They don’t make video games like they used to. You hear this phrase a lot in the modern era as blockbusters take several years to make only to launch in an unfinished state, while many of the multiplayer games we play have grown into live service behemoths designed to suck up all of your free time with seasonal updates. Independent titles are holding things down with a constant stream of creativity, but for the average gamer, things are very different from the way they used to be.
I look to my brother as the best example of what this means. He’s a couple of years younger than me, and is the type of person who mainly plays a handful of games every year, such as annualCall of DutyandWWEtitles, alongside a couple of others thrown in for good measure. If he’s planning to engage with anything else out of his wheelhouse, he’ll come to me first. I work in games, and chances are I will have an opinion, or at least a bit of knowledge, on the games he’s considering picking up.
Space Marine 2 Is A Relic Of A Bygone Era
With my suggestions, he’s played through the likes ofFinal Fantasy 7 Remake,Alan Wake 2, andHi-Fi Rushover the years. These are all titles he might have overlooked had he not poked me in the middle of the day, or had I not had recommendations to share. But gems like these games are few and far between in the current generation, and whenever one comes along, people will mourn a state of gaming that now ceases to be.
Where every other week a new surprise emerged or a B-game that wouldn’t stand a chance at being made in the current climate was poised to take our breath away. It makes perfect sense why we’d miss bangers like this.
Strangleholdis a great example of a game like this: a fun yet flawed shooter based on a John Woo movie that just won’t end up being made anymore.
Nowhere has this conversation been had more than withWarhammer 40K: Space Marine 2. A sequel to a cult classic third-person shooter from 2011 with a small budget along with a limited scope, it was never intended to set the world on fire. But it almost did, attracting a decent audience of hardcore Warhammer fans and curious newcomers who fell in love with its back-to-basics approach to combat and narrative. It was short, sweet, and told us a great story without ever overstaying its welcome.
The People Behind Space Marine 2 Understand Its Nostalgic Roots
We never expected a sequel, so when one was announced it was a delightful surprise in its own right, a distant promise of a similar experience that may cast aside triple-A flaws to give us something familiar, but at the same time, something new.
Then it came along and did exactly that, albeit with a few extra bells and whistles that the nostalgic crowd seemed eager to overlook. It still has a co-op campaign, live-service elements, and plans for future expansion, but expresses these intentions in a way that is refreshingly transparent and not explicitly trying to pull all the money from our wallets in a single swipe. There have and will be some teething issues, but so, it works wonders.
I can walk away from Space Marine 2 after I’ve finished the campaign and dabbled in a few co-op missions knowing that if I decide to return in a few months, the experience will still be recognisable. The core tenets will be warm, familiar, and utterly grotesque in the best of ways. We’ve reached a point in the modern landscape where developers grew up with the Xbox 360 and PS3, and the select few with the power and resources can spearhead games that harken back to those experiences while also striving to evolve them.
I’m more of a casual player, but our own Ben Sledge has been covering some of the more recent changes to Space Marine 2that its community aren’t exactly thrilled about.
Saber Interactive said as much during development, stating that it wanted Space Marine 2 to be a modernised Xbox 360 experience with an over-the-shoulder camera, bombastic set pieces, and a game that did pretty much everything it said on the tin. You are a towering hero whose job is to tear tyranids to shreds by any means necessary. How you do that is up to you. Whether you choose to slice them into pieces or fill them with bullets, either option is so much fun.
Space Marine 2 Could Pave The Way For A Brighter Future
We miss these experiences so much because they used to be commonplace. You could pop down to your local game shop and pick up something you’ve never played or seen before. It was a generation of discovery and experimentation, with independent titles breaking into the industry for the very first time, while larger developers and publishers had yet to reach a point of sustainable return. Now we live in a bog of sequels, reboots, remakes, and predictability. It sucks, and Space Marine 2 was an ever so brief reminder that things can be different.
Who knows, perhaps the success of Space Marine 2 and similarly scoped titles will remind the video game world that critical acclaim and commercial gains are possible without trying to push non-existent boundaries, and innovating calmly within your lane is enough. I highly doubt it, but the medium is in a place where it can make or break itself, and I pray it goes in the former direction.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II
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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 again sees you battling for the Emperor, against armies of Tyranid aliens. You must fight to ensure the Imperium’s survival in the face of extinction.
