Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Review

thesixthaxis.com:

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. This one line all the narrative reasoning you need for Space Marine 2. It’s exposition, it’s emotional grounding, and it’s explanation for the hours you’re about to spend soaked in the gore of many thousands of enemy xenos.

Straightforward it might seem, but there’s also an emotional connection here that overrides the guns, the chainswords and the gruff militaristic interplay between the characters. This is a game utterly enamoured with the world of Warhammer 40,000, Games Workshop’s most popular franchise, and which, in turn, will speak to those that are similarly enamoured with it.

You could raise questions about the lack of female characters, the one-note emotional range, or indeed a story that thinks that character development is frivolous window dressing. You could, but you shouldn’t. Space Marine 2 is the most spectacular, the most faithful and the most enjoyable video game adaptation of this beloved setting – a setting that, when it was created in 1987, was just as deliberately flawed and hyper-sensationalised as the ultra-violent social satire of RoboCop.

Space Marine 2 is the continuing story of our hero Titus. It’s been over 100 years since the conclusion of the last game saw him branded a heretic and despatched to the Deathwatch, a suicide squad sent to deal with the worst threats in the galaxy.

Called to the planet Kadaku in the midst of a Tyranid invasion, your team are deployed to unleash a bio-virus designed to attack the xenos. Titus is the only survivor, though only through the timely intervention of the Ultramarine chapter. Reinstated, and newly reborn as a stronger, faster and more resilient Primaris marine, Titus leads a new team into the heart of the alien infestation, giving you the excuse to cut down Tyranid after Tyranid after Tyranid. It’s an objective that never gets old.

Titus is a brusque, but likeable, central hero, and some of the most interesting elements of the narrative are to do