Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a shooter, was released on September 9, 2024, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series. Saber Interactive’s division in St. Petersburg created the game, developed by game director Dmitry Grigorenko, author of the zombie shooter World War Z.
The game looks expensive and polished; it’s a good, not-too-long action game in the Warhammer universe. The blix.gg team collected reviews of various players from Steam and Reddit and revealed five advantages and disadvantages of the product, which we are ready to tell you about.
Contents
- 1 Highlights
- 2 The TOP-5 Reasons Why People Scold the Game
- 3 Reason 1. Optimization
- 4 Reason 2. Not Enough Content
- 5 Reason 3. Difficult to Pass Solo
- 6 Reason 4. AI Problems
- 7 Reason 5. Monotony and Combat System
- 8 The TOP-5 Reasons Why People Like This Game
- 9 Reason 1. Visual
- 10 Reason 2. The Spirit of the Warhammer Universe
- 11 Reason 3. Storyline
- 12 Reason 4. Enemies
- 13 Reason 5. Gameplay
- 14 Critic Reviews
- 15 Another Disadvantage
Highlights
- Talking about the five biggest advantages and disadvantages according to the players
- An overview of user sentiment regarding Space Marines 2
We also create picks and write reviews on other games. You can check out Best Games Like Dark Souls for Hardcore RPG Fans.
You can also follow the game’s Twitter and see other reviews from players there:
The TOP-5 Reasons Why People Scold the Game
Reason 1. Optimization
Space Marine 2’s flaw is optimization. It’s strange to see this in a Saber project. However, the tests published on YouTube show that even in performance mode, the console does not keep stable 60 frames at Full HD resolution.
Feedback from players on Steam and reviews also suggest that the game takes a long time to load, may crash, or lag. At the same time, there is no raytracing even on PC, where the game supports only the outdated DLSS of the second generation. This limitation is promised to be fixed in the upcoming patches.
User AnFbiAgent: “Second, it has terrible optimization all round; it loads horribly slow without an SSD, I have it on an NVME and it still loads slow sometimes. Performance feels really really low for a lot of systems that should run it at a steady 60 FPS no matter what. I have a 4060 ti and it definitely doesn’t keep 60 FPS, it routinely drops to 40, not to mention any mid-range systems that can barely run the game in certain scenarios.”
Player Feedback on Steam
Reason 2. Not Enough Content
Players note that more than the game’s content is needed for the start and cost. Many argue that a few more maps should be in PvP mode.
A player named Brokeback Morgan writes in his review on Steam: The campaign is short. Very short by today’s standards. Like 6 hours, short. I finished in one sitting after work.
Another player, under the nickname metroidtim, notes that there are only three modes and three maps in PvP, which is woefully short:
Player Feedback on Steam
Despite this shortcoming, players are confident that things will improve with the passage of time and the release of parts of the Roadmap. However, it looks like a flaw at the start.
Reason 3. Difficult to Pass Solo
Positive and negative reviews notice the same: this game is balanced for cooperative play. That’s fine, but if you’re a single player and don’t like soulslike games, this game will disappoint you more than it will delight you.
Here’s what players write about going through the game alone:
Player Feedback on Steam
One example supporting the thesis is that the game constantly scatters weapons of different types for different tasks. When playing solo, players do not understand why and are most often armed with a universal rifle.
But if you think about it, it becomes clear that all this is also for cooperative play. Someone takes a sniper and quickly shoots enemy shooters, someone works with a sword/hammer on the crowd, and someone works with a powerful weapon at short distances. The whole gameplay design of the game starts to make sense only when playing with your army.
Reason 4. AI Problems
According to the players, the bot team is equipped with bad AI. They animate you, yes, but other than that, they don’t perform any real task. They don’t attack important targets, capture and play targets, defend mission targets, or execute important targets until the very last second when they are immobilized.
It’s most frustrating when problems start because of the stupidity of friendly AI. Our companions are sometimes downright dumb, following the rules of behavior embedded in them. For example, there are levels in the game when you need to protect specific objects – to eliminate the threat at a particular time. However, the AI prefers to focus not on the target but on something completely extraneous.
And if that player is down and the timer counting down to death starts? Our companions will run to save us, unwilling to deal with the main threat. In the end, this very “threat”, which could be dealt with with the help of one clip from a machine gun in five seconds, leads to the failure of the whole mission.
That said, every enemy is targeting you and only you. One or two bots will go after your teammates, but the other 9998 will go after you. And that’s not an exaggeration.
Reason 5. Monotony and Combat System
Space Marine 2’s shortcomings include the need for more variety in missions – simple marching from point A to point B and holding your position for a certain amount of time under the onslaught of enemies.
The repetition of things like the execution animations that started to appear in the campaign will become very apparent as you go through these levels multiple times.
The combat system is just a mess. Parrying is surprisingly inconsistent – some attacks come with a vast flashing indicator and a giant time window, while others aren’t telegraphed and are easy to miss in a crowd. Against some attacks, parrying automatically kills or stuns the enemy, but for others, it doesn’t.
Players have commented that they notice an imbalance of ranged and melee combat, with the latter favored. Here’s what one player writes on Steam:
Player Feedback on Steam
The blix.gg team has also created a great selection: Best Steam Deck Games (Newest).
The TOP-5 Reasons Why People Like This Game
Reason 1. Visual
The graphics in the game are wonderful. Yes, there are no fashionable tracing effects and some technological revelations. Still, nevertheless, the game looks very beautiful—effects, detailing, characters, weapons, animations, explosions, kills, special techniques—there is nowhere to dig. The brutality and bleakness of the 40K universe are masterfully conveyed.
In general, the style of the game conveys the atmosphere 100%: monumental imperial buildings, old-school technology, technomagic, factories, laboratories, dungeons, jungles, swamps – all places we have to visit are made flawlessly in terms of design and style. As well as weapons, armor and enemies themselves.
Reason 2. The Spirit of the Warhammer Universe
Many note that the developer has tried to glorify Warhammer so that the spirit of Warhammer is felt even by those unfamiliar with the universe.
PvP mode creates the feeling of the 2012 game, but it is good, according to the players’ assurances. A player named Crimson writes: The game excels in recapturing the essence of the 2000s and 2010s gaming era with impressive authenticity. The combat system and movement mechanics are exceptionally well-crafted, delivering a gratifying and dynamic experience.
Reason 3. Storyline
Fans’ rave reviews of the game’s story can be read endlessly. For example, from player Griffith:
“In around 9 hours of campaign the devs manage to pack so much story, so much lore, so much fun that it looks and feels like a XBOX 360 Game, by that i mean the best possible compliment i can think of, by that i mean that this game is simply tons of fun, the story is so simple yet so well done, its something in the likes of “brothership, thrust, hardship, and overcoming the odds”, it doesn’t need to be complex, it is a world of chaos, disgrace and corruption, and you, together with your brothers will punish the herectics responsible for this mess”.
According to the players’ clarifications, the story contains many references, exciting plot twists, and different characters. The game is short, so the plot tells the story. It’s simple, but it’s interesting to follow, and you want to start the next mission to see what’s next.
If you like a good story, check out Best Story Games on Steam: Top Picks for Narrative Lovers.
Reason 4. Enemies
There are many enemies in Space Marine 2, and it’s not just about quantity. They differ both qualitatively and in terms of variety.
There are flying and running on the ground, there are those that die with one hit (or explode right under your nose), and there are tanks that you have to beat and beat. There are annoying shooters, and there are shield wielders. Each of them requires a different approach, and over time, you learn to kill enemies as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Reason 5. Gameplay
Yes, we’re aware that we wrote about the monotony and difficulty of combat and the imbalance in the minuses. But equally, along with these minuses, players write many positive things about gameplay.
For example, one of the reviews on Steam from Mischief is like this: “The biggest pro’s of this game, in my opinion are the gameplay, just raw fun, it can feel repetitive but, it feels so good that honestly I don’t care. It can be punishing in harder difficulties but if you master the dodge and parry system you become an unstoppable killing machine”.
Critic Reviews
The community’s sentiment is mostly very positive. Many have met the game perfectly and have quietly ignored any shortcomings.
Almost all critics agree on a single opinion: “There is something to work on further, but the project turned out to be great without disgracing the first part”. On Reddit, there is a collection of critical reviews about the game, but all of them are close to a score of 10 out of 10.
Another Disadvantage
Players complain that the game forcibly installs unnecessary Epic Games software on their computers the first time they run it.
Fortunately, if you don’t care about crossplay, the game is perfectly functional without Epic Games Online and can be easily removed from the installation. Once you launch the game, it will immediately attempt to install Epic Online Services. Cancel the installation before it completes. After you exit to the main menu, you will see an error message.
After that, turn off crossplay in the game’s options menu and close the game. Uninstall Epic Online Services from the list of programs on your computer and the game’s installation folder in your Steam library.
Restart your computer and re-launch the game. Each time you launch, the game will greet you with an error message upon entering the main menu, but EOS will no longer attempt to install itself on your computer.
