First of all, Space Marine 2 looks simply gorgeous. The game takes you from full-grown jungles and trenches to gigantic trillion-dollar cities and factories the size of a small village. Every character, vehicle, weapon and monster seems to have been taken straight from the tabletop version of the universe, down to the details that go with it. Even when your Space Marine is covered in blood, you can still see every scratch on your gun.

The gameplay is also a dream come true for many fans. Although Space Marine 2 is officially described as a third-person shooter, the actual shooting only accounts for maybe a third of the combat. The melee combat is the real star of the show and makes the game truly unique.

Space Marine 2 takes this to a deeper level of gameplay by allowing players to perfectly time their parries, jumps, and attacks against larger enemies, then take them out with brutal executions that would make even the Doom Slayer blush. These special moves are more than just eye candy: they’re especially vital on higher difficulty levels, when enemy bullets can knock you to the ground in no time. In addition to giving you a second’s rest, they also heal chunks of your armor, meaning that a well-timed ram can mean the difference between victory and the respawn screen.

Each weapon also feels different enough to keep you experimenting. For example, the standard Bolt Rifle is relatively slow to fire, but does a lot of damage compared to the Bolt Carbine, which feels more like an SMG. The melee weapons are also diverse and offer different experiences. From fast knives to large, bulky hammers for bashing heads in, each weapon feels good to use and can completely change your play style.

The story of Space Marine 2 focuses on the Ultramarine Demetrian Titus. He was also the star of the first game from 2011, which was set a hundred years in the past. After decades away from the Ultramarines, he once again dons the blue armored suit. This time to go into battle against the swarm of Tyranids and traitors of the Thousand Sons.

The story serves as a framework for a great spectacle full of rousing battles, captivating conversations between characters and a few twists that will definitely stick in your mind.

Perhaps the biggest challenge the writers of Space Marine 2 had was to make the game deep enough for Warhammer fans, but also make it a nice entry point for newcomers. Saber Interactive has done its homework and understands the universe like no other. But even for someone who knows nothing about Warhammer, this is an extremely entertaining rollercoaster ride of big soldiers doing violent things.

Perhaps most striking about the campaign and the base camp you return to after each mission is how intimate and character-focused the game is. Titus and his fellow Ultramarines take time to talk in between the bloodshed. They give their opinions on why they refuse certain missions, have questions about Titus’s past and are quite suspicious of it, and joke about who can kill the most Tyranids. These conversations are not only nice decoration, but also very relevant at certain moments in the story. Titus himself wants nothing more than to get the job done without having to answer questions from his teammates.

The atmosphere that Space Marine 2 exudes and the many conversations between characters remind us of the heyday of Gears of War, but with more depth. It makes you feel attached to the characters and the Ultramarines in general. The game could easily have offered nothing but tough military gibberish, but by giving the player a glimpse into the life of a Space Marine, everything sticks much better.

During certain parts of the story, Titus is given the command of two different combat teams – Veridian and Talasa – to complete other missions that support Titus. These are the missions that you undertake in the game’s PvE co-op mode, called Operations, in the shoes of members of Veridian and Talasa. Operations is where Space Marine 2 flexes its muscles even more.

Although you are essentially doing more of the same – killing a lot of enemies – you do this here with specific classes that each have their own weapon selection and unique skills, in unique scenarios and with mini-stories that enhance the plot. Cooperation and choosing the right skills and weapons is therefore extremely important in this co-op mode. Especially on higher difficulty levels and during difficult missions, the focus on your build and your team comes to the fore. The AI ​​director that determines the game pace tries to punish you more and more with more hordes or even longer tasks to complete. This also makes Operations extremely replayable. One time an objective is easy to get, while the next the director sends a mini-boss after you that costs you all your grenades and health packs.

There are six classes to choose from in Operations and Eternal War, each with their own twist on the gameplay loop. For example, the Tactical class is a standard Space Marine with a rifle and Chainsword. Those looking for a challenge can go to the Vanguard, which is less armored and can throw itself into a group of enemies with a grappling hook. Another unique class is the Bulwark, which does not have a primary weapon, but fights almost exclusively with a sword and shield. Each team member must choose a different class. This means that each player has their own role in the team. Not only do they strengthen each other, it also ensures that you do not choose the same class in every match and thus get to know the other classes better.

The focus on characters in the campaign unexpectedly extends to Operations. Each class is a character with a name and its own personality that is part of Veridian or Talasa. They all have different sentences during radio conversations with Titus and have very dry and funny conversations with each other during the missions. These conversations give a nice insight into the lives of each Space Marine and how they interact with each other. For example, the sarcastic Vanguard class taunts the Sniper class about their ‘poor’ accuracy and almost every Space Marine tries to get more than five words out of the stoic Heavy class, without much success. They could just as easily have been soldiers without personality, but here too Saber has taken extra steps in the finishing touches.

Operations is also a very strong part of Space Marine 2, thanks to the focus on the unique classes and AI director, who will get even more love after release if we are to believe the roadmap. This is where most of the time is spent for many players. Furthermore, Eternal War – a PvP mode – is also part of the game. Here you will find the same classes, skills and weapons from Operations, but you compete against other players. Unfortunately, it was impossible to try out Eternal War for this review due to the low player numbers.

As you play Operations and Eternal War, you’ll level up your class and receive certain resources to unlock new perks, outfit parts, and colors for your Space Marines. On the one hand, you can save up for a new perk that can help your weapons or your entire team during missions, such as a Tactical class perk that prevents marked enemies from calling in reinforcements, or the Bulwark class that further enhances teamwork by allowing teammates to be revived with their ultimate.

But on the other hand, you can use those resources to receive new cosmetics for your Space Marines. There are countless combinations to make thanks to the dozens of colors and gadgets for your Space Marine. You can fully color yourself as one of the Space Marine factions from the lore or create your own. With or without a helmet, with extra goodies on your backpack or not, there are a lot of possibilities to create your own Space Marine.

Space Marine 2 is a complete and strongly finished package. The story mode is not only a worthy reward for fans who have been waiting for a sequel for thirteen years, but also a perfect entry point for anyone who has even a slight interest in this universe. Together with the deep builds for co-op and deliciously violent gameplay, Space Marine 2 makes a game that you can’t get enough of, especially with some friends.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S on September 9. With certain special editions, people can play the game from September 5. For this review, the game was tested on PlayStation 5.