Warhammer 40K Space Marine Actually Gets Being A Space Marine

Warhammer 40K’s Space Marines are a little bit of a tonal mess. To many, the Adeptus Astartes are the epitome of what makes 40K its own league of science-fantasy: hulking space knights whose armor has all the intricate work of a gothic cathedral, fighting in the name of their God-Emperor.

Unfortunately, that’s not always how they’re portrayed. Being based on a tabletop wargame means you can’t always have that heroic shot of the lone Space Marine, and a lot of the time they’re instead spent running around in squads yelling tacticool combat orders. That dichotomy is, itself, part of the Space Marine identity- on one hand they’re basically the angels of the Imperial Cult. On the other, they’re a squad of tactical powerhouses come to deliver death against the alien hordes.

Like many 40K fans, I’ve spent more years of my life that I could have spent falling in love in search of a good title amid the huge glut of collectible card games, half-baked strategy titles and more. Admittedly it’s gotten better in recent years- Darktide may not feature my dear space knights but contains an impressive amount of flavor and solid gameplay- two things most 40K games tends to hold at diametric opposites.

This was especially true during the era of Warhammer 40K: Space Marine. At the time, you’d be hard pressed to find a good 40K game that wasn’t a strategy game. Scholars will still argue if they’d made a good Dawn Of War past the original, and the only other shooter anyone can remember was the ill-fated T’Au Fire Warrior. Suffice to say, this was an era where it was difficult for 40K to break into a proper mainstream crowd.

Jumping Back Into A Classic

With Space Marine II announced and looking great, I’d decided to check out its predecessor. In my younger and more all-nighter-resilient years, I’d written off Space Marine as yet another third person shooter of the PS3 era. I wasn’t really into 40K at the time, so the idea of playing as a Space Marine mattered as much to me as any other big man with a gun at the time.

Now that I’m well in Games Workshop’s hole, though, this might be one of the most fun Space Marines to control yet. Unlike Space Hulk Deathwing’s slower, bulkier approach, Captain Titus is actually light on his feet. Alright, he’s not doing Bloodborne dodges, but at least he’s not spreading the Emperor’s Will at the pace of a melting stick of butter. I get it, Deathwing’s Terminators are supposed to be the tankiest of the lot, but at some level a character has to feel like the stick actually controls his movement, not just his center of gravity.

The fact you can turn your run into a charge is just a great example of the game having fun with the concept of what 40K’s Space Marines are. Unlike games that might encourage you to not be outnumbered, Space Marine lets you dive into hordes of Gretchins, watching them fly to their deaths. Heck, your melee combos can even end in a huge powerstomp, making you double check that you didn’t accidentally download Imperial Warriors instead.

Part of what the game gets so right is that you have better options than shooting all the time. While a lot of recent Space Marine art may sell you more on them being tactical squad warriors, it’s important to remember that these guys have their roots in medieval knights first. Heck, multiple chapters of Space Marines are actual, literal, knights.

OK, you got me. Medieval knights may not have carried chainswords. But my point still stands- Space Marines in melee just feel right. If you wanted humans with guns you’d go play Guard or something. What’s the point of being built like an ornate tank if you weren’t going to run head first into crowds of Orks?

Many third person shooters will tend to neglect having any depth to their melee. Instead, melee is usually relegated to a simple get-off-me button so you can flee to your nearest knee-high wall. Not Space Marine. Instead, you get full-on combos with the chainsword, complete with a second melee button for your stun attack- absolutely necessary for the game’s elite enemies.

You can even pop Fury- the game’s of-the-era rage mode to turn yourself into even more of a beast. Seriously, as much as the Codex Astartes talks about smart tactical maneuvers, it’s this bloody, messy riot that is so much of the Space Marine identity. I don’t think there’s a martial art associated with a motorized saw blade. I really think it’s just fueled by a desire to see heretics and aliens blow up into violent, bloody chunks.

This Is My Bolter

Of course, even if you did want to flex that BS4+, you have that option. Space Marine’s gun selection is pretty solid, giving you as many as three different bolters and a Vengeance Launcher in the first chapter alone. More important than anything else is just how meaty these guns sound- 40k is not a setting for hyper-precise tacticool, it’s a place where everything should be gnarly and violent. The game adopting this in its sound design is an excellent understanding of what makes the Imperium of Mankind so cool to begin with.

It’s not just sound, either- each of the guns behaves with 40K logic. I unlocked a Melta- infamous for its ability to just kill things in the tabletop. Here, the Melta acts as the Emperor’s Wrath condensed into a shotgun-type weapon. It didn’t matter what the Orks were planning to do: they were about to be wiped off the map with the prejudice of a High Lord of Terra.

The fact these guns come from the tabletop is a huge part of how the 40K brand flows so well with each other. Sure, Games Workshop’s codices and novels might describe these guns to you. But being there, pulling the trigger and seeing the Orks fly- that’s the kind of satisfaction you get seeing your fantasies made manifest.

Even if you weren’t a dude shuffling plastic toy soldiers around a board arguing if seeing the tip of a gun counts as “line of sight”, I’m sure you’d concede just how cool the world of Space Marine is. For as much as I long for some sort of return to Fire Warrior, the visceral charm of the Imperium means you’re probably going to be drawn in by the game’s chunky sounding guns and and explosive feedback. There’s more than enough shooters with realistic guns and knife takedowns- give me lumberjack tools covered in religious iconography instead.

Of course, it’s not without its flaws. Most of Space Marines shortcomings are a product of its time- for as much fun as the executions are, they are both long and vulnerable. I can’t tell you how many times I committed to one so that I could heal, only to be killed because I can’t move while Captain Titus beats people to a bloody pulp.

There’s also the fact that you can clearly tell someone focus tested away the Space Marine helmets. Look, I’ll admit that this comes down to personal taste but to me, Space Marines will always be red-eyed, Vent-mouthed and eternally scowling. For as much of a gigachad as Titus is, even the most chiseled jawline will falter before a sick helmet. It’s part of why I’m glad so much of Space Marine 2’s marketing seems to be showing the helmet of our dear marines- maybe I’ll even get an option to leave them on all game.

From a performance standpoint, it’s also not as flavorful as a lot of other Space Marine-focused media- the Orks aren’t nearly cockney enough, and the entire cast doesn’t have that same gravitas that Space Marines are so often associated with. Space Marine 2 looks to have fixed the Marine side of the problem, with every word out of Titus and Co’s mouth sounding like a DM at the start of a campaign before facing weeks of sidetracking and scheduling issues.

Still, despite the nitpicking about helmets and cockney accents, Space Marine is a veritable part of Warhammer 40k’s history in video games. As a third person shooter featuring the Space Marines, it had the best shot of breaking it into the mainstream. The game sold over 1.2 million units at launch, a well-deserved number. Like I said, this was a game that did a good job of communicating the tone and atmosphere of Warhammer 40K- the series’ biggest exports.

In that vein, I’m excited to see what Space Marine II brings. Considering its string of high-profile appearances, I sincerely hope that means the game’s getting more in the way of resources to show us just how good it feels to be the Angels of Death. Because tactical squad action is fun and all, but the Emperor’s Retribution is even moreso.

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