Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a third-person hack n' slash shooter developed by Saber Interactive Inc. and published by Focus Entertainment. It is a sequel to the beloved original Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine which was originally released in 2011, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by SEGA.

While the teams working behind the game are different, Space Marine 2 pays a GENUINE homage to the first game, taking its soul, DNA, down to the attack patterns/combos of some weapons, expanding upon some, and polishing others.

Plot
Revolving around Demetrian Titus (The Main Character of the first Space Marine game), our hero makes a return after almost 200 years in events that found him over a century being repeatedly psychically scourged and subjected to brutal mindtrawls by Inquisitor Thrax who loathes the existence of Space Marines. Details of this event can be found in the book "White Dwarf 498" released March of 2024.
Entering Space Marine 2, Titus finds himself in a situation that cost him his battle brothers from the Deathwatch, as well as his life as a Firstborn Marine. However mysteriously, Titus has survived after being rescued in the very last moments, and cut open head to toe to be remade anew as a Primaris by none other than the Ultramarines, the chapter he once served, his lifeblood, his home. The entire story of Space Marine 2 goes on to present a situation in where no one of the newer generations of Ultramarines knows of Titus and his past due to it being redacted from the archives in account of potential heresy. Due to this, there is a large focus in character development where the Ultramarines grows suspicious of Titus as his past gets slowly revealed to them, and Titus himself trying to keep himself distant from his now brothers to avoid a repeat of the situation that got him hundreds of years in the hands of a corrupt inquisitor.
Outside of being a Warhammer 40,000 story I believe that it is a solid short story about brotherhood, trust, and companionship that even without knowing the full lore of the 40k Universe, you can come to appreciate the story by focusing on the characters rather than the universe itself as a basis- However if you ARE a huge fan of 40k, you will not be disappointed with all of the depictions of just about everything down to the very last detail. All in all, I believe that this is a great way for people to get into the Warhammer universe, having known about it before or not. There's so much love, care, and charm to the whole presentation that will make you want to learn more! But most importantly in this game, you get to really experience what it means to be humanity's greatest warrior- The Emperor's Angels of Death alongside weight any one of these individual carry on their shoulders.

Gameplay & Multiplayer
A strong hybrid of vicious melee combat that requires you to focus on countering, blocking and dodging enemy attacks while slicing your way through hordes of Tyranids and Daemons as well as gunplay that feels heavy and powerful, having you focus on the balance between both as everything including your ammo and health is a finite resource that must be shared with your squad. The difference in gameplay between someone who can leverage all of these mechanics and aiming versus someone who wantonly shoot into hordes of enemies is quite apparent especially in the higher difficulties of the game, so this game is one that truly rewards players for mastery over all of the gameplay mechanics and gives dedicated players a certain skill ceiling to reach as a goal and reward for spending a lot of time with the game. The multiplayer PvE coop mode offers 6 different classes with access to a total of almost 40 different weapons and their variations as of the time of writing. With each weapon having their different perk trees, as well as each class having their own unique skill tree, there are a number of many different playstyles you can experiment with and craft your own playstyle to an extent and much like Darktide, giving you the freedom and versatility so that every single round you play could just be quite different than one another due to gear, team comp, skill setup, and the AI Spawning/Events Director. However this does not mean that every single weapon and strategy is perfectly viable in the highest echelon of gameplay. It can be said that at the highest level, a lot of the gameplay loop can feel very same'sy due to the balancing of game mechanics such as parrying and the discrepancy between weapon efficiency and performance, however I personally don't think any of this should stop you from being able to enjoy the game casually and play however you like, whenever you like. Many more operations maps, gameplay modes (Horde Mode), a Prestige system, new weapons, new classes, and gameplay modifiers has been confirmed to be added to base game for free for all players as well in the near future.

Visuals
If I have previously mentioned that Darktide is like the Mona Lisa of Warhammer 40,000 games when it comes to the arts and visuals, then I will have to say that Space Marine 2 is like Le Louvre, the museum that holds the Mona Lisa. It holds just so much art, detail and beauty the likes that I have not seen before and is SIMPLY BREATHTAKING.

Audio
I will describe this game's entire audio in a few words: IT FEELS RIGHT.
Every sound effect in this game feels as if it belongs- The sounds of the hulking armor of the Space Marines, down to the depth and impact of each gun, to the sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart, the cries of the Tyranids, and even the out-of-world sorcery feels natural as if it is meant to be. This coupled with the great acting and voice acting work of the entire cast makes the world feels alive. You can feel the emotions and tensions of each of the scenes your characters are in, you can feel the revelry and awe of the Imperial Guardsmen seeing His Angels for the very first time in their lives, you can feel the depths of the burden that Titus is holding with each breath that he continues to internally fight his struggle of trusting his own brothers. While there isn't much of the quirky flair that even this game's predecessor has (especially with the Orks), it does feel like there's a heart and a soul put behind every action, and having played the main story through 8+ times with voices in every different language dub available, it's been a genuine experience for me to get to hear how different languages depicts all the characters and set pieces in the game. If there is one single complaint I might have to some of the voices is that, some vox audio communication effects may be a little overdone, but I can see it as being an acquired taste.
Lastly, the music. One of the biggest issues when it comes to judging the music for this game for me is that there are so many amazing set pieces in that I genuinely don't really notice or remember much of the music of the game even now after 250+ hours of playing. That however is not a negative in any way really, as if everything feels perfectly right, it means that there's nothing that feels out of place or jarring. That in itself is a huge praise in my eyes.

It took me a while to write this review because I genuinely wanted to experience everything the game has to offer before doing so. As of now, I've unlocked and maxed out every single class and skill, cosmetics, weapons for every single mode and is consistently playing on the highest difficulty. The game is well polished, beautiful, fun, and feels very refreshing to play among all the Warhammer games that I have played.

Hopefully, with the success of this game, the road to having much higher quality Warhammer games and media in the future is now being paved, I can't wait to see where this road leads a few more years down the line.

As of now, I will rate Space Marine 2 as a 8.75/10.
However I'm expecting that to go upwards of 9.5++ in a year's time ♪

~ Azel

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a third-person hack n' slash shooter developed by Saber Interactive Inc. and published by Focus Entertainment. It is a sequel to the beloved original Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine which was originally released in 2011, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by SEGA. While the teams working behind the game are different, Space Marine 2 pays a GENUINE homage to the first game, taking its soul, DNA, down to the attack patterns/combos of some weapons, expanding upon some, and polishing others. [b]Plot[/b] Revolving around Demetrian Titus (The Main Character of the first Space Marine game), our hero makes a return after almost 200 years in events that found him over a century being repeatedly psychically scourged and subjected to brutal mindtrawls by Inquisitor Thrax who loathes the existence of Space Marines. Details of this event can be found in the book "White Dwarf 498" released March of 2024. Entering Space Marine 2, Titus finds himself in a situation that cost him his battle brothers from the Deathwatch, as well as his life as a Firstborn Marine. However mysteriously, Titus has survived after being rescued in the very last moments, and cut open head to toe to be remade anew as a Primaris by none other than the Ultramarines, the chapter he once served, his lifeblood, his home. The entire story of Space Marine 2 goes on to present a situation in where no one of the newer generations of Ultramarines knows of Titus and his past due to it being redacted from the archives in account of potential heresy. Due to this, there is a large focus in character development where the Ultramarines grows suspicious of Titus as his past gets slowly revealed to them, and Titus himself trying to keep himself distant from his now brothers to avoid a repeat of the situation that got him hundreds of years in the hands of a corrupt inquisitor. Outside of being a Warhammer 40,000 story I believe that it is a solid short story about brotherhood, trust, and companionship that even without knowing the full lore of the 40k Universe, you can come to appreciate the story by focusing on the characters rather than the universe itself as a basis- However if you ARE a huge fan of 40k, you will not be disappointed with all of the depictions of just about everything down to the very last detail. All in all, I believe that this is a great way for people to get into the Warhammer universe, having known about it before or not. There's so much love, care, and charm to the whole presentation that will make you want to learn more! But most importantly in this game, you get to really experience what it means to be humanity's greatest warrior- The Emperor's Angels of Death alongside weight any one of these individual carry on their shoulders. [b]Gameplay & Multiplayer[/b] A strong hybrid of vicious melee combat that requires you to focus on countering, blocking and dodging enemy attacks while slicing your way through hordes of Tyranids and Daemons as well as gunplay that feels heavy and powerful, having you focus on the balance between both as everything including your ammo and health is a finite resource that must be shared with your squad. The difference in gameplay between someone who can leverage all of these mechanics and aiming versus someone who wantonly shoot into hordes of enemies is quite apparent especially in the higher difficulties of the game, so this game is one that truly rewards players for mastery over all of the gameplay mechanics and gives dedicated players a certain skill ceiling to reach as a goal and reward for spending a lot of time with the game. The multiplayer PvE coop mode offers 6 different classes with access to a total of almost 40 different weapons and their variations as of the time of writing. With each weapon having their different perk trees, as well as each class having their own unique skill tree, there are a number of many different playstyles you can experiment with and craft your own playstyle to an extent and much like Darktide, giving you the freedom and versatility so that every single round you play could just be quite different than one another due to gear, team comp, skill setup, and the AI Spawning/Events Director. However this does not mean that every single weapon and strategy is perfectly viable in the highest echelon of gameplay. It can be said that at the highest level, a lot of the gameplay loop can feel very same'sy due to the balancing of game mechanics such as parrying and the discrepancy between weapon efficiency and performance, however I personally don't think any of this should stop you from being able to enjoy the game casually and play however you like, whenever you like. Many more operations maps, gameplay modes (Horde Mode), a Prestige system, new weapons, new classes, and gameplay modifiers has been confirmed to be added to base game for free for all players as well in the near future. [b]Visuals[/b] If I have previously mentioned that Darktide is like the Mona Lisa of Warhammer 40,000 games when it comes to the arts and visuals, then I will have to say that Space Marine 2 is like Le Louvre, the museum that holds the Mona Lisa. It holds just so much art, detail and beauty the likes that I have not seen before and is SIMPLY BREATHTAKING. [b]Audio[/b] I will describe this game's entire audio in a few words: IT FEELS RIGHT. Every sound effect in this game feels as if it belongs- The sounds of the hulking armor of the Space Marines, down to the depth and impact of each gun, to the sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart, the cries of the Tyranids, and even the out-of-world sorcery feels natural as if it is meant to be. This coupled with the great acting and voice acting work of the entire cast makes the world feels alive. You can feel the emotions and tensions of each of the scenes your characters are in, you can feel the revelry and awe of the Imperial Guardsmen seeing His Angels for the very first time in their lives, you can feel the depths of the burden that Titus is holding with each breath that he continues to internally fight his struggle of trusting his own brothers. While there isn't much of the quirky flair that even this game's predecessor has (especially with the Orks), it does feel like there's a heart and a soul put behind every action, and having played the main story through 8+ times with voices in every different language dub available, it's been a genuine experience for me to get to hear how different languages depicts all the characters and set pieces in the game. If there is one single complaint I might have to some of the voices is that, some vox audio communication effects may be a little overdone, but I can see it as being an acquired taste. Lastly, the music. One of the biggest issues when it comes to judging the music for this game for me is that there are so many amazing set pieces in that I genuinely don't really notice or remember much of the music of the game even now after 250+ hours of playing. That however is not a negative in any way really, as if everything feels perfectly right, it means that there's nothing that feels out of place or jarring. That in itself is a huge praise in my eyes. It took me a while to write this review because I genuinely wanted to experience everything the game has to offer before doing so. As of now, I've unlocked and maxed out every single class and skill, cosmetics, weapons for every single mode and is consistently playing on the highest difficulty. The game is well polished, beautiful, fun, and feels very refreshing to play among all the Warhammer games that I have played. Hopefully, with the success of this game, the road to having much higher quality Warhammer games and media in the future is now being paved, I can't wait to see where this road leads a few more years down the line. As of now, I will rate Space Marine 2 as a 8.75/10. However I'm expecting that to go upwards of 9.5++ in a year's time ♪ ~ Azel