Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

The game was provided by Focus Entertainment for review. Thank you!

The day is almost here! After 13 years, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 will finally be in our hands, and I, for one, have been waiting a long time. I loved the original and was so sad that there wasn't a follow-up. Luckily, Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment took up the mantle, and we now have a real successor to the original. While it doesn't try anything new and can feel quite repetitive in some missions, Space Marine 2 succeeds in everything it sets out to do and makes it a worthwhile time for you and your friends to invest in.

The game's story is fast-paced but feels meaty overall, especially if you are interested in Warhammer lore. You play as Demetrian Titus, the first game's hero, who has undergone a procedure to become an Ultramarine after a mission to deploy a "Virus Bomb." Now, you will travel across multiple worlds and fight back against the alien hordes attacking. I love that everything moves very fast, not letting one place overstay their welcome, and there were enough surprises and banter to keep me interested. The story is also a bit gloomy, which I really liked. It gave me a Gears of War vibe while playing it, which makes sense since both this game and the first were influenced by it.

You don't need to know the first game's events since this one covers it quite well, but there will be references you miss if you don't play Space Marine 1.

On all your missions, you will slay waves and waves of aliens while completing objectives. This will be done in third-person combat, utilizing melee weapons like the chainsword and many different guns. I can't say this enough, but the combat feels incredible. Every slice and every shot feels perfectly weighty,, and the brutal, gory finishers and executions are a great spectacle to behold.

There are different melee weapons that you can use in Space Marine 2, and each one feels quite different and equally brutal. You use the right button and create combos, swapping between pressing and holding the button. When you hold the button, you will do a special heavier attack to damage and push back all the aliens around you. You also have two different guns, a sidearm, and a rifle. Most of the rifles do feel a bit similar, with some slight variations in firing speed and range, but we do have some specialty guns like a Gatling gun and a rifle that shoots out firey shockwaves, so it was still interesting.

Some missions are a bit on the long side, so the constant battling and objective completion can get repetitive, but the addicting combat keeps me from getting bored in any way whatsoever. Even when I felt like I was doing the same thing again and just slaying aliens all over, I found myself enjoying every moment and wanting to return for more. I was especially happy with how well it felt to shoot at swarms of hundreds of enemies and that each shot counts.

There are three game modes to experience this: Campaign, Operations, and Eternal War. The campaign is a more linear adventure that goes through the story, while Operations are a group of missions you can play whenever. There are six missions, and while they were good fun, I can't see myself going back to play them often. Eternal War, a PvP mode, seems more appealing to me, though this wasn't something I could test due to low player count. However, I have confidence this will be awesome based on how great the gameplay loop feels in the other modes.

All of this can also be played in multiplayer, which is definitely the best way to partake in what the game has to offer. Playing with another person and plowing through aliens being thrown at you sounds fantastic. I didn't get to experience this myself either, but if it's anything like old third-person co-op games I have played, it will be a joy.

The Operations and Eternal War modes do give out currency you can use to upgrade your armor and weapons, as well as unlock different ways to customize your armor. There are a solid amount of paint jobs, emblems, and ornaments you can choose from to make your character your own, and they all looked really great. It wasn't enough to make me come back and play alone, but I can totally see myself wanting to play and trick out my character if I was playing with friends who would see it.

Space Marine 2's world itself is also gorgeous. It's hard on the Steam Deck right now, but playing it on my desktop PC and ROG Ally X to see how it looks blew my mind. Each area was lush, vibrant, and distinct. I wish some areas had more color to them, but this is more of a personal desire of mine. Either way, it was beautiful to run around in and worth the time to just look around each world to see what everything looks like.

Then, we have Steam Deck performance, which is a bit harder to recommend.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 - Steam Deck Performance

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a tough game to run. Before the release, the minimum specs did make it seem like there would be some wiggle room, but unfortunately, it just isn't there yet. Even still, I decided to try everything I could to get it running well, but there was something in the way at every turn.

In the opening scene/tutorial, the game started off running okay at the lowest settings with FSR 2 at Performance with minor drops into 28-29 FPS, but as soon as you leave that area, it all goes downhill. The first level makes the entire game drop hard, no matter the settings. At lowest settings with FSR 2 at Ultra Performance, we would regularly sit at 24 FPS with drops down to 19 whenever you zoom in with the gun or explosions go off. I even tried forcing the resolution to 640x400 and changing the game to a blurry mess, but it still couldn't stick to 30.

I also tried the 4GB UMA Buffer and CryoUtilities to see if those could affect the game positively, but it also didn't help much. I hit a crash when running out of RAM, which the swap file from CryoUtilities can solve.

Inside areas tend to hit the mark and can push performance higher, but open areas and large groups of enemies will slow the game to a crawl. I have even seen it go down to 14 FPS!

At this current state, it is hard to recommend playing on the Steam Deck. Focus Entertainment has said that Steam Deck support will be coming by the end of the year, so I assume that includes optimizations to get it running more smoothly, but as of now, it's not an enjoyable experience. If you want to play it, I do recommend using a more powerful device or desktop computer, but I also have hope that the game will be playable more in the future.

For now, if you HAVE to play it on the Steam Deck, I recommend going for low quality settings and FSR 2 on Performance, but with a 24 FPS/72Hz refresh rate. This is a weird one, and not a framerate I recommend a majority of the time, but it keeps things as smooth as possible and I didn't feel the drops as much with this framerate.

I have also encountered a RAM crash, so you may need the swap file from CryoUtilities to give more RAM to avoid this, and the game won't exit cleanly. You will have to use the Steam button and go to 'exit game "Exit Game" instead of using the in-game option.

Accessibility

There are specific accessibility settings, which include how the social wheel and scoreboard are activated, automatic attention focus, some subtitle settings (yes text size can be increased), and color blind support for Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and Tritanopia. You can also change helmet visibility, text and audio language, rebind controls, invert and change camera sensitivity, turn on or off aim assist, and customize different parts of the interface and HUD.

The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it does have controller and cloud save support. There are no HDR settings. You will have to use Epic Online Services to play online as well, which may include linking an Epic account.

Conclusion

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 doesn't try to reinvent or change up the third-person shooter formula, and it really doesn't need to. The combat is extremely fun and addicting, and combined with the other modes it offers, it will be an unforgettable multiplayer venture well worth your time. Playing alone was still fun, but it did feel repetitive over time. Luckily, the interesting story and gameplay loop helped me get through the humps that the linear campaign levels would throw at me.

I do wish the game was in a better position on the Steam Deck, but there's only so much I can ask for. It is a heavy game, and it demands a lot of power understandably. Hopefully, the team will be able to optimize and get the game running much better on the Deck, and I will be waiting for the day this happens to jump back in on the go!

But if you are looking for a new co-op game to play with friends or just want a damn fun game about brutally ripping apart aliens, Space Marine 2 is the game for you.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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