As someone drawn to cooperative, squad-based multiplayer experiences, I find Space Marine 2 embodies the essence of Gears of War with its weighty combat/gore and map design that are masterpieces of artistic vision. Some of the scenes throughout the game look utterly spectacular, and the team should be proud of themselves for what they've created.

The progression system is equally impressive, striking a perfect balance between depth and accessibility. Every advancement so far has felt earned, and what's truly refreshing is that the game avoids exhausting grinds or paywalls, and their absence means I can focus on enjoying the experience rather than feeling pressured to invest more time/money!

What truly sets Space Marine 2 apart for me, however, is the camaraderie it fosters. It's one of the rare games I've played that evokes a genuine sense of unity—there's something unforgettable about that hard-earned victory, or watching the absurd amount of chaos unfolding on screen with random brothers-in-arms. This is why I'm glad there's no competitive mode (at least not yet), as it often brings out the worst in players, and I'd prefer not have my experiences going forward to be tainted. That said, I can't help but imagine how modes like Capture the Flag, Horde, or Bomb Plant could bring even more fun to the game?

Lastly, a big thank you to my friend Moon for introducing me to the 40k universe—here's to many more sessions ahead! :)

🔰SHREDVIEW🔰 - From someone who actually plays and finishes the games before reviewing.

🔷 ABOUT THE GAME & LORE 🔷

Set nearly two centuries after the events of the original game, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 continues the saga of Demetrian Titus. After his detainment by the Inquisition, Titus has been reinstated as a Primaris Lieutenant, reflecting both his enduring loyalty and the Imperium's trust in his combat prowess.

The narrative unfolds amidst a massive Tyranid invasion threatening the Imperium. Our protagonist, now enhanced with Primaris augmentations, leads his squad into battle against the opposing forces, embodying the relentless spirit of the Adeptus Astartes.

The game's lore delves into themes of redemption, duty, and the unyielding fight for humanity's survival in the grim darkness of the far future. Players will experience the brutal realities of war, the complexities of Imperial politics, and the unwavering resolve of a Space Marine who has faced suspicion and emerged stronger.

🔷 THE GAMEPLAY 🔷

👉 GENERAL:
Viewed from a third person perspective, it lands a proper trip in placing you exactly where you'd want to be, lead by a strong and loyal character so you'll be watching over Titus's shoulder as he charges for Macragge! It's an amazing mix of shooting, story telling and testosterone, all packed up into a smooth experience. It moves well, it's well optimized, it's beautiful, it's the Emperor's will.

▪︎ So the game is split in 3 game modes:
- Campaign: The main storyline
- Operations: Adjacent events to main storyline, you play from the perspective of the squads that our protagonist commands during the campaign.
- Eternal War: PVP which has 3 types of matches.

▪︎ Everything you jump into is very straight forward with a sprinkle of lootables, consumables hidden every here and there. A lot of shooting action overseen by the commitment of our characters which gives it this artistic feel of being part of the journey.

▪︎ Our player progression and improvement system are also very basic, yet rewarding enough to just give you that satisfying edge and keep you going. In campaign, everything is standard as you play as the main protagonist but in operations and PVP, you are given 6 classes to choose from, each with their own simple perk tree, principal weapon types and unique ability. For the selected class, these upgrades are unlocked by leveling up and for weapons, they are unlocked based on a mastery mechanic which implies trying each weapon's variants.

▪︎ Campaign and operations allow a co-op party of maximum 3 players, with AI filling the spot of any missing players while PVP is team based only and allows 5v5 rosters.

▪︎ You level up classes separately in each game mode. Operations has a class level cap of 25 while in PVP level is called Veterancy and I've seen up to 35 maximum. In PVP, you can only switch weapons but no character skill tree.

▪︎ Difficulty level is adjustable and is chosen when starting campaign. Operations mode have separate difficulty level selectable from the Battle Barge, the higher the difficulty level, the higher the Class XP and mastery upgrade material rewards.

▪︎ Every mission from both campaign and operations mode is replayable so you can always go back for whatever you have missed.

▪︎ Cosmetics are also a core part of the game, as in PVP and OPS you get to paint your space marine however you please, whether being custom or defined chapter colors. As you level up each class, you unlock more armor designs, and more colors/stickers are purchasable with in-game currency from the customization shop.

▪︎ There is voice and text chat for parties, player waypoint mechanic, predefined command wheel, all allowing for efficient communication in a party.

▪︎ Cross play enabled by default; we share the battles with our controller brothers.

👉 NAVIGATION SYSTEM:
3 main stations, the battle barge where you choose game mode type and then mission. The equipment station for cosmetics & character or weapon modification and the collectible audio-logs library. You can’t get lost.

👉 PHYSICS & MECHANICS:
Properly built and optimized for what it is. A modern engine used very cost efficiently and more stable than a horse house. The unrelenting violence of the battlefield with all its implied particles very rarely impacts performance, and only for brief moments.

👉 GRAPHICS & OPTIMIZATION:
Warhammer universe is grim-dark, cold and drifting far away from nature's touch, however Space Marine 2 is a phenomenal example of a optimization & eye candy synergy, proving less is more when done with passion. It's pure sci-fi cinema, in my opinion.

👉 ACHIEVEMENTS & COLLECTIBLES:
Right off the bat, the 41K kills was unnecessary, ♥♥♥♥ that achievement in all it's glory. Other than this, nothing hard to achieve or missable. Enough to take you through all of the game's current content.

🔷 CONCLUSION: 🔷
A wonderful addition to the Warhammer 40k lore a positive follow-up to one of our favorite character's story. Besides the campaign and operations which are perfectly fine, ♥♥♥♥ the PVP section and the Online Services connections, there are 2 VERY major issues:

1. PVP is highly unbalanced, many times we ended up in teams of 5 players all below LVL 10 while the opponents were all 20+, that’s just mentally challenged ideas.

2. Constant "Disconnected from online services" incidents which force you to go back to Main Menu screen to reconnect, each incident including a loading screen. This was very annoying.

Other than this, no bugs except for the Tyranids, had a great experience and I'm glad testosterone resurfaced in gaming. This is surely a game I recommend, in the name of the Emperor.

🔷 PROS & CONS: 🔷

✔️ PROS:
- Very engaging & satisfying gameplay.
- Well written & Immersively presented storyline.
- Great graphics & optimization.
- Simple and intuitive skill & gear system.
- Challenging & adaptable difficulty, good for reflex training.

❌ CONS:
- The PVP matchmaking is horribly unbalanced...
- Constant disconnects from online services
- One of the achievements is glitched and requires a lot of attempts or dubious workarounds.
- Campaign was way too short.
- There are achievements that force a lot of unnecessary gameplay.
- The "Seize Ground" PVP gamemode is horrible.

🔷 SHORT REVIEW & STATS: 🔷

• PLAY STYLE:
✅ PVP
✅ PVE
✅ ONLINE CO-OP
🔳 Online Multiplayer
🔳 SPLIT SCREEN
✅ SINGLE PLAYER

• GRAPHICS:
🔳 Fire the designer.
🔳 Fairly old game, what you expect?
🔳 Not great, not terrible.
✅ Great
🔳 Exceptional

• REPLAYABILITY:
🔳 YES
🔳 EVERY NOW AND THEN
✅ NOT SURE
✅ RARELY / ON MAJOR UPDATE / DLC RELEASE
🔳 NO

• STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS:
✅ YES
🔳 NO (WTF MAN)

• GAMEPLAY:
🔳 WTF IS THIS ♥♥♥♥
🔳 TERRIBLE
🔳 DECENT
✅ ENGAGING
🔳 HAD A BLAST

• DIFFICULTY:
🔳 DARK SOULS
🔳 BAFFLING
✅ CHALLENGING
🔳 MEDIUM
🔳 WALK IN THE PARK

• STORYLINE:
🔳 A WHAT? WE WRITE CODE NOT BOOKS
🔳 GOES FINE WITHOUT ONE
🔳 DECENT
✅ ENGAGING
🔳 SHAKESPEARE AINT GOT S**T ON THIS

❗ NOTE - This is a review based on personal preferences and opinions. I always suggest you try the games for yourself before letting others decide for you. Even though we're all gamers, we are sure not the same.

Play time at time of review: ~40h
> Campaign normal solo: 8h
> Campaign normal coop: 8h
> Operations coop: 8h
> Operations grinding: 16h
> PVP: 0h

If you're just looking at a story to play though, then there's about 16 hours of gameplay available for you. Your pick if the asking price makes that worth it for you. I recommend playing the game with 2 friends in voice chat, though 2 player is also possible as it'll simply add a bot.

This game is not single player friendly, the bots seem to be incapable of doing anything useful against level 3 (extremis) or 4 (terminus) opponents. This goes so far as to make it seem the bots are incapable of damaging a double spawn of Zoanthropes till the player has shot at those enemies, an issue not helped by the fact that often once attacking the bots will shoot the invulnerable shielded Zoanthrope of the 2 and still do pretty much no damage. Against bigger ground based enemies this means the player has to both keep the enemy agro AND do most of the damage, good luck with that.

The coop experience is significantly better, especially in voice chat. One player capable of tanking can distract a bigger enemy whilst the others unload their guns, this makes boss fights around 5 times faster than with bots. One note about coop campaign however is that the players are assigned a character (read ability) in the order they join the party, host plays titus.

The weapon roster is generally ok, bit disappointing some coop classes are stuck with limited weapon options though. Whilst the guns have the right sounds and visuals the problem lies in how tanky the enemies are, yes a headshot will kill a lvl 1 basic enemy but a lvl 3 can already take more than 2 lascannon hits to the face when you're playing the lowest difficulty. The really big enemies (carnifex etc) seem to take more than your entire ammo load on normal difficulty when playing with bots, massive damage sponges that just make the game not fun in single player.

I don't have opinions on PVP, since I don't play PVP as it just isn't my thing.

When it comes to customization I have two opinions. The first one is that locking even basic colors behind a grind wall is a terrible design decision. Warhammer is supposed to be all about "your dudes", the ability to make your models look like you want. That shouldn't include having to pay 10 bucks for a dlc just to get the privelege of grinding for in-game currency so you can unlock your desired color (purple) is just sad. Really devs, had to make customization a grind???

About the grinding, from what I have heard/read it takes around 200 hours to unlock everything. To put that into perspective there's only 8 hours worth of operations mode + a few PVP maps where you can unlock stuff, so you'll be replaying everything a LOT. Like 20 times or more on every single map. I do not buy a 60 buck game to be told to grind for 200 hours just so I can unlock the fun options and combinations of everything.

Grinding isn't always bad, until you realize what the gameplay loop is. For Space Marine 2 that gameplay loop basically comes down to "walk forward", "shoot enemy", "parry attack", "parry 10 more attacks", "execute 1 enemy", "parry more attacks", "dodge", then repeat. And whilst there obviously a bit more to the game, I do find it strange that on PC the most important button "parry" is configured to the "c" key. Not a practical key in the slightest, but oh no it couldn't have been set to a standard key like I don't know control or shift as other games do...

Obviously there is also anti cheat present that according to the steam page doesn't remove itself upon game uninstall.... Do we think that's normal, leaving trash like that around on people's PC's? And I would assume the game requires a constant internet connection, considering the game's bot system seems to have to join servers just like the coop system does. It can even fail doing so, like happened on my first playthrough of the campaign.

In the first 16 ish hours that I played (all you need to have seen all of the story once) in december 2024, 3 months after release, the game managed to crash twice and get completely stuck another 2 times. For a 60 buck release game 3 months after release, I find that unacceptable. For reference, the only games that normally crash on my PC are old 32 bit games that run out of memory due to high game resolutions or large/long matches.

Over the last week I've switched over to playing the game modded (Astartes 2.0) to grab some fun back (rebalanced missions, many customization options unlocked, more weapons for each class). I do not expect myself to play the unmodded game anymore, it doesn't give joy to play as much as it is just a grind. With my friend group we've decided to not grind the game together, so reaching campaign + operations complete is the end of the line for this game when it comes to coop for me.

With the singleplayer experience crap, the gameplay loop repetative and not really fun enough to grind + the other issues like stability... I just cannot recommend this game, not now.