Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II
Released: September 9th, 2024
Developer: Saber Interactive
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Systems: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox X/S
In 2011, Relic Entertainment gave us Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, and it was a solid 7/10.
A decent solo campaign with what felt like an obligatory multiplayer component, Space Marine was very much a product of its time. It wasn’t, however, a product people seemed to want - it sold rather poorly, so those who did invest in it subsequently never got to see the presumptuous cliffhanger resolved.
Resolution is now at hand, for Saber Interactive has picked up Captain Titus' story and… breezed past the cliffhanger stuff like it didn’t matter. Which it doesn't, really. Space Marine II is concerned with more pressing matters - predominantly the killing of thousands of Tyranids.
It’s interesting that this game is positioned as a sequel at all. Barring the disposable plot connection, it’s a remarkably different experience and it’s not like they needed the brand value of a forgotten THQ release. I suppose if you own the rights to something, you may as well use them for something.
What we have here is, in essence, World War Z with Games Workshop’s swarming xenomorph expies in the place of zombies. As someone who was hooked on Saber’s undead-flavored shenanigans, the idea of transplanting the formula onto 40K is exactly my kind of nonsense.
The results, however, are mixed. Fundamentally, Space Marine II is another solid effort, but there is some baffling design in parts, as well as a number of oversights when it comes to balancing gameplay across all its various modes.
It’s a game of three very distinct parts. With a narrative campaign, a series of co-op based
missions, and a PvP multiplayer mode, there’s a lot to chew through. Each portion provides its fair share of positive and negative traits unique to themselves, often due to a one-size-fits-all design approach.
Saber Interactive has certainly nailed the core concept, doing a great job of replacing teeming infected with scuttling Tyranids. It was hard not to crack a smile when I first heard a huge scream in the distance followed by the sight of a bug horde pouring over the horizon.
It’s like if the Starship Troopers film had no self awareness… so it’s like the Starship Troopers book.
Combat has that heavy, chunky feel you’d hope to expect from a game featuring your favorite tabletop space fascists. From the dinkiest bolt pistol to the mightiest of plasma and melta guns, every firearm at the Ultramarines’ disposal is loud, brash, and suitably powerful. Mowing into Tyranids with any one of the firearms is quite pleasing indeed.
Melee is perhaps more important, since most Tyranids will do all they can to get up close with their big stabby appendages. Blades, chainswords, smashin’ fists, and big fuckoff hammers hold up their end of the bargain. At times the game becomes a full-on hack n’ slash, and it’s pretty good… for the most part.
When an enemy glows red, it’s primed for a finisher. They’re all violently glorious. Of particular note is the way you execute a Zoanthrope, grabbing its oversized head and literally yanking the thing's face off - it’s like pulling a piece of Cadbury’s Caramel apart.
I’m not yet sick of seeing the executions, or indeed any of the moves on display. Space Marine II’s animations are among its very best features. It’s a wonderful game to see in motion.
Another stylish move is to pull a quick handgun shot on a dazed opponent. When a reticule appears on an enemy’s head, one button press pulls the camera in close for a damaging headshot. Just be warned that it’s not always reliable, and unlike executions it can leave you very prone to attacks. It’s not always beneficial, but I keep doing it every time I can because it looks so cool.
Despite the fact you’re mostly fighting huge packs of creatures, a curious emphasis is placed on parrying and dodging. It’s the usual case of color coding you see in other action games - attacks that glow blue can be countered, while red ones can only be evaded.
The counter attacks are hilarious. Before a smaller enemy has even begun to leap at you, your beefy marine will hold her hand out casually, ready to catch and slam it down with authority. There are plenty of other fun parries based on your chosen melee weapon. Literally cutting a Tyranid off midair with the chainsword is never a bad time.
While countering is fun when you do it, the use of telegraphed prompts requiring specific responses is often at odds with the manic nature of combat. When limbs are flying and beasts are all over the shop, it’s very easy to lose track of things. The audio cue for parrying and dodging sounds the same for either, and as a result I tend to get hit by anything I can’t counter as attempting to parry becomes habitual.
Particularly hectic battles can be exercises in frustration as attacks come at all angles, including offscreen, and plenty of them arrive without any warning. You also have projectiles, explosive spores, and larger Tyranid creatures to worry about. There’s just so much going on, and you’ll find that health can drain from full to empty in the blink of an eye.
Seriously, it’s wild how much damage you can take in a second. There’s a rally-style system, where dealing melee damage recuperates lost health, but if you’re in a position where you need it, you’ll almost never be able to keep up with what you’re losing.
Boss fights are where combat’s at its worst. While visual spectacles, they’re all pains in the goddamn fucking ass. Many are long brutal slogs that throw so many attacks your way as to be utterly overwhelming. They're all doable with a good team, but they can end a run very quickly, which really sucks considering how lengthy the missions are.
Generally though, combat is not shabby. It’s fun, gory, and suitably hefty. Pouring bolter fire into a big pile of Tyranids as they pour over each other is just as entertaining as it was when zombies were doing it, while the close quarter stuff is wonderfully brutal. It’s just a shame that not everything Saber’s trying to do gels well together.
Speaking of gel, let’s get into the three separate offerings of Space Marine II.
First we have the main campaign, telling the inconsequential tale of Titus as he fights Tyranids and, later, an inevitable secondary enemy that I won’t spoil because I’m not several of the pre-launch reviewers. It’s a fine enough set of story stages, though the story itself is forgettable and not something I paid much attention to - that’s the problem with Ultramarines, they have so little personality I don’t give a damn about them.
That said, out of everything Space Marine II does, I wouldn’t have predicted the campaign being the thing I least wanted to play.
My main problem is that despite there being a specific PvE multiplayer mode, the narrative content is generally balanced for co-op and, exasperatingly, campaign matchmaking is private. I genuinely cannot comprehend why such absurdity is the case. Made no sense when Redfall did it, makes no sense here - especially because the specific PvE missions do have public co-op.
Since it’s weighted toward multiplayer, certain sections are just plain horrible to play alone. As someone whose friends aren’t really into games, I’ve had to eat shit on this one, and I don’t like the taste.
You’ll get two AI-controlled allies in place of friends, but they’re fucking useless. They won't always finish off enemies and they can’t so much as perceive an objective. Trying to defend four separate locations while your blundering buddies half-kill the multitudes of monsters around you is repugnantly stressful.
I couldn’t stick it out, to be honest. Titus can go screw himself - I spent most of my time with the modes that wanted to be played.
The PvE missions actually allowing for public teams are automatically better as a direct result of said allowance. Here, three players pick a character class and take on tasks that narratively run alongside Titus’ whole deal. Without a ton of story to bog it down, these missions allow the gameplay to truly breathe and are the optimal way to take on hordes of monstrosities.
Longevity is going to be an issue as, unlike World War Z, opportunities for standout dynamic moments are thin on the ground and you don’t get to prepare any defensive positions or fortifications to hold off a horde. You basically have your preset loadouts and the same sequence of events per mission. That's fine, but it does feel like more could be done to put some variety between all the shooting and slashing.
Another minor niggle is the fact character classes were clearly built for multiplayer and they’ve just been plonked into PvE play without additional tuning. While no class is fully useless to a mission, some have far more utility than others. Being able to bring up a ballistic shield is great until you remember most Tyranids are melee attackers. When fighting shootier enemies, the melee-oriented Vanguard class becomes the less handy one instead.
Again, nobody's useless, but some classes are just highly situational in co-op and can feel less useful as a result.
This represents a consistent problem running throughout the entire production - Saber Interactive is trying to make one game do three different things without compromise. This has led to a few glaring oversights - the inability to switch your aiming camera from shoulder to shoulder is fine against a horde of bugs, but during PvP, you're severely disadvantaged in a firefight depending on what side of a wall you're on.
As far as the competitive multiplayer goes, it’s fairly basic stuff, but it’s not bad at all. Two teams face each other as Imperial or Chaos Marines, blasting each other in a thoroughly stock selection of game types - there’s a regular deathmatch and a couple of capture ones. The straightforward, old fashioned approach to multiplayer honestly feels a little refreshing these days.
Your choice of character class isn’t a very deep well, each one having a limited selection of guns and a single special ability each. Abilities include the Tactical Marine’s scanner, the Sniper’s invisibility, and… you know what? You’ve seen these archetypes in a dozen shooters, you know the drill. All the classes are fine, just not particularly thrilling.
I hate how each class is tied to a very specific Ultramarine character or Traitor Legion member. I like the Tactical class, but if I'm on the Chaos side, it means being part of the dreary Black Legion. I’m a Chaos fan in general, but none of the classes are tied to a Legion I enjoy. Well, I do like the Alpha Legion, but they're tied to the sniper, the one class I wouldn't ever go for.
It’s a real shame I can’t just make my own Marine and then give her a class. There are a lot of color options, but you’ll have to grind for them. Same goes for armor cosmetics, which unlock sequentially and need to be bought with the same dripfed currency you’ll need for paintjobs, weapon skins, and perks for each class.
The way you unlock customization options is needlessly convoluted and just plain unintuitive. Simply getting a paint color can require multiple purchases along a set track before you reach it. It seems some unlocks, like weapon skins, don’t even carry over between PvE and PvP, which is honestly shocking.
Even more stunningly, can’t save your custom colors between modes - hell, you can’t even share them between classes. You’ll have to manually redo your paint jobs for every class and mode if you want them to look the same. It's so weird.
Oh, and Chaos got absolutely shafted when it comes to visual options. You can apply the recolors, but they get no unlockable armor parts, weapon skins, or anything. They’re literally here just to give the Imperial side something to fight. One can only assume they're hoarding that shit for DLC.
Some of the unlockable armor parts are pure shit. They progressively unlock, but most of the items are just slightly different versions of the starting stuff. Some feel like active downgrades, as when you do have a cool piece of gear, chances are the next unlock will just be the basic version with a small skull glued onto it. Overall, customization is underwhelming and questionably implemented.
Even the current DLC gear largely sucks.
Also worth noting that, while it works great when it works, online functionality keeps going through these mini periods where it becomes awful and requires frequent rebooting. They're brief, but they've been going on since the "early access" paid-for launch day. There's some curiously lengthy loading times in some areas too, which one isn't supposed to expect on a modern machine these days.
Saber has used a single foundation for, essentially, three different games, and combined with some frankly bizarre balancing issues, the full product is littered with discrepancies and inconsistencies. It’s still got loads of entertainment value, but the more I play, the more irritated I get by the absurd choices made in development.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II can provide hours of fun with three distinct ways of playing it. World War Z with Tyranids is a hell of a pitch, and it’s been realized successfully, albeit with a number of unsuccessful elements holding it back. Puzzling design decisions litter the entire experience, and at times I was left wondering what the hell Saber Interactive was thinking. Yet... I'm really quite into it.
It’s just one of those games - the ones you like but have to acknowledge are riddled with things to complain about. Fun and frustrating all at once.
7/10
