The chainsword is one of my favourite weapons in all of science fiction. It has the form factor of a medieval longsword, but the blade is made up of dozens of chainsaw teeth that rip and tear through flesh. In a single strike it captures both the gothic aesthetic and violent excess of Warhammer 40,000. And this weapon is the brutal, snarling heart of the long-awaited Space Marine 2.
I recently played an hour of the sequel to what many consider the best Warhammer 40k action game ever made. And from what I’ve seen it appears new developer Saber Interactive definitely understands what made the 2011 original, created by Relic Entertainment, work so well. Space Marine 2 is a shooter/melee hybrid that falls somewhere between Gears of War and Doom; a linear third-person campaign filled with intense, gory monster battles. And like its predecessor, it appears to be unapologetically straightforward in its pursuit of increasingly bloody encounters against overwhelming odds.
The mission I played, aptly named Invasion, had me carve a path of corpses through jungle swamps and concrete bunkers during the early stages of an alien attack. The invading Tyranids (think Starship Troopers’ bugs as designed by HR Giger) arrive in swarms, courtesy of Saber’s impressive World War Z engine which can render a thousand enemies on screen. A tidal wave of raptor-like Hormagaunts, supported by handfuls of imposing Warriors, crash against barricades and buildings. They even clamber over each other to form writhing towers that scale shear walls. While at range your guns will easily tear these crowds apart, there’s simply not enough ammunition in the galaxy to hose them all down before they break through your line of fire. That’s where Space Marine 2 switches into melee mode, and the satisfying strikes of its chainsword come into play.
Shooting feels sturdy and powerful, but it’s in the middle of blood-soaked brawls that Space Marine 2 really comes alive. Saber has put together a well-judged melee system that has depth thanks to combos, parries, and dodges, but is still simple enough for you to largely revel in the slaughter. The smaller Hormagaunts are essentially powerless against your strikes; those that try to leap at your face can be caught mid-air and slammed into the ground for an instant kill. But the sheer number of them means they can gnaw away at your armour. Should they break through, they’ll be able to damage your precious health bar, which is primarily replenished with rarely found medical kits. Staying alive in the midst of these hordes, then, is not quite as easy as it first seems for your eight feet-tall, armour-clad Ultramarine.
Executions are gloriously gory, with the chainsword cutting its way through flesh and bone in a spray of blood.
This is where Space Marine 2’s executions come into play. They’re a bit like Doom’s Glory Kills – if you can perform a brutal execution move on an enemy, part of your four-segment armour bar is replenished. The bigger and nastier the enemy, the more armour you regain. And so when fights in my demo began, I instantly sought out the bigger Warriors. They’re a much more imposing challenge. With arms made of swords, they make for a proper duel. Parries are vital, as is watching out for unblockable attacks that you need to dodge. Performing a good counter or a stun combo opens them up to a point-blank pistol shot to the face. Do enough damage, and you can eventually trigger an execution finisher. These are gloriously gory, with the chainsword cutting its way through flesh and bone in a spray of blood that repaints your blue Marine red. It’s a reward in itself, but the real prize is the replenished armour that keeps you in the fight.
And so appears the flow of Space Marine 2. With so few medic packs in the demo mission, I desperately needed to keep my armour topped up. In the latter half of my hands-on I had just a smidge of health left, and so my survival completely hinged on my ability to keep those executions coming. It altered how I approached each encounter; I’d thin out a crowd with bursts of gunfire and grenades, but ensure plenty of targets remained alive so I could charge into melee and perform those executions. It made the entire second half of the mission a tense battle for survival; my Ultramarine’s life quite literally depended on tearing the guts out of disgusting Tyranids.
What I’d like to see next is how that melee system scales and evolves with different enemy types. This demo was pulled from the campaign’s second mission, and featured just two main Tyranid types plus some exploding poison bugs. But Games Workshop, the company behind the Warhammer 40,000 universe, sells over 25 different Tyranid creatures for the tabletop game, and there’s even more in the lore. While I love the horde effects created by the Hormagaunts and the melee duels with the Warriors, they’re likely not enough to sustain an entire campaign. My hope is that the story frequently offers new challenges via bigger and stranger Tyranids, such as the towering Hive Tyrants and flying Gargoyles (the latter of which could be seen in the skies of the demo, but didn’t yet pose a threat). If each type of Tyranid builds on the melee and shooting fundamentals in different ways, then I think Space Marine 2 will avoid exhausting itself within a few missions and prove a real blast.
While the ranged-to-melee combat cycle kept me engaged throughout the demo, the constant love for the 40k universe had me delighted. Saber clearly knows its stuff; your protagonist, Lieutenant Titus, wears lore-accurate Primaris armour. He fights alongside a regiment of Cadian guardsmen outfitted with Lasguns and Basilisk cannons pulled straight from the tabletop. The Tyranids are a hivemind, and so killing the more senior Warriors stuns surrounding enemies as their synaptic connections are severed. And across just one mission I used almost every type of modern Boltgun, from the basic rifle to the tactical carbine and turret-like Heavy Bolter. Each has a different firing pattern and effective range, which made them distinct despite each using the same explosive ammunition. For more devastating results I had a play around with a Meltagun, which evaporated dozens of Tyranids in a single trigger pull. It made me excited to see how many other wild weapons from the setting are included in the full campaign (fingers crossed for a Neo-Volkite pistol).
The uncomplicated spirit of late 2000s campaigns is loud and clear.
Best of all, every weapon I picked up was a good, old-fashioned shooter gun; no stats, no mods, no power levels. You pick ’em up, pull the trigger, and the alien splatters across the ground. This is definitely a modern iteration of Space Marine thanks to the melee combat, but – in this mission, at least – the uncomplicated spirit of late 2000s campaigns is loud and clear.
I’ve been waiting for Space Marine 2 for over a decade. For 40k fans, it’s a pretty big deal. It’s a big deal for Games Workshop, too; the latest edition of tabletop Warhammer 40,000 is also focused on the war between the Space Marines and Tyranids. This game is at the very centre of the universe. But I think that faith may be rewarded. I really like what I’ve seen so far; a solid balance between the simple linear shooters of yesteryear and the complex melee fighters of today. An entire campaign of what I played in the demo risks becoming repetitive, but there’s an entire universe of weapons, enemies, and concepts to build a varied set of missions around. I hope that’s what Saber has done. Because, as my Primaris Lieutenant stomped up a ramp made of a thousand Tyranid corpses, it was clear that Space Marine 2 has at the very least fully captured the grimdark spirit of the fearless Adeptus Astartes.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.
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