Warhammer 40K: Space Marines 2 is the new incarnation of the brand of Gamesworkshop proposed by Saber Interactiveand edits Focus Interactive. The game aims to continue the story of the first chapter released a few years ago, bringing with it new lifeblood, cutting-edge technology and a lot of adrenaline. The risk, as we know, is that of overdoing it: bringing too much to the table could be counterproductive but, as you will discover in this review, this is not the case with Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 which manages to shine even where you wouldn’t expect it.
The Last Bastion of Humanity
Titus He is a Space Marine, the last vanguard of theImperiuma genetically modified man who defends humanity from the (alien) demons that threaten the well-being and life of our race. To do this he is obviously not alone: the man is surrounded by his “brothers”others like him who make up the legions of the Space Marines, willing to do anything to protect the Emperor and the kingdom against the alien threat.
Humanity is devastated not only by external attacks, but also by internal threats: centuries of constant war have replaced rationalism with superstition, rhetoric and blind prayer to who knows what god. It is not a time of forgiveness, nor of peace. The cruelty dwells in everyone’s hearts and the duty It is the highest honor a man can receive. Our hero has his work cut out for him both on and off the battlefield. Having served in the legions of death, and being survived this conflict for over 200 yearslives commanding squadrons of his brothers in arms, juggling politics and moral duty.
From the point of view of storytelling, Warhammer 40K: Space Marines 2has an excellent metric, which tells us the past and life of our Titus with a great pace: this does not happen for the supporting characters that appear alongside our hero, who unfortunately are barely mentioned, and with whom there is no real empathy. The story of the game will keep you busy between 12 and 16 hours.
No rest: duty is the reward!
From a practical point of view, once the game starts we will be in Titus’ shoes, and we can choose whether to make him wear the helmet or not (a purely aesthetic choice).armor of the Space Marine is heavyand the feedback that goes from the game to the controller is Perfect: you can see the weight and effort required to move all those pounds of steel, not to mention the weapons, which are basically very large and high-performance.
The armor has four bars placed under the health that will regenerate over time, as long as you do not suffer enemy impacts, while to recover health you must use the classic medical kit that we will find on the battlefield, but not only: when you get hit you will have a time limit in which you can recover health inflicting heavy damage to enemies. The game offers a sort of aggression related bonus of the player: you must not fear the fray but instead embrace it and make it your home, while the Tyrants overwhelm you.
During the battle you will always be 3and if you play alone the computer will guide your two companions, who although they are not human, show good intelligence at low difficulties. If you are shot down you can count on the “rescue” on the part of the companions, which can however happen only twice. After that, Game Over, and you start again from the Checkpoint. In battle you will use all sorts of firearms: BB guns, repeating rifles, modified shotguns, sniper rifles, flamethrowers, laser and gravity-based weapons and yes, even the trusty knife.
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 bases its gameplay on the right combination of moments in which you will shoot wildlyyou will throw incendiary, stun or explosive fragmentation grenades, and moments when you will sever every backbone of the enemy with your melee knife, or if you prefer a Chainsword. For the more aggressive, a nice War Hammer is ideal, although it requires a more thoughtful approach as it weighs, and not a little. Each weapon has different values, which can be improved during the adventure.
In combat, once you have stunned an enemy, you can fire a shot that will inflict serious damage, in some cases making the small Tyranny explode, while with the larger ones it will reduce them to a comatose state perfect for “justice” modewhich with a small event will destroy the enemy in a brutal way, also making you recover part of the lost armor. When you are attacked you can dodge the attacks, but the dodge must be well managed, as it consumes energy, and being on board the armor it is not something you can always afford.
Some attacks can be parried, and if you time them right you can inflict critical damage on the enemy. The window of opportunity is quite wideso don’t be shy. As you continue through the basic story you will find different types of missions, although these will be pretty much the same. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we would have expected a little more creativity, which came with the “shipments”or a mode of secondary missions that better explore the narrative and practical universe of what you will have done in the main mission.
Then there is the long-awaited PVP modewhich allows you to take to the field with 3 friendsexperimenting with the 6 different classes present in the game: two of which are more defensive, two medium and two that will deal with the attack from a distance. Fortunately, the perfect team does not exist, and although every Ultra Marine (the highest class of a Space Marine) is customizable at will not only in aesthetics, much depends on how it is played, and whether you take advantage of structural advantages or enemy mistakes to prevail.
Redemption is in the blood
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is a game that will take you by surprisecapable of leaving you with your mouth wide open for his fluiditythe artistic beauty and the immediacy: the choice (it was about time!) to return to a game that is all in all simple, with corridors where you go from point A to point B and kill everything that breathes in between. No collectibles useless, no “hidden treasures”Alone pure adrenaline and dismemberments with a couple of friends. That’s right, the entire story portion is playable with friends, with cross-play between platforms included. The same goes for “expeditions” and PVP.
Free of defects so? No, of course not: the difficulty of the game is clearly unbalanced as in “normal” mode you should not receive all that much damage, to the point that if you are hit 4 times you can easily find yourself “crashed to the ground”, considering that you will always be constantly overwhelmed by the number of enemies. There are missions that are literally incomplete if you are alone on that difficulty. Sure, the music changes if you bring 2 friends, but you will not always have them by your side, and the AI of the bots just can’t support.
The level ofexperience that you get from account is enough rareto the point that you will find yourself at level 3 after having done at least 5 main missions and as many secondary ones. We find all this quite unfair, especially if you consider that the game does not “give you anything” and that the missions are quite long and difficult. However, it is something that can be corrected over time. and which does not significantly affect our final judgment.
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