The Warhammer 40k universe, though widely popular, was something I never really gotten into at all. I have played some of the games, like the Vermintide series and BoltGun, but it was really never something I felt compelled to be a part of in any way. Still, I did enjoy the few games I played, Vermintide 2 being one of them, and I did like the original Space Marine when I played it a few years back, so when a sequel was finally announced in 2021 at the Game Awards, I’ll admit that I was curious but not super excited. I’m kind of glad I wasn’t hyped for the game as, unfortunately, the game did not live up to the years of waiting. Sure, it has some good moments here and there and it isn’t broken in any way, it’s just not a fun game overall.
I think my biggest issues are with the gameplay itself and the world the game is set in. Now, I knew going in that a lot of what was going to be said in the game was going to go over my head as I’m not too versed in 40k lore, but I was hoping to, at the very least, be able to understand most of it. Instead, a lot of what was being said in the game either rocketed over my head in ludicrous speed or it was just making me question if I was actually playing as a good guy, which was a complaint I had in BoltGun. A lot of the dialogue in the game, though well acted, really paints the Ultramarines in this negative light, as it mostly consists of talks of heresy and emperors and how little they care about anything, even the humans. To me, personally, that’s something I’d normally hear from the villains in most media, but the fact I’m hearing this from people that are the supposed good guys is why I questioned this. The overall look and design of the Ultramarines doesn't help as they do look like what I imagine a villain would look like. Though, I will say I did have a chuckle at one of the Ultramarines who looked like one of the cenobites from Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth with the device on his head. Still, that aside, I was lost with most if not all what was said or shown in the game. A good example is at the beginning of the game; I thought the black armored space marines in the beginning of the game, who I later learned were The Deathwatch, were actually the bad guys as, well, they were in these black armors with skulls on them so, naturally, I assumed that they were the universe’s ‘bad guys’. That’s what I thought, until the helmet was removed from the one I was playing as and it’s revealed to be Titus, the lead from the first game, but some dialogue came up later after the mission, saying that Ultramarines strive to be a part of that sector. To any 40k fans, they probably would already know who these guys were and why many want to be a part of it, but to anyone who isn’t well-versed in the lore or, at the very least, has a little knowledge of it? They would probably be just as lost as I was, if not even more.
Now, I will admit that the world the game is set in is beautifully detailed. In fact, it’s probably one of the best looking AAA games I’ve played all year, I won’t deny that. A few cutscenes even had this look that reminded me of the miniatures at times, which is actually pretty cool. Though, I did notice a few moments where the graphics did look a bit meh and the character animation outside of the cutscenes were not as good as said cutscenes, almost looking like a last-gen game at times. Still, the game is a sight to behold at times and I found myself stopping to take in the sights. But great graphics alone don’t mean anything if the gameplay isn’t on the same level, so the gameplay here has to be good, right? Sadly, it isn’t and this is this game's biggest problem for me.
I’m just going to cut straight to the chase; if you are looking for engaging gameplay to make you feel like an unstoppable force of nature, turn back now. Space Marine II’s gameplay is as generic and stale as ever. Both on and below the surface, it’s a basic button mashing hack-and-slash game that doesn’t do anything new or special to stand out from its contemporaries currently available. What it boils down to is that you basically have two types of attacks to use, melee and firearms, and you go from area to area laying the smackdown on the enemies. Regarding the firearms, while they are fun to use, they have some of the weakest sound design I’ve heard in any game. Now, I may not know much about 40k, but I do know that the boltgun is supposed to sound like a cannon, so I’m serious when I say that these weapons sound more like small caliber handguns going off. In fact, that’s something else I feel I should bring up and that is that the sound design here is just bad. Everything lacks any sort of punch or impact behind them, with explosions suffering the worst of it as they sound like water balloons going off. On a personal tangent, I really don’t get this current trend of making weapons sound so quiet lately that a lot of games have been doing. I, for one, miss the days when a shotgun sounded like an actual boomstick and a minigun screamed like a horny banshee, instead of what we currently have. I know it’s an odd thing to mention, but the sound design reminds me of what happened to the weapons in Doom Eternal as they went from sounding like actual weapons of destruction from its 2016 game to sounding mediocre and the same thing seems to have happened with this game.
Back to the combat itself and let me stress this by saying that the combat isn’t broken in any way, but it is generic. What it boils down to is you entering an area and mashing the melee button until all the enemies on screen are nothing but bloodied corpses. You can parry attacks and I do like how, if you time a button press right, you can prevent an enemy from hitting you and land a few good hits on it with either of your melee weapons, which can either be the iconic chainsword, a hammer, or a knife, which the latter I ended up using the most as it dealt, what I felt, was the most damage and was honestly faster at attacking, which is good as it is way too easy to get overwhelmed by enemies. I will give it this and say dying is somewhat hard as you regain health by just killing enemies by either normal attacks or doing a super move on them, which are cool to watch, but, after seeing them for the umpteenth time, they started to lose their luster. Still, the fact you can easily be overwhelmed by enemies and that the combat, on a whole, is not that engaging at all does kinda hurt that positive. Doesn’t help that some of the enemies were a pain and a half to fight and I ended up losing half my health even if I time my attacks and dodges right.
The gunplay, on the other end of the spectrum, is fine and all, but, again, the sounds really don’t help here and, most of the time, I didn’t even use my weapons and was sticking with the melee due to how easy it is to be overwhelmed by enemies. I will say that the Meltagun, stupid name aside, is probably one of the best guns I ever played with in a game. Seriously, this weapon was a lifesaver during one of the missions where I had to defend three structures from enemy attacks, which was, without a doubt, the hardest and worst mission I ever played through. I’m fine with defense missions in some games, but here? Because of the sheer amount of enemies on screen at one time, it got really tedious and I came close to failing it multiple times. Actually, that’s something else I’ll praise: The amount of enemies on screen at once is amazing as it’s using the tech from the under-rated World War Z, also made by the same developers of this game. However, that also comes with a problem, something that World War Z didn’t have for the most part and that is, like I've been saying, how easy it is to be overwhelmed. Now, while it was easy to be overwhelmed in that game, I felt like it was easier to overcome being overwhelmed by enemies in World War Z than it was in this game. You know, I mentioned it earlier with the sound being bad, but there are a lot of similarities between this game and Doom Eternal, come to think of it, in that both tried to live up to its predecessor’s legacy while trying to evolve the gameplay but, ultimately, hurting itself in the long run. Now, I don’t hate this game nor Eternal, let me make that clear. I’m just disappointed that it turned out like this.
If I could sum up Space Marine II in just one word, it would be ‘Disappointment’. Let me again stress that I did not go into this game wanting to hate it. I went in, like with all games I play, with an open mind and there were some moments of gold here and there, especially the intro level as that really does a good job at teasing what’s to come. But, very quickly, the tedium and boredom of the combat soon sets in and, combined with the loredumps that will probably make non-40k fans very confused and a story that really was just there, turns what should’ve been the gold standard for AAA games into a mid-generic ‘meh’ of a game and one I don’t see myself returning to any time soon, which is a real shame.
