Life On The Grid

I loved the first Space Marine back in 2011 even though it could get a little repetitive. The sequel’s release 13 years later came as a welcome surprise. Space Marine 2 is a fantastic blast from the past because it feels like a game from the late 2000s but just prettied up 4K visuals and post-processing effects. It’s exactly what video games should be to me. Stomping around, shooting enemies and beasts in the face and ripping them to pieces with melee weapons. There’s a little more variety to the environments and engagements this time that stops it from getting tedious like the first one did.

The set pieces and attention to detail are also amazing for fans of the 40K lore. The developers, Sabre, previously worked on the game Day Z, which used a new technology “Swarm” to simultaneously allow enormous amounts of enemies on screen. This is used to excellent effect for the Tyranid enemies in Space Marine 2 which are also swarm-based enemies that will try to overwhelm you with sheer numbers. This again leads to some amazing spectacles as your eyes can barely even count the number of enemies.

Overall, if you like shooting things or 40K or the simplicity of older action games, there’s very little chance you won’t find something to like in Space Marine 2. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s dumb simple fun and you’ll love it.