Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Goes Even Bigger And Bloodier
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a game I’ve been demanding considering that playing as the stoic Captain Titus way back in September 2011. I was a Warhammer fan prior to Space Marine, and if anything, I’m an even larger one now. The franchise has been a fundamental part of my life and I wanted you, dear reader, to understand this little context of myself and my relationship with Warhammer so when I tell you throughout my one-hour hands-on with Space Marine 2 I was smiling ear-to-ear, and my eyes were drying due to them being locked on the Grimdark scenes unfolding prior to me, you may get a sense of just where I’m originating from as I share my ideas fresh from playing a game I’ve thought about for nearly 12 years.
While I wasn’t able to tape-record my own gameplay, it is clear from the snippet that I got to play that the designers at Saber are also fans themselves, with a drive to do Space Marine, its world, and the franchise justice, not just for veteran fans like myself, however for those new to Warhammer.
The first thing I saw was Space Marine 2’s attention to information as the game opens up on Titus with his brand-new squad on their way to support the Cadians on earth’s surface. I felt like the Once Upon A Time In Hollywood meme, pointing my fingers at the screen as I excitedly detected little details on Astartes armor or private soldiers or tanks cluttered throughout the battleground, but I think it is with clever design and gratitude for the source that the video game can likewise feel friendly to those with fresh eyes, too.
I was rapidly thrust into the heart of fight, as any excellent Space Marine should be, but with every huge footstep, the battle in front of me turned into a phenomenon that caused me to mutter a very British “bloody hell” under my breath.
Hills in the range were full of swarming alien Tyranids, the view between them and me being cut apart by ruby flashes of las-fire as human allies combated to keep back a xenos horde that was rapidly filling both land and sky. I could not wait to be a part of it.
And it was no little skirmish; I was quickly struck by simply the number of enemies the video game tosses at you, but a couple of squeezes on the trigger of your Bolt Rifle and swings of your giant battle blade will see the enemy ranks start to thin. The fight will feel familiar to anyone who has actually played the initial video game, but as the Space Marines have actually developed in between games, so too has the furious bloodletting. It maintains all of the hacking, slashing, shooting, punching, and kicking energy the series is known for, with gory executions topping up your armor and kills restoring recently lost vitality up until you can find a short minute of reprieve to pop a stim.
The additions to the battle have actually just served to make it even more satisfying and appealing. Typical strikes from almost any enemy can be parried away to develop area and do damage, with more-intense attacks being marked by a blue circle and unblockable ones that you need to evade being signaled by a red one. Depending upon the enemy and their strength, a perfect parry or evade to among these attacks will either instantly eliminate the foe, stun them, or allow you to retort with a “weapon strike,” taking out your bolt handgun at close range and firing a crucial hit into the now-exposed squishy bits of the Tyranid in front of you.
Your melee strikes are all activated by one button, with much heavier, possibly stunning attacks requiring you to hold down the attack at the end of your combo. It’s a simple system that has been inherited from the previous game, but it, too, has actually been built on. Now at the end of a combination, if you strike among the smaller sized Tyranid hormagaunts or termagaunts with a stun, you can “weapon strike” the horrible bug next to them for an additional well-timed kill.
These additional components do a lot to construct on the flow and fulfillment of the battle, but due to the number of enemies you’ll be facing, they also feel crucial to prevent the melee-focused foes from becoming too overwhelming– since when you fight xenos area bugs, you’re going to be battling a lot of them.
During melee fight, you are now able to lock on to the bigger enemies like Tyranid Warriors, allowing you to focus your attacks and motions on the biggest hazard rather of getting slowed down in the chaff. These enemies will also engage you much more intelligently, obstructing your attacks or including their own unblockable combos into the fray. This triggers you to more thoroughly consider your next swing or back off a couple of feet to clear a publication of bolt rounds into them, however performing one of these larger threats will trigger– and I’m putting my Warhammer nerd hat back on here– what seems some type of psychic synapse feedback, as the smaller sized enemies around them recoil and die as they seem cut off from their hivemind.
I feel as though I needed to get rid of old practices or muscle memory from the previous game, however after a few battles, I was gleefully capturing leaping opponents on the whirring teeth of my chainsword, and when you’ve seen that spectacle, I do not think there is any returning.
Defense now likewise feel somewhat more specified. I got the sense that the fight knife is now a practical alternative to the chainsword, providing faster and more concentrated strikes versus the chainsword’s slower however broader and more harmful sweeps. I was likewise able to supplement my melee-focused loadout with routine or heavy bolt pistols.
Other primary bolt weapons, such as the Bolt Rifle, Auto Bolt Rifle, and Bolt Carbine, allowed for some range in varied battle, depending upon if you prefer thought about, accurate shots, emptying a drum mag from range, or a high rate of fire for close-quarters engagements.
I also discovered heavy and more specialized weapons, like the enormous heavy bolter, or the close-range, superheated meltagun, efficient in incinerating a corridor of Tyranids in simply a few shots of retina-burning heat and color.
While I believe more of Warhammer 40,000’s toolbox will appear in the final release of the game, I was nevertheless pleasantly amazed by how diverse the weaponry felt, specifically when it concerns the household of bolt weapons: guns that are iconic to the franchise.
I did discover myself changing between weapons frequently, in some cases adjusting to the differing environment of an open field or a claustrophobic passage, but likewise since of the scale and strength of the battles I was fighting through and the demands they were positioning upon my munitions.Tyranid swarms are called that for a reason, and oh dang did I feel swarmed. One minute from the sneak peek had me holding a piece of high ground outside of a bunker with Imperial Guard allies. As I readied myself, a dozen Tyranids appeared in view, nearly quickly followed by hundreds more. The scampering mass was so dense that it was hard to see any individual enemy aside from the larger elite Tyranids, implying the only alternative was to fire into the bulk of the crowd in an effort to thin them out. While I did feel the frame rate struggle a bit in minutes like this (it is a preview construct of the video game, so things might still be straightened out), a few stutters did really little to sour my enjoyment or the phenomenon unfolding prior to me.
Quickly, nevertheless, they had begun to form a nasty xenos pyramid versus the walls in a World War Z-esque attempt to scale our defenses, with the natural living ladder just being interfered with by continual fire or a rewarding frag grenade spreading the climbing up aliens.
This battle ended in the squad falling back, and many others that I experienced in this preview had a similar tone. The number of enemies the video game sends your method, with some assaulting from variety while a lot more close in to attack, leaping onto your armor as they make efforts to claw their way into your metal shell, makes a few of the skirmishes feel frustrating. When that feeling creeps in, the game is quick to remind you that you are a damned Space Marine.
Therefore far, this video game does a fantastic task at making you feel like one. Everything from the method the human soldiers react to your presence to the thunder of both your footsteps and guns feeds into that sensation. Something that stuck with me from the original Space Marine is how it feels to play as a super-human Astartes, and Space Marine 2 just builds on that dream. There is a good sense of the scale and weight of a space marine as you overlook Imperial Guard allies or charge into enemies emerging drenched in gore. Meanwhile, taking damage will cause your armor to trigger, and heat can be seen venting from your powerpacks.
Your allies just include to the invincible aura that surrounds a Space Marine. While the game is playable in three-player co-op, playing solo will have those roles filled by the AI.
The game is a visual reward to behold– both in graphics and spectacle– but also in a quite disgusting way. The Grimdark universe provides little in the way of serene forests or relaxing sundowns, however from dank swamps cluttered with stacks of dead xenos, oppressive corridors lit by bolter muzzle flashes, along with other areas and battles, the fidelity of the characters, and finer details on the weapons and armor, it’s likewise forming up to be a damn fine-looking video game.
While it is still early days, Space Marine 2 is shaping up to be the video game I wanted it to be; I can’t recall the last time I left from a preview so hungry for the next assisting of a game. I hope the rest builds on the remarkable first impression that this preview has left me with, however as a Warhammer fan of almost 20 years and a big fan of the previous game, that grin I discussed at the start of this sneak peek is still on my face as I share these final ideas.
Heck. I choose my Space Marines wearing winged helmets and forest green, but this game nearly makes me want to paint Ultramarines.
