New co-op and PvP modes will make Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 playable for millennia
5.24.2024
By Julian Benson, Contributor
Revealed at this year’s Warhammer Skulls showcase, Operations shakes up the formula of the campaign in two significant ways. For one, it's class-based; for another, an AI director oversees each mission, handpicking enemy units and triggering special events to keep each playthrough fresh.
Stay classy
Unlike Space Marine 2’s campaign—where you play a jack of all trades—in Operations, you choose from six classes of supersoldiers. Each has a different core focus and special weapon. “Some will be more suited for ranged combat, stealth or taking heavy damage,” creative director Oliver Hollis says. For instance, the Bulwark comes equipped with a combat shield and acts as your squad’s tank, whereas the Sniper has a camo cloak that allows them to sneak past enemies.
Hollis wouldn’t reveal all of Space Marine 2’s six classes—after all, everyone likes a surprise. However, he said that “classes are based on the iconic figurines of the original board game, specifically the Primaris armor units.” So, if you want to guess what is still to come, you may want to crack out your old Ultramarine codex and look at the Assault Intercessor, Desolation, and Hellblaster Squads.
The new class system feeds into Operations’ replayability. Since three soldiers make up your squad—which humans or AI bots can control—and there are six classes to choose from, you won’t be able to take every ability and special weapon with you into battle by design. Depending on the threat you face, you will need to adapt your choice of skills and equipment to overcome the challenge.
After you’ve completed an operation once with one squad, you can try the mission again with a completely different set of classes and see how you fare against the same challenges.
Except it won’t be the same; Hollis tells me Operations features “an AI director to grant difficulty adjustment and replayability.” In other games like Saber’s World War Z, these directors construct waves of attackers and special enemies—hand-picked to mess up your squad. “Operations have their own narrative and scripted objectives,” Hollis explains. “But a lot of randomized events can also be triggered by an AI director, adapting its difficulty to the squad’s progression and guaranteeing replayability between each trial.”
AI directors differ from project to project because developers want to encourage playstyles that bring out the best of their game. Still, if you want to know more about them, we spoke with Saber earlier this year about how much work went into creating the director for World War Z.
On top of the different classes and the AI director, if you’re replaying missions and finding you’re more than meeting their challenge, you can also ramp up the difficulty. After all, are you really doing honor to the Emperor if you’re not in danger of being torn limb-from-limb by the alien scourge at every moment?
Putting the "ultra" in Ultramarine
The Space Marines strive to be the very best in the Emperor’s army, certainly standing above the puny Imperial Guard. But even in their battle armor, there’s room for improvement, which drives another aspect of Operations’ replayability.
Completing objectives in the new co-op mode earns you experience and in-game currency that you can spend on upgrading your special abilities and unlocking new weaponry. The first time you fight through a mission, you may only get through by the skin of your chainsword's teeth, but after leveling up your marine a few times, you may find that you want to return to a previous battle to really give the Tyranids a pasting.
While Space Marines may seem to focus purely on bringing murder to the battlefield, Warhammer players know that the soldiers of the Imperium love to customize their equipment. Saber has captured that sense of vanity by allowing you to swap out every aspect of your soldiers’ armor with cosmetics you’ve earned in battle.
You can replace your Space Marine’s helmets, greaves, pauldrons, and chest plates with variants you may have seen in the board game. You can also apply heraldry decals and different armor color schemes to give your warrior a unique look on the battlefield.
While more cosmetics will become available in the Season Pass, Hollis makes clear that “new content like missions, enemies, and weapons will be available to all players through regular free updates."
Battling chaos
Operations wasn’t the only new mode revealed in the Warhammer Skulls Showcase trailer. Saber also announced Eternal War, Space Marine 2’s 6v6 multiplayer battles.
Eternal War is where you can really prove your marine mettle, going toe-to-toe with other players in three different types of matches: Annihilation, Seize Ground, and Capture and Control.
Annihilation is a 6v6 deathmatch where a squad of Space Marines faces off against a squad of Chaos Space Marines, each trying to get the highest kill count within the time limit. In Seize Ground, you take and hold three different zones around the map. Capture and Control, Hollis says, is “a derivative of classic King of the Hill mode, where you have to fight for one zone that randomly changes its location."
The first two modes were featured in the original Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, though in the 2011 game, there were only three classes to choose from. Since there are six classes in this sequel, there should be more opportunities for tactical play—especially when you consider that each team can field at least one of every class type in battle.
Saber Interactive has been clear from the first announcement of Space Marine 2 that the game would feature multiplayer, with the campaign supporting three-player co-op throughout. However, the Warhammer Skulls Showcase revealed a much fuller offering. When Space Marine 2 launches on September 9, 2024, you’ll have a whole host of ways to defend the Emperor’s honor with your friends.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 will come to the Epic Game Store later in 2024.