Warhammer 40000 Space Marine 2 Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · Published September 4, 2024 · Updated September 4, 2024

Warhammer 40000 Space Marine 2 Review, Embody the superhuman skill and brutality of a Space Marine. Unleash deadly abilities and devastating weaponry to obliterate the relentless Tyranid swarms. Defend the Imperium in spectacular third-person action in solo or multiplayer modes. Hold at bay the horrors of the galaxy in epic battles on far-flung planets with your deadly abilities, and devastating weaponry, and uncover dark secrets to drive back the everlasting night and prove your ultimate loyalty to humanity.

Warhammer 40000 Space Marine 2 Review Pros:

Awesome highly detailed graphics.
64.6GB Download size.
Steam achievements.
Full controller support.
Graphics settings – video adapter, target display, display mode, resolution, render resolution, upscaling resolution, dynamic resolution fps target, v-sync, brightness slider, motion blur intensity, and fps limit.
It can be played with a mouse and keyboard.
Quality settings – quality preset, texture filtering, texture resolution, shadows, shadows, ambient occlusion, reflections, volumetric, effects, details, and cloth simulation.
An Officially licensed product.
Accessibility options – controls set to toggle or hold, automatic attention focus, subtitles size, subtitles background, and subtitles speaker visibility, offscreen markers, Colourblind support, and mono sound output.
Third-person action shooter gameplay.
Can be connected to the PROS website for rewards.
Uses Epic Games Store and you can link your account.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play complete with a short video clip.
String voicework.
The location is big enough that you can explore and find secrets.
Collectible voice logs can be found.
Your load-out consists of two weapons and a grenade. You can fund and swap out weapons at will and also choose your loadout before starting a level.
Ammo pickups are scattered around the world.
The locations are jaw-droppingly detailed and vast.
Blood will coat you and your armor as the blood splashes all over the place.
The amount of Xenos on screen is really impressive, they climb on top of each other to scale walls, and they attack in huge numbers.
In your central hub, you can get missions, talk with characters, and adjust your loadout.
Powerful soundtrack.
Helmet can be set to on or off.
2 to 3 Co-op multiplayer support.
Full friend’s list integration.
Operations are generally missions that use multiple squads, you can replay the mission from the operations board and play from the other squads’ perspective.
Eternal War mode is the online PvP game mode – it has three game types – seize ground, capture and controls, and annihilation.
The Armouring Hall is where you can choose your layout and appearance in between missions.
You are free to run around the hub independently.
Really cool cinematic when you leave the hangar.
When waiting for the mission to load your team is sat in the ship with the mission shown on the back wall.
If you’ve played the World War Z game before then the Xenos move and act like the zombies did in that game.
In Single Player, you have two Ai party members, and you can give basic commands to them.
The combo list for moves is on the pause screen.
Guardian relics can be found and these allow you to resurrect yourself after going down.
Tyranids can cause toxin gas to disperse and when it does the screen goes green and you attack and move slowly.
Build up your ultimate move as it were where you go temporarily stronger and able to take more damage.
Jet packs allow you to jump higher, and air dash. You can also do ground-pound attacks and shoot whilst hovering.
Drop pods can be found that contain guns and melee weapons for you.
You can ping locations leaving an arrow, and an icon, and it shows up in the chat window.
Health-wise you have shields and a health bar, pick up stim packs for healing and shields come back after time.
Pressing your Hud button will show your current objective, the mission marker, and any info on your party members.
You do not need to have played the first game to understand what’s going on.
A lot of very good memorable set pieces including a cool one where it’s all dark and you can only see the enemy as you shoot.
Boss encounters.
The story is a good one with a good final twist.
I finished the game on easy in about 9 and a half hours.
You can go down and be revived by teammates both real and Ai.
Missions are replayable.
Chaos enters the game (you see it in the trailers) and they can cause you to be exposed to corruption which makes you see things that aren’t there.
Six classes to play as in the other modes – Tactical, Assault, Vanguard, Bulwark, Sniper, and Heavy. Each has a unique ability and initial load out.
Customizable armor from buying the color set of a particular chapter LIKE BLOOD Angels or DARK angels, to an individual painting of armor, logos, etc.
Each class has its own perk tree comprising of core, team, gear, and signature abilities and upgrades.
Unlock and equip armor sets.
Earn exp for each weapon you use to unlock masteries and skins. If a weapon can be used on multiple classes then progress carries over.
Three load-out slots for each class.
I didn’t realize until near the end that any green box with the Imperium logo on it can be broken for a chance of ammo and or grenades dropping.
Different grenade types from frag to shock to bombs with a detonator.
Operations change the difficulty choice to threat levels – minimal, average, substantial, and ruthless.
New levels in operations as you are doing diffraction orders.
In operations, you get an armor boost pick-up to temporarily increase your armor amount.
Characters do callouts.
Operations are a lot more intense and varied than the campaign.
At the end of an operation you get exp based on objectives, and what kills and types of kills you did.
The game ramps right up once you finish the campaign.
Ammo and loot are shared between everyone.
High and low levels can play together.
Perks unlocked from the tree have to be equipped which allows for more control over your character build.
Unlock and equip new helmets.
You can do trials where you get a load of bonus rewards and unlocks for mastering your class.
When matchmaking you can still roam the hub (battle barge) and do things like edit your load out and edit your character.

Warhammer 40000 Space Marine 2 Review Cons:

Long initial load time.
Uses and has to install parts of the Epic Games store service for multiplayer.
The controller can be a pain to set up and you need to disable the steam input on the controller for it to work, remember that big picture mode and normal steam is a seperate instance so changing it in one will not make it work in the other.
Loading resources at the start can be long.
Does a lot of black screen transitions.
The AI is very basic, they don’t ever do executions, they like to just storm ahead and don’t offer much support.
I didn’t like the final fight as it was very dragged out.
Levels do feel very long with obvious filler.
The second half of the campaign is very tired and doesn’t have the urgency and fear of the first half. The story dies down a lot as does the sequences.
The game has a habit of changing your weapons to fit the cutscenes and then leaving you with the new weapons.
You cannot edit or create your own space marine face or change the gender.
Operations won’t allow you to set the room as private or have AI only for solo play.
Cannot pause the game in operations and PvP.
The AI you get in operations are random and they are always Ultramarines.
You have to play as an Ultramarine amd as a Dark Angel this is not right.
You don’t get any notification that players have joined or left your game.
Operations allow anyone so you can have a load of high and low players together which can be good and bad.
Had a few games where teammates knew what they were doing and just ran off.
I can see a lot of chargeable DLCs it is all cosmetic but there is a lot and it sucks if it’s for your favorite chapter.
The saving and editing of characters is not straightforward, it always seems that you cannot quickly add a set or design to other classes.
I had to set up my character for each of the modes.