In this case, they really don't make 'em like they used to.
A few weeks ago I watched a Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 overview video that stirred something in me. Something about a gang of bulky Ultramarines ripping apart hordes of Tyranids while a disembodied voice described a campaign, co-op scenarios, and multiplayer modes put a huge smile on my face, which was strange, because the game didn’t look all that remarkable to me.
Saber’s sequel was hitting a nostalgia button I didn’t know I had, but it wasn’t until I played it that I understood: Space Marine 2 is a 2007 console shooter with a 2024 coat of paint. It’s uncomplicated, indulgent, and has a surprising variety that’s taking me back to a time when campaigns were king and games were more well-rounded packages. It’s not perfect, but it’s really hitting the spot.
An obvious third-person shooter touchstone that comes to mind is Gears of War, whose fully co-op campaigns were backed up by robust competitive multiplayer and Horde modes. I’d argue Space Marine 2 is closer to an elite tier of mid-budget games from the mid-to-late 2000s that had one solid hook that carried you through an eight-hour campaign, and often squeezed a bit more juice out of the lemon with extra modes in hopes that you wouldn’t trade it in after a week.
You know the type: I remember picking up Red Faction Guerilla for its incredible destruction sandbox only to get sucked in by its unexpectedly good class-based multiplayer where everyone had cool jetpacks and hammers. I played the heck out of the ill-fated 2009 Bionic Commando reboot with the satisfying grapple hook—sought out the pure third-person shooter schlock of Dark Void, Fracture, Dark Sector, and yes, Relic’s original Space Marine.
Space Marine 2 swings higher than a 15-year-old bargain bin, to be clear. It’s ridiculously good-looking and that horde tech carried over from Saber’s last shooter, World War Z (another one of these), is the rare technical treat that’s both pleasing to the eyes and impactful to gameplay (those aliens can really pile up!). My co-op buddy and I are trucking through the campaign relishing the heavy thunks of our Ultramarines and enjoying Space Marine 2’s expanded melee combat. It feels really cool to dump a magazine of bolter ammo into 40 advancing Termagants and then draw my chainsword for a 1v1 duel with a Tyranid Warrior with two blades for arms.
(Image credit: Saber Interactive)
Endless war
After a handful of missions, we can both feel the sameness that reviews warned us about setting in, though it’s not really bothering us. Yes, every encounter is bookended by pressing a button to open a door, yes half the guns feel the same and I’m 100% using cutscene minutes to take a bathroom break, but this is some grade-A co-op comfort food.
I’m even pleasantly surprised by Space Marine 2’s “Endless War” mode, its name for PvP multiplayer. I jumped into Endless War solo last night and ended up playing for nearly three hours while talking to friends. It’s dead simple: six classes, a handful of maps, three classic shooter modes. It’s got that ideal level of depth where you can spend a few dozen hours unlocking slightly better guns and coloring your marine’s armor if you want, but you can tell Saber has no illusions that Space Marine 2 is anyone’s next 100-hour obsession. Endless War is a side dish—something else to fiddle with if you’ve got some gas left in the tank after the campaign, or it’s just been a while since you played a casual shooter.
To even have a shooter campaign substantial enough to be spoiled feels like a treat in 2024.
A lot of Space Marine’s best qualities gain a new context in a PvP setting, like that hybrid melee/ranged combat. When everyone has the same weapons and mobility that you have, fights become a delicate positional dance of “we’re shooting now” or “we’re using swords now,” with the better answer often deciding the winner. Melee gets finicky when more than two people join a scrape and the classes aren’t perfectly balanced—flaws that, were Space Marine 2 a live service game banking on a core PvP suite, would be really bad signs, but roll right off the back when I expect to get a few days of fun from Endless War, tops.
And I mean, the armor editor:
(Image credit: Saber Interactive)
You can unlock colors, paint your armor piece-by-piece, and attach fancy adornments by winning matches. There’s some paid DLC in there too, though even my basic Ultramarine looks so cooI can’t see adjusting it much further.
I’m eating good with Space Marine 2 so far, and I’m not even a Warhammer guy. I also haven’t dipped into those co-op Operations yet, which the game warns will spoil aspects of the campaign but will let you play early anyway. Reading that warning gave me a little wave of emotion on its own—to even have a shooter campaign substantial enough to be spoiled feels like a treat in 2024. The resources that used to go toward creating value for a full-bodied $60 shooter now feeds a free-to-play factory churning out cosmetics at a weekly pace. Not even Blizzard could deliver its planned Overwatch 2 campaign with the demands of live service on its shoulders.
Even better is that Space Marine 2 is selling a crapload—a sign that people still show up for shooter campaigns (especially ones they can play with friends). Guess I’m not the only late-twenties gamer feeling a little exhausted by the culture of competitive shooters. I’m looking for more excuses to casually shoot aliens with friends like it’s 2007.
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