As soon as you launch the game you are catapulted into this grimdark war ridden hell where you take the reins of Demetrian Titus, a beloved character in this world known for his duty and honor. Beside him are Sergeant Gadriel and Brother Chairon who have their respective moments within the story along with many familiar faces fans of this universe will surely recognize. This story within this ginormous universe is such a grounded and convincing story that had me hooked from beginning to end. The first few missions can seem a bit slow as its really getting you introduced to a variety of mechanics but once the story starts firing on all cylinders, and the exhaustive war beings to increasingly escalate, I couldn’t help myself but to smile while playing through these missions surrounded by literal thousands of tyranid swarms. It is truly exhilarating in all the right ways.
Once you finish the story, you are introduced to the Operations mode which is the real bread and butter of Space Marine 2. Here you face a wide array of missions of varying enemy type and caliber depending on your favored difficulty. There has been seven operations added since launch and with more coming. Saber seems to always knock it out of the park when it comes to these operations. 20-30 minute objective based missions with plenty of blood and guts going around keeps me coming back to play one more and attempt to complete the mission on an even higher, more ridiculous difficulty.
This leads me to the class system and build-crafting loop present as well. There are seven classes with the techmarine being the latest added since launch. Each of these classes feel distinctly different, each equipped with their own weapons to choose from, their own perks which encourage build crafting and fine tuning, and the best part we all love, shockingly deep customization and unlocks that will leave you grinding operations or each new piece of armor. I spent literal hours sitting in the Armouring Hall changing and painting each piece of my Marines just like how you would for the tabletop experience of the 40k universe. The customization here is absolutely stellar and even addictive. Whether you love the Blood Angels as much as I do or just prefer to roll with the “Poster Boy” Ultramarines, you can create a multitude of different marines which can be created as lore accurate as you wish or “homebrewed” as you please. If you want to go even a step farther, there are a wide array of paid DLC each are packs filled with cosmetics aligning with their marines respective chapter.
Now I’ve been gushing for a while now, rightfully so, but the most disappointing aspect is the Eternal War mode which is Space Marine 2’s PvP experience. I played roughly 15 hours of the PvP and grew increasingly bored with each match played. The PvP which feels shoe horned in takes away everything I absolutely adored up to this point. The freedom to buildcraft is not present in the Eternal War and the devastatingly heavy melee combat is stripped to the barebones. No parrying, no perfect dodges, no gunstrikes, you just swing and shoot and hope that your shots do more damage than your enemy. It also felt extremely unbalanced, the tactical class and the heavy class stood out to be the absolute best while the vanguard and the assault fell royally behind. However there can only be two players in one class at once so there were many times where I simply didn’t lock in the class I initially wanted to play fast enough so I was forced to play another class which feels substantially weaker to play, or even was a class I did not like.
Finally the long awaited Siege Mode released on June 26, 2025 in patch 13 and is everything fans have wanted and more. This round based mode which takes you to different locations every five rounds and grants each brother on your squad a new “Blessing” which is essentially a perk that can absolutely change your build for the better or even worse. This addictive loop of surviving every five rounds to get to the random blessing drop and gaining my promised rewards before my squads inevitable defeat is a welcome one that I still find myself booting up. There is a normal mode and a hard mode, with the hard mode being absolutely the hardest content in the game, even more challenging than the “Absolute” difficulty in Operations.
FINAL VERDICT
Saber Interactives Space Marine 2 has been an exceedingly cinematic, thrilling, and glorious live service experience that has me eagerly awaiting what's to come. Whether its new Operations, new classes, new weapons, new cosmetics, new modes, or even hopefully a new story expansion, Space Marine 2 has been a bold experience that I can easily recommend to anyone new or familiar with the 40k universe.
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 - 8.5/10 - REALLY GREAT