammer 40,000 expertise, Space Marine 2 is wonderful at many issues. The relentless tide of Tyranids. The firing patterns of every particular person mannequin of Bolt gun. The approach Imperial Guardsmen lookup at you as if you’re a vengeful angel despatched from above. As a online game, although, Space Marine 2 has much less to boast about. In reality, it is solely really achieved at one factor: fight.
This is removed from the adverse critique it first sounds. Space Marine 2, very similar to its 2011 predecessor, is constructed on the bones of Gears of Struggle. It presents spectacle and destruction in equal measure, with linear ranges designed purely to funnel you from one bloody battle to the following. Other than the enjoyable undeniable fact that such a singular focus makes it an genuine digital embodiment of area marines (who exist purely to combat in a galaxy-spanning exterior battle,) Space Marine 2’s design harks again to the time of the Xbox 360, an period earlier than the bloated, overstuffed ‘all the things recreation’. It’s a trendy demonstration that generally it’s greatest to dedicate your self to 1 thought moderately than try shallow variations of each characteristic at present in vogue.
Developer Saber Interactive has crafted such a sensible fight system because of its deep understanding of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. This isn’t a translation of the tabletop recreation, moderately the conflicts these fashions characterize. In reality, Space Marine 2 feels extra like an adaptation of the paintings that adorns the pages of Warhammer manuals – a lot in order that one late-game sequence seems like a reenactment of a piece painted by famend Video games Workshop artist John Blanche. Blanche’s work typically captured each the glory and horror of a last stand in opposition to an never-ending sea of enemies and that very same feeling is efficiently replicated in Space Marine 2. Your foe, the Tyranids, are area bugs able to swarming the display by the lots of because of an upgraded model of Saber’s World Struggle Z horde tech.
That approaching tide of Tyranids is initially the goal of your ranged arsenal. Gunplay in Space Marine 2 is magnificently weighty because of the thunderous roar of your Pringle can-sized gun barrel and the explosive blood bursts that accompany every spherical detonating inside your targets. Saber exhibits a true understanding of the various, many various Bolter varieties in the 40k universe, and so an arsenal that at the beginning looks like the identical gun in seven totally different codecs quickly reveals itself to be a number of discreet weapons with significant gameplay functions. There’s the dependable cadence of the Auto Bolter, the short precision of the Occulus Bolt Carbine, and the unrelenting harm of the Heavy Bolter, amongst others – all of which have their very own efficient ranges and harm profiles.
However, nearly as good as these Bolters (and their plasma brethren) really feel to fireplace, it’s when the horde will get inside slashing distance that Space Marine 2 actually will get into gear. It begins with one of many smoothest transitions between ranged and melee I’ve ever seen in a recreation. A pull of the set off can stream into the swing of a Chainsword in a break up second, permitting for fast response to approaching foes. It really works the opposite approach, too, which permits a distinctive, fast stream between lengthy and brief vary encounters.
When melee begins in earnest, it’s a lot, rather more concerned than the rifle whacks and contextual knife stabbings of so many different third-person shooters. Towards the waves of cannon-fodder Hormagaunts it’s a button-mashing massacre as you string collectively mild and heavy assaults to stun and skewer. However when the Tyranids (and, later, the Chaos-worshipping Thousand Sons) convey out their heavy-hitting bigger items, the melee reveals itself to be a fully-featured, surprisingly deep sword fight system with dodges, parries, and counters. Because the smaller enemies develop in quantity and start to chew away at your armour after which your well being bar, it turns into important to search out the particular enemies that tower above the swarm. Have interaction them in a brutal melee and a gory execution finisher will replenish your armour and preserve you in the combat for an additional minute. All over the marketing campaign, Saber has crafted fight eventualities that push you to the very fringe of dying. It’s extremely satisfying (and really Warhammer) for a ribcage-breaking finisher transfer to be the factor that saves you from the corpse pile.
Exterior of this totally sensible fight system, although, Space Marine 2 is largely unremarkable relating to most of the different issues we worth in video video games in 2024. The stage design is extremely linear, often interrupted by loading display elevator rides, and options not one of the knotty, surprise-hidden pathways we’ve begun to prize over the past decade. It’s additionally missing in any form of mechanical or mission selection – outdoors of a couple of ranges in which you utilize a jetpack, Space Marine 2 is purely about pushing ahead by crowds of enemies. You by no means drive a tank, and there are not any environmental puzzles. There’s not even an on-rails turret part.
Whereas I’d have preferred a few moments or set-pieces that explored the broader scope of area marine warfare (a part the place you pilot an Invictus Warsuit in a sequel, please,) this singular focus jogs my memory of the simple joys of the Xbox 360 period. Again then we had been handled to many ‘B-tier’ video games which had been equally honed in on a single killer characteristic. There was Darkish Sector with its gory glaive, Singularity and its enemy-withering time manipulation gadget, Darkish Void’s jetpack fight, and – in fact – the unique Space Marine with its mass Ork slaughter. Many AAA studios additionally trod this path, too, notably Epic’s Gears of Struggle with its cover-based capturing (a recreation Space Marine would later take inspiration from, even when it did resolutely reject the thought of hiding behind partitions.)
Such a singular format is in direct distinction to what many AAA studios chase in the present day, in which video games are designed to cater to as many gameplay tastes as doable. Ubisoft in specific has fallen foul of this, constructing open worlds which are bursting with options, lots of which really feel underbaked or superfluous. The lately launched Star Wars Outlaws, as an example, is an open world stealth journey that additionally has motion fight, an RPG-adjacent gear development system, faction repute, and area flight; lots of which have been criticised by reviewers and gamers for feeling anaemic. Previous to Outlaws, Ubisoft had related over-scoped troubles with Ghost Recon Breakpoint (a mix of tactical fight, stealth, survival mechanics, and looter shooter programs) and Watch Canines Legion (stealth, hacking, motion, and a play-as-anyone mechanic that proved far shallower than its design implied).
It’s not simply Ubisoft combating such ‘all the things video games’, although. Bethesda’s try and affix a conventional RPG to a procedurally generated galaxy with base constructing and ship crafting in final 12 months’s Starfield resulted in a recreation that’s broadly thought-about unsatisfactory in its many particular person fields. It’s one thing we even noticed creep into the latest Gears of Struggle recreation – linear marketing campaign design was partially shunned in favour of a principally empty open world, underwhelming facet missions, and an unwarranted tech tree for Jack in Gears 5.
Space Marine 2 seems like an antidote to all this. There are not any mini-games. No underbaked area sections. No endlessly-recycled procedural content material in the title of ‘longevity’. It’s laser-focussed on the mass destruction of humanity’s enemies. Sure, such a slim focus does include its downsides; I had hoped Space Marine 2 would have featured stronger mission and stage design that cherry-picked a few extra esoteric concepts from the Warhammer universe. However regardless of that, Space Marine 2 is a good reminder of an period when one killer characteristic was sufficient. Whereas I actually love bold studios and wouldn’t need to curtail essential creativity, in a interval the place gross sales are struggling and budgets are hovering, perhaps Space Marine 2’s strategy is one thing extra studios in the AAA and AAA-adjacent area ought to take into account. The Xbox 360 period wasn’t some darkish age of expertise to be feared, and one thing might be realized by trying backward. Space Marine 2’s marketing campaign did simply that and the outcomes are worthy of the Omnissiah’s blessings.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Options Editor.