Playing ‘Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine’ as a Newcomer to the Franchise

In the grim darkness of the distant future, there is only war.

I’ve wanted to get into the Warhammer franchise for a while now. But between the expensive tabletop game, mountain of novels, mountain of games, and extensive lore, taking that plunge always seemed an extremely daunting task. So I put it under the ‘Maybe Someday’ section of my to-do list.

Until a few weeks ago. While perusing YouTube for background noise, I found a gameplay preview for the upcoming game ‘Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II‘. Nothing else stuck out to me, so I decided to check it out. What I saw in that seven minute preview blew me away; that game looks as exciting to play as it is gorgeous to look at!

Then I remembered something. A long time ago, I snagged the first Space Marine game for free. I don’t even remember how; it must have been part of a Humble Bundle I bought and forgot about. However it got there, the game lay forgotten in my Steam library, gathering digital dust on my digital shelf. Thus, I decided to finally give it a go to properly prepare myself for the coming sequel.

My question is: does ‘Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine‘ make for a good introduction to the franchise? Will this game finally make a 40K fan of me? Or am I diving into the deep end before learning how to swim?

Given how often I’ve muttered, “For the Emperor!” to myself this last week, I think it’s safe to say the answer is yes. Any other answer would be heresy.

The Forge World Graia is under attack. Orks have swarmed the planet, slaughtering the citizens of the Imperium of Man by the thousand. The planet is too valuable a resource to lose, so the Imperium deploys their only viable option: a squadron of Ultramarines. Now it’s up to these three demigods to turn the tides of war.

You play as Captain Demetrius Titus, voiced by Mark Strong, an honorable warrior willing to bend the rules to do what must be done. At his side is the loyal veteran Sergeant Sidonus, voiced by Richard Hawley, and the young by-the-book upstart Leandros, played by Noah Huntley. Together, you mow through the endless hordes of orks to secure Graia’s most valuable assets.

And by together, I mostly mean just Titus. Sidonus helps out a little, but Leandros just kinda stands around. Good ol’ 2011 companion AI. Gotta love it.

The first half of the story is as straightforward as a video game story gets. Hundreds of orks stand between you and your objective. Kill them all and get to it. Rinse, repeat, victory. It’s fun, but hardly a compelling narrative.

But things are more complex than they appear. A few missions in, Titus and his squad receive a distress signal from an Inquisitor, Drogan, voiced by Danny Webb. He presents the Ultramarines with an opportunity to wipe the orks out once and for all. To do so, they must harness the power of the Warp (which is basically hell, from what I’ve gathered) to unleash a devastating weapon. If it goes wrong, the planet could shatter like an egg. But if it works, the war could be won in an instant.

Only the Ultramarines were played for fools. For in doing as Drogan asks, they open a gateway for Nemeroth, a Chaos corrupted marine played by Mark Lewis Jones, to enter the physical world and wreck havoc. The war is not ended, but escalated, with a potential fleet of Chaos demons close to emerging in orbit. Now Titus, and therefor you, must find a way to eliminate both threats.

When I first started playing, I was a bit disappointed by the story’s simplicity. It felt like a basic good guys vs bad guys narrative. Perfectly fine for a video game, but not a great primer for the extensive universe of Warhammer 40K.

Then I started to pay attention. Amidst the ruins of Graia, you can hear mechanical voices spouting Imperium propaganda, driving its civilians to work themselves to death in the Emperor’s name. Audio logs are scattered around each level, giving you some insight into the grim events that brought this planet to collapse even before the orks invaded. It gradually became clear that this was not a case of good vs evil. It’s just three factions of equally shitty and corrupt powers butting heads to see who comes out on top.

This is highlighted perfectly by the ending. With his inexplicable resistance to the Warp and the corrupting power of Chaos, Titus is able to do what no other marine can and defeat Nemeroth. But he’s not greeted as a hero. Rather, he’s arrested under suspicion of heresy, betrayed by Leandros to the Inquisition. All he’s shown those around him has been honor and compassion, and he’s not rewarded for it, but punished. It’s a downright depressing ending!

And I. Love. It!

This game was clearly meant for Warhammer 40K fans first and newcomers second. It drops a ton of proper nouns and never stops to explain anything. What is the Warp or Chaos? What is the Inquisition? Why are orks the way they are? It doesn’t waste your time explaining these things. The game simply says, “There are the enemies, here are your weapons, now go and slaughter in the Emperor’s name!”

To be clear, this is a good thing. It doesn’t waste time for pre-existing fans and it encourages newbies like myself to dig deeper and engage with the universe to learn more about it. I may not have understood what was going on, but it was so intriguing that I was more than eager to learn!

Which has led me down a rabbit hole of deep-dive lore videos. Now I kind of understand what was happening! They’ll make a loyal citizen of the Imperium out of me yet!

Now, I didn’t know much about space marines outside of this game when I played it. I can’t properly do the game journalist thing and say this game makes you ‘feel’ like a space marine. But from what I’ve gathered, space marines are big, heavy, and badass.

And praise the Emperor, does this game make you feel big, heavy, and badass! Every step you take makes the ground shake! When you charge, your marine has very little sideways maneuverability, giving you all the weight and power of a stampeding bull! A jump pack and a lightning hammer make your character an unstoppable juggernaut! Few games I’ve played have ever made me feel so powerful while playing!

Melee combat feels incredible in this game. Each melee weapon has a unique skillset; the chainsword, axe, and hammer all play completely differently from one another. Slicing and smashing the enemies of mankind with them is crunchy and satisfying! With that said, the combo system is very simple and surface-level; each weapon only has four or so combos, and they all use the same series of inputs. This is no ‘Devil May Cry‘ game. It’s still fun, I just wish there were some more complexity.

The gunplay also feels really solid! The guns felt responsive and each shot feels powerful. Laser guns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, the amount of variety is crazy! Each one is perfectly viable, as well; it’s entirely up to you which weapons you take into battle.

Even if the plasma weapons are bad. Maybe I just suck, but I never found myself in need of a plasma gun.

If you just want to rip your enemies to pieces, then worry not. When you stun an enemy with a melee combo, you can perform a gory brutality move to finish them off and regain some lost health. These animations are badass, letting you revel in the power fantasy of tearing your foes to shreds with a chainsword. However, you can’t just spam these like you’re playing ‘Doom‘; you’re left completely vulnerable during the animation. If you’re not careful, you’ll lose more health than you gain.

Or you’ll just die, depending on your difficulty. I played the whole game on Hard mode because I’m a masochist. For the first half, I was disappointed; I could count the number of times I died on one hand. But as soon as the Chaos demons showed up, the game’s kicked into high gear! I’d walk into an encounter and my health bar would instantly evaporate!

I’m more than satisfied with the game’s challenge. The curve feels smooth and accessible; the first few levels are easy, letting you ease into the game’s mechanics and systems. It doesn’t make itself harder by giving enemies more health and damage, but by introducing a large variety of foes with increasingly dangerous weaponry. Even at its most difficult, the game never felt unfair.

Right up until the end. The final boss is a huge flop. You fight waves of enemies that can kill you in the blink of an eye, making you restart the whole thing. After that, you get what is essentially a quick-time event finale where you mash the same three buttons to kill Nemeroth. It was frustrating, annoying, tedious, and left a bitter taste in my mouth.

My other major criticism is the overabundance of downtime. When you’re fighting enemies, it’s a ton of fun! However, there are a lot of extensive sequences where you’re not fighting anything. You’ve just gotta run through long empty hallways towards the next battle. I appreciate getting a moment to catch my breath, but sometimes it goes on for way too long.

Overall, I really enjoyed the campaign! It was a fun single player experience with a simple but enjoyable story! More than that, it’s a fantastic primer for the game’s true experience: the multiplayer.

Or so I imagine. Unfortunately, when I tried to find a lobby, I found myself without anyone to play with. I’m not sure if I simply picked the wrong times to try or if the servers have been taken down. In any case, I wasn’t able to play any multiplayer.

Which is a bummer, because god dammit, this shit sounds fun as hell! Point control, capture the flag, and so many other modes and tons of maps, all with this game’s superb combat, it sounds like a blast! There’s even a PVE co-op mode! But playing these game modes in an empty lobby by myself was not so much exciting as it was depressing.

Even more depressing is the customization options. You see: they’re INCREDIBLE!! You can customize your multiplayer marine to an insane degree, from individual parts to painting every single piece of his armor! They perfectly capture the model painting joy that makes tabletop games like Warhammer 40K so personal and enjoyable!

Why, then, do I call it depressing? You see, in order to unlock all the coolest customization options, you need to level up in multiplayer and complete extensive combat challenges. Neither of which I can do without anyone to play with. The joy of making my dream space marine is no longer available to me.

Luckily, there is a silver lining to this. Because I picked the perfect time to play this game. ‘Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II‘ comes out on September 9th, barely over two weeks after this article is going up. It promises not just to bring back the multiplayer co-op and PVP, but to enhance it with more class variety and customization options that you can earn by *gasp* playing the game! I might have missed out on the first game’s multiplayer, but I’m right on time for the sequel’s!

Assuming that it actually works at launch. Hopefully it will. But maybe we’d better spill some blood for the Blood God just to be safe…

Visually speaking, this game has aged surprisingly well! Sure, the character models show their age when it comes to their faces. But their armor and weapons all look fantastic, like the tabletop game come to life! The environments and lighting haven’t aged a day, though the color pallets are limited to yellow, brown, and gray, along with the occasional dash of blue and red.

The sense of scale is what truly blew me away. There are some massive set pieces in the campaign, from giant robots to titanic structures and enormous facilities. Enemies will move about in the distance, off to fight someone other than you or even each other. These aren’t static background elements, either. Those giant robots? They move in real time during gameplay! Those far-off enemies? You can shoot and kill them! It makes the world feel equal parts large and alive!

Oh, and the music is sick as hell! Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan made for one hell of a composer duo! Every track gets your blood pumping! Perfect for slaughtering orks and driving off the forces of Chaos!

This game flipped a switch in my brain that I didn’t know. Since I started playing it, I’ve been marathoning lore videos about every faction. I’ve watched matches of the tabletop game. I just started listening to the ‘Horus Heresy‘ series at work. Orks and Space Marines have all taken up rent-free space in my brain, and none of them are going away anytime soon!

It’s finally happened, everyone. The plunge has been taken. There’s no going back now. I’m officially on the path to becoming a Warhammer 40,000 fan. Now I just need to splurge my life savings on an army.

For the Emperor!!