Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Review

I'm Zoe deah Hunty light and with the release of Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 the lovely Rick Lane was kind enough to share his review with me so I could honor the omnis by sculpting it into a video here's why we at Eurogamer give Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 four out of five stars Space Marine 2's campaign does a perfectly Preposterous job in following up relics quintessential 7 out of 10 the story once more revolves around the ultramarine Titus who has been demoted to a left tenant in the Big Blue Brotherhood following accusations of heresy in the original the introductory Mission prefaces all of this in a fun way that I won't spoil But ultimately Titus winds up leading a new Squad of Marines in a large scale operation to rid a trio of Imperial planets from a tyranid infestation and when I say large scale holy onsi Space Marine 2 knows how to put on a show its linear campaign takes you through gigantic Gothic Hive cities being pummeled by tyranid spores and sprawling Imperial fortresses that house Cathedral sized artillery guns it's a gloriously extravagant depiction of the 40K universe and also a game that feels genuinely next generational in its presentation one of the major separating factors here is the business of the screen the skies are constantly filled with whirling flocks of Aven tyranids while encounters with later game enemies display some of the snazziest particle effects you'll see outside of sun the standout trick however is Space Marine 2's vast boiling tyranid swarms the game loves to show you them flooding towards you out of the backdrop or pouring from a spa missile that landed smack in the middle of a battlefield unlike the other points mentioned the tyranids are more than just a visual flourish these constantly evolving aliens are your primary foe in Space Marine 2 and you'll spend much of their campaign mastering how to combat their writhing hordes as with the first game Space Marine 2's combat is built around a mixture of melee and ranged fighting with use swinging chainswords and thunder hammers to cleave through large groups of foes while using bolt guns and plasma incinerators to soften up large enemies or pick off distant targets also returning are the eye popping the Gory executions with Titus and his team impaling tyranids on their own Talons or squashing their heads between their armored Palms yep while the broad Strokes are the same there's considerably more Nuance to the system this time around saber sprinkles a Dasher from soft into the game's Dodge and Parry system while performing executions regenerates your armor helping you to remain in the fight for longer all doom Eternal the most interesting mechanical flourish however is the gun strike a perfectly timed Parry or Dodge paints a literal Target onto your aggressor at which point pressing fire will see your character whip out their sidearm and fire a snapshot right into your enemy's mush knocking them backward and possibly opening them up for an ex ution it's a marvelous little Innovation reminiscent of Gears of War's active reload for how disproportionately it ends up contributing to the experience overall I think Space Marine 2's combat is mostly great that said it can sometimes feel like trying to play bloodborne in a mosh pit while nowhere near as demanding as a fromsoft game it does ask you to remember quite a lot and there are times when your attempt to do a cool thing like grab a leaping enemy or perform a gun strike gets gunged up by the roing Swarm moreover some weapon impacts would benefit from being crunchier as they can be drowned out by the orchestral score and the collective gargling of the tyranids there are a couple of other points worth plunging into In the campaign's chitus Flesh initially Space Marine 2's story threatens to be interesting as it Peaks beneath the armor of the ultramarines to prod at the hot mess of trauma underneath Titus himself has been through a lot since the last game and both these experiences and the aspersions cast upon Him clearly weigh on his shoulders despite his claims to the contrary meanwhile his new squadmates gadriel and Sharon are less than thrilled by their assignment to the left tenant and their doubts only intensify as titus' Behavior grows seemingly more erratic you can feel them biting their tongue on particular subjects as they follow you around indirectly questioning and even scolding Titus through the ultramarines or Nate rhetoric saber clearly wants you to think of its campaign as more than just metal plated Meat Heads and I enjoyed how the campaign hints at the characters's emotions by their very attempts to avoid showing them sadly it never delves much further than this and the campaign drifts increasingly towards tropes and fan services proceeds it's still entertaining but doesn't transcend itself in the way it suggests that it might in the first half the other key point is as you might expect the campaign is at its weakest when played solo not only are there numerous set pieces clearly designed to be played in Co-op combat is noticeably less consistent in single player 2 the tyranid Swarms lean more towards trickle than torrent with some engagements ending oddly prematurely and your left mopping up executions your AI buddies have failed to enact yet when a z thrope appears on screen the difficulty swerves into borderline punishing again your AI companions struggle to manage the intensified swarms leaving you to frantically Dodge around as you try to take down their annoying floating Master when played cooperatively the campaign feels far more consistent the tyranids flow better the combat's more intense and and those difficulty spikes are sanded right down gadriel and Sheron also have their own active abilities which blends the campaign replay a slightly different angle the Space Marine 2's real heart lies in what comes after the story has finished it's chaotic class-based left for dead style operations operations mode offers six individual campaign like missions with a couple of twists first you play as a specific class of Space Marine with distinctive abilities assault Marines are equipped with a jetpack and a thunderhammer for maximum smashing for example while bwork Marines carry a shield and can deploy a standard that creates an armor regenerating field the other key difference is that its tyranid swarms are more Dynamic controlled by a leod dead style AI director that moderates the frequency and intensity of attacks and lets larger enemies call in reinforcements this combination results in a greater emphasis on teamwork while also facilitating some proper gnarly scrapes where the campaign offers the most spectacular set pieces operations is where the mechanical side of Space Marine 2 is allowed to fully breathe that said it's worth noting the operations missions are similar in size and scale to those of the campaign the first of them Inferno has a ferocious Central set piece where you have to to defend the bombb as it's being primed and the final battle where you hold off the tyranid Swarm until it detonates is every bit as stunning as anything in the campaign each operation takes about an hour to complete with more coming post launch combined with the PVP multiplayer mode Space Marine 2 might just have some post launch legs some might see this as a sad indictment of where triaa gaming is at that you can't just make a linear single player AC game anymore without it having some kind of life service element but with Space Marine 2 none of this feels tacked on or like an afterthought as I said at the outset the campaign is better in Co-op while the operations might be the strongest part of the whole package in an industry that is so currently fraught and volatile Space Marine 2 at once Sparks fond memories of the pre- souls era of third person action games while also being cunningly adapted to survive in the modern gaming scene it also looks mint and lets you smash aliens with a big hammer which makes it difficult to dislike and that is what ricklan and Ergo Eurogamer thinks of Space Marine 2 a big thanks to him from me Zoe de Hunty for sharing his review with me and you can read his full review on eurogamer.net right now feel free to subscribe to EUR gamer for more videos about surprise surprise video games and thanks so much for choosing to spend your time with with me now I am going to go and see if I can make my Space Marine wear pink armor just because I can so I'll see you good folks next time