FNGC Reviews: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

[00:00:30] What's up everybody and welcome to the Friday Night Gamecast. You're joining us for another FNGC Review where we look at one game and take a deep dive into all its moving parts.

[00:00:41] This week, the boys don't have a featured guest. However, this time I am joined by the Sunshine State Sultan, the Anime Admiral, Cowboy Bebop Boy Yo, Spike Seagull Keepin' It Regal, Plasmama G, aka King Zozotai, aka William. How you doing buddy?

[00:01:00] Talk to him. Talk to him about it.

[00:01:03] About the one-throwed wall, boy. Let's go. Let's go.

[00:01:08] I'm hype. I'm ready for this one. This has been a long time coming.

[00:01:10] This has been a long time coming. This is a game that's near and dear to both your heart and my heart as well.

[00:01:16] I'm really, really glad to jump into it. So let's get into it. I just want to say off the top.

[00:01:22] Obviously, the government agencies don't come for us out there. This code was provided to us by Saber Interactive.

[00:01:27] This week, we are reviewing Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2.

[00:01:31] Yes, sir.

[00:01:32] So this is very exciting. Obviously developed by Saber, published by Focusrite Entertainment, the director helm.

[00:01:38] We have Dmitry Grigorenko and Oliver Hollis Leak. The game is sitting currently at an 82 on Metacritic and an 81 on OpenCritic.

[00:01:47] So Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, really fun game, really interesting game, a kind of a game that exists out of time maybe.

[00:01:56] A game that's not indicative of 2024 and the game climate that we currently exist in.

[00:02:01] In an extremely positive way.

[00:02:03] In the best way possible.

[00:02:05] In the best way possible.

[00:02:06] So to kind of give everybody a grounding and basis on where we are with Warhammer in the Space Marine franchise, Will, can you kick it off?

[00:02:13] What is your history with Space Marine, the games?

[00:02:16] So in the games in general, I have played the first one. Had to go back and look at some of my older achievements of yesteryear.

[00:02:22] I think playing back on the 360. I did not end up beating it, but I do remember I had a blast with it because when they first showed this trailer,

[00:02:29] I believe it was the 2021 Game Awards, I'm pretty sure. I first started to notice, you know, what it was, second search from the Tyranids.

[00:02:38] And of course, when the Space Marines, the Astartes hopped out and, you know, started walking down there in the muck, in the grime with everyone.

[00:02:46] I was like, oh no, this is about to be what it is, isn't it? Like, this is going to be Space Marine, isn't it?

[00:02:50] People weren't like, oh, what's Space Marine? What's this? What's that?

[00:02:53] But, oh man, it's just so exciting being able to actually hop in and play it.

[00:02:58] Because it feels like the kind of game where, you know, when you look back and you think about a game you played back on, like the NES,

[00:03:05] or a game you played on like the original PlayStation, of course now it's all blocky and kind of chunky looking.

[00:03:09] But like in your child's mind, I, it's like high definition, super crisp.

[00:03:14] Yeah.

[00:03:15] Looking back at the original Space Marine game and like kind of seeing, you know, that it was, you know, this 360 game, right?

[00:03:21] So, you know, it's got some edges, you know, it's a little chunky.

[00:03:24] Yeah.

[00:03:25] But Space Marine 2 looks like how it felt when I played the first one.

[00:03:28] Like, you know, just getting in there with the chainsword, just slicing up the orcs at the time.

[00:03:33] Now you're not fighting the orcs in this game, but I don't know, I had a blast with that game.

[00:03:36] So very excited when they actually announced two and very, very happy with what they actually gave us here.

[00:03:42] With Warhammer in general, it's funny, I actually had my now wife, then girlfriend, she had a roommate and her roommate's boyfriend.

[00:03:51] So I'm like three, four or five removed at this point.

[00:03:54] He played the actual tabletop game.

[00:03:56] Yeah.

[00:03:56] Which I was not familiar with at the time at all.

[00:03:58] But just kind of seeing him talk about it, get into the overall grimdark.

[00:04:03] And then of course spend every single check he got on the mini, like the miniatures.

[00:04:08] It was pretty nuts.

[00:04:09] So it was definitely something where it put the 40k world on my radar.

[00:04:15] I'd never played the tabletop.

[00:04:16] I've only seen some of the other games in passing.

[00:04:18] I think I've checked out Boltgun a little bit on Game Pass, but really the Space Marine franchise has been my kind of go to for the Warhammer universe.

[00:04:26] Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:04:27] Yeah.

[00:04:28] Games Workshop really going to do it to them.

[00:04:30] They're here to take all their money.

[00:04:31] They're going to get that money.

[00:04:32] They're going to get the money.

[00:04:33] Yeah.

[00:04:34] Same ways as you, to the extent of my exposure to Warhammer and Space Marine 2, I don't have as in depth exposure.

[00:04:41] Actually, technically have been more exposed to War Machine, which is kind of like the competitor for the Warhammer franchise that they have there.

[00:04:48] So it's kind of a little bit more cost effective miniatures in terms of tabletop gameplay.

[00:04:53] But yeah, obviously there's a million and one Warhammer video games.

[00:04:57] Obviously I have been exposed to Darktide, messed around a little bit in Darktide, didn't really get too deep into it, bounced off of it.

[00:05:03] Both that and Vermintide.

[00:05:05] But yeah, I was really interested when Boltgun did come to Game Pass recently, earlier, either this year or last year.

[00:05:10] Definitely was this year, yeah.

[00:05:11] But I had been playing Quake 2 with the friends and stuff like that.

[00:05:15] I had my fill of boomer shooters at the time.

[00:05:17] Gotcha, gotcha.

[00:05:17] So it was like another reason why I hadn't decided to just pull the trigger.

[00:05:21] See what I did there?

[00:05:22] Jump in on Boltgun.

[00:05:24] But yeah.

[00:05:25] So realistically, I had no clue Space Marine was even a well-received or decently well-regarded entry into the 40K franchise,

[00:05:32] when it originally released in 2010.

[00:05:34] That game, if I'm not mistaken, was originally developed by Relic Entertainment.

[00:05:40] Relic, okay.

[00:05:41] So yeah, the game was originally developed by Relic and I had no idea that people even thought about that game.

[00:05:47] I had never...

[00:05:47] It's not one of those things that's...

[00:05:49] Because you know in the gaming industry, especially the niche podcasting industry, certain titles will have like a niche underground following.

[00:05:55] For sure.

[00:05:56] Kind of like Gary's Mod or some of those other earlier 2000s, 2010 games that people would say, you gotta go back and you gotta play it.

[00:06:05] And so I feel like the original Space Marine just didn't have that like cult following.

[00:06:09] But you were the only person that I knew had ever used to Space Marine is awesome.

[00:06:13] Yeah.

[00:06:13] Space Marine is incredible.

[00:06:14] When you first saw it earlier at the Game Awards when it released, if I'm not mistaken, it debuted initially in 2022 and it was just like a cinematic trailer.

[00:06:22] And then in 2023, they had a full kind of cinematic and gameplay expose.

[00:06:27] So good.

[00:06:28] And that was like immediately when I saw that, I was like, I have to play this game.

[00:06:31] I was sold day one.

[00:06:33] I gotta check it out.

[00:06:33] They hyped enough.

[00:06:34] They cut it well enough that I was just like, this is for me.

[00:06:37] This is directed for me.

[00:06:39] But let's go ahead and get into what Space Marine 2 is and what Warhammer, you know, what it means to the Warhammer, you know, 40K franchise.

[00:06:47] I have on my notes here kind of just a cheeky little note just saying that you're the biggest Chad in the galaxy.

[00:06:52] So you know what that means.

[00:06:53] It's time to cleanse the Imperium of Xenophyll.

[00:06:56] Mm-hmm.

[00:06:56] So the story picks up from where the first game left off.

[00:07:00] You have the same protagonist, Demetrian Titus, who was accused of heresy at the end of the first game due to his interaction with a chaos adjacent relic that they found on the Forge World.

[00:07:13] And because of his accusation, the Inquisition took him and sentenced him to serve penance in the Death Watch.

[00:07:20] So there's like a century or if not mistaken, one or two centuries in between the first game and this game.

[00:07:26] And he served his sentence in the past, the Death Watch.

[00:07:30] Meanwhile, an Imperium-occupied world, Kadaku, is overrun by a Tyranid swarm from outer space.

[00:07:37] Titus and his Death Watch unit are dispatched to deliver a virus that is intended to slow down if not kill off some of this Tyranid swarm.

[00:07:46] Little does he know that this is going to be his last mission in the Death Watch.

[00:07:49] All of his squad members are wiped out by the Tyranids and he himself is ultimately defeated by a Carnifex right before an ultramarine chapter comes to recover his body from the site of the battle, which is a really cool moment.

[00:08:03] In this moment, he is remade into a Primaris ultramarine through the powers of the Rubicon procedure, which makes him stronger and more lethal than ever.

[00:08:12] This is an upgraded form of a space marine from what we understand in the lore.

[00:08:17] He's appointed the title of lieutenant and given his own squad of space marines and sent off into the wilderness to go actually fight and defeat the Tyranid threat that is overrunning this world.

[00:08:29] So that's where we start off.

[00:08:31] Which is nuts.

[00:08:31] I threw a lot of proper nouns at you and the audience here.

[00:08:36] And that's what's something interesting about this game.

[00:08:39] This game does a really good job of kind of understanding this is a story of kind of like a brotherhood military tale.

[00:08:47] Like it's a band of brothers style story where you're against all odds.

[00:08:51] You have a small unit of people that are really talented warriors and it's kind of like bonding through battle, you know, forged through fire, that sort of thing.

[00:09:00] It's very masculine.

[00:09:03] It's got a lot of masculine energy in it.

[00:09:05] And it's just not to say that it's not for everybody, but it's a really, really fun experience.

[00:09:10] And I think that the coolest thing that Saber did when they were kind of developing the world and the campaign around our player experience in 2024 is that they kind of treat this in a very like microscope lens.

[00:09:23] Of the overall.

[00:09:24] Of the overall 40k lore while dropping Easter eggs to let the audience know, hey, we've done our homework.

[00:09:30] Like we actually do know what we're talking about.

[00:09:32] This is all kind of adjacent and contextualized by the universe in total.

[00:09:36] But like, what do you think about this?

[00:09:37] What do you think about jumping in for the very first time where the story is taking us off to?

[00:09:40] Yeah, the intro is pretty much the blueprint of how you do it whenever you're doing any kind of a game.

[00:09:45] I would say game in general.

[00:09:47] So you start off, you put them right into the action.

[00:09:49] I think even when you hit the start button, like from the menu, it doesn't take you to like, oh, pick your campaign, do this, do that.

[00:09:54] It just jumps you right into the mission where you're playing as this at the time unknown captain of the Death Watch.

[00:10:00] And then by finishing up that mission, you take your helmet off and you realize that you're playing as tight as the whole time.

[00:10:05] So that's pretty much the, I would say, once again, blueprint on how to do it, gets you into the action, gives you kind of light tutorials, but just lets you start carving up baddies immediately.

[00:10:14] Start using your bolt guns, start using your different grenades and your weapons.

[00:10:18] And of course, that chainsword.

[00:10:19] Yeah.

[00:10:19] So it was awesome.

[00:10:20] A fantastic introduction to what you're going to be doing for the hours and hours that you're going to be playing the game.

[00:10:26] Yeah.

[00:10:26] And, you know, it just really starts it off.

[00:10:28] And of course, it's gorgeous, too.

[00:10:29] They drop you off on Kadaku, which is that like kind of swampy, foresty planet.

[00:10:35] Like verdant green.

[00:10:35] Yeah.

[00:10:36] And I mean, it just looks gorgeous from the beginning.

[00:10:38] So you kind of already know what you're going to get into graphics wise by one, the sheer number of enemies, which is, you know, that the engine that they're using, the swarm engine is crazy.

[00:10:46] We're going to talk about that later.

[00:10:47] But the number of enemies included with just the overall look of the graphics, the armor on your own character when you're running around.

[00:10:54] And of course, the background that you're working with, you can tell that you're working with a very high quality product here.

[00:10:59] Yeah.

[00:11:00] It's very high quality.

[00:11:01] And it's like, again, you know, it was the combination of the visuals in the gameplay.

[00:11:05] And of course, you're talking about the introductory level.

[00:11:08] I think it's a perfect way to kind of – it was really great.

[00:11:11] Tortorialization is a hard thing to do.

[00:11:12] For sure.

[00:11:13] It's a hard balance to strike to it without like boring people out of their minds.

[00:11:16] So they skip the tutorial.

[00:11:17] So they just jump in and then learn the hard way.

[00:11:20] I think this was a great way to be like, okay, we're giving you lore.

[00:11:22] We're giving you story while at the same time we're saying, okay, this is how you parry enemies.

[00:11:26] This is how you do a rapid shot after you've done a successful parry.

[00:11:31] Yeah, like a dodge, a parry, something like that.

[00:11:34] And those are mechanics.

[00:11:35] And that's one of the things that I think is great about this game is that the gameplay is just simple enough.

[00:11:40] But it has a mastery level that I think has depth to it.

[00:11:43] Definitely.

[00:11:43] Maybe not like the most in-depth combat like you would see in a Soulsborne game.

[00:11:47] But still like definitely like when you're surrounded by enemies and you have a Tyranid Swarm coming on you on top of maybe, you know, later on what, you know, some more spoiler-based information that you see or enemies that you encounter.

[00:11:58] It can get hectic.

[00:11:59] And the game is relatively challenging even on normal modes.

[00:12:03] It's good.

[00:12:04] It does not demand perfection, but it does demand competence, especially as you get up to those higher levels.

[00:12:09] Like you're not going to be spamming through this game.

[00:12:11] Yeah.

[00:12:12] Button mashing, which is nice.

[00:12:13] So the melee focus is really, really good.

[00:12:16] You can be just standing in a swarm of enemies and come out the other side, not unscathed, but definitely, you know, bloody, bent, but not broken.

[00:12:26] And it makes you just feel really, really awesome as you're playing through some of these levels, especially when you're doing some of the PVE items and you can like look over at your friend who's getting swarmed by bad guys.

[00:12:36] And you're just like, I'm going to let them handle it.

[00:12:38] Like this is, this is going to be awesome.

[00:12:39] Yeah.

[00:12:40] Yeah.

[00:12:41] No, it's incredible.

[00:12:41] And that kind of, you know, pushes us immediately into some of the gameplay mechanics.

[00:12:46] So Space Marine 2 is a third person shooter that has an incredibly strong emphasis on melee.

[00:12:52] I think I've heard some people in the space argue that this is actually more of a beat him up than it actually is a shooter.

[00:12:58] It's not a bad idea at all.

[00:12:59] Some things that, some things that, you know, people have talked about is the fact that he's so melee focused.

[00:13:04] A critique that I've heard from other people in the industry have talked about that, like, you know, the difference between bolt gun when they really put that gun in your hands and then like the focus is obviously on first person shooting.

[00:13:16] Um, there's a feeling there that may not have quite made it over to Space Marine 2.

[00:13:21] Did you have any feelings about that?

[00:13:22] Like how the guns felt versus melee?

[00:13:24] I guess it means what they mean as far as feeling because the feeling for the melee is incredible.

[00:13:28] So, yeah.

[00:13:29] It doesn't matter if you're using the chainsword or the standard combat knife.

[00:13:33] Power sword.

[00:13:34] Or, you know, you're about to say the power sword is amazing.

[00:13:36] It has like two different modes.

[00:13:37] So that adds a little bit more complexity there too.

[00:13:38] My personal favorite melee weapon.

[00:13:39] Yeah.

[00:13:40] And then the hammer as well with the charge ability.

[00:13:42] So every melee weapon especially, which is why once again people are saying it's probably a focus on melee.

[00:13:47] They have their own strengths and weaknesses.

[00:13:48] They each have fairly different like things that you can do with them.

[00:13:52] They have their own use cases for sure.

[00:13:55] So it's very important.

[00:13:56] I think talking about the melee focus here, if someone says you play bolt gun and each gun feels different and has their own use cases,

[00:14:03] you look to the melee weapons too in Space Marine 2 and then you can say the same exact thing.

[00:14:08] There's a surprising number of guns too in Space Marine 2.

[00:14:13] So I think if they're getting at maybe the guns aren't as strong as the melee weapons,

[00:14:18] it kind of depends on the guns you're talking about.

[00:14:20] Which one are you using?

[00:14:21] Are you picking up the melty gun?

[00:14:23] Exactly.

[00:14:23] Who didn't pick up the melty gun?

[00:14:24] That's what I'm saying.

[00:14:25] Let's go.

[00:14:25] The flame shotgun.

[00:14:26] The second I saw that was a thing, I'm like, okay, we're locked in here.

[00:14:29] That's the only thing I'm using.

[00:14:30] I would say a couple of the guns have a lot of overlap.

[00:14:33] So they have like the carbine that's in a bit of an SMG and then they have the carbine SMG that has a scope on it.

[00:14:39] So it's like different between being in someone's face and being kind of slightly outside melee range.

[00:14:44] But I mean, if I see somebody on the map, they're in melee range.

[00:14:47] Like I'm getting over there.

[00:14:48] They're in melee range whether you got to jump pack or not.

[00:14:50] I'm getting over there no matter what.

[00:14:52] I'm putting the paws on you.

[00:14:54] So I can see someone's complaint maybe with the actual firearm selection and the differences there and them not having as much of a use case.

[00:15:02] Yeah.

[00:15:02] But then that's just a little bit more variety.

[00:15:04] If you're getting bored of the standard bolt gun, switch over to the heavy bolter.

[00:15:08] You're getting tired of the heavy bolter, try out the sniper and use a sniper rifle.

[00:15:11] Like you shouldn't get overall tired of the weapons just because you have so many different choices from that point.

[00:15:17] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:15:19] And that kind of like perfectly dovetails us into this idea of how the combat works.

[00:15:24] So to further contextualize what's happening in 40K because we set everybody up for the story.

[00:15:30] But kind of like thinking about the overview of what you're doing in this game.

[00:15:34] You are a space marine.

[00:15:35] You are assigned to a cathedral ship.

[00:15:38] Your responsibility is to deal with this Tyranid swarm which involves you going to multiple planets and going in, taking down, and assassinating larger targets, eliminating little targets.

[00:15:50] You know, functionally what this looks like is that you're going in between hallways to arenas.

[00:15:55] And you're fighting groups of swarms that are jumped up around you.

[00:15:59] We have notes here later on that talk about obviously the swarm engine that they're using.

[00:16:03] Saber previously had developed this engine using for World War Z, which allows enemies to attack in mass, which is really cool, especially considering the optimization that they put in this game to allow the frame rate to maintain relative consistency.

[00:16:17] I do have some notes on that later on.

[00:16:19] But essentially you and three other marines, and if you're playing obviously solo in the campaign, you have two other bots that are controlling.

[00:16:26] Sergeant Gadriel and either Sergeant or Commander Chiron, I believe.

[00:16:32] And these are essentially Titus' two wingmen that are in his squadron.

[00:16:37] Those are the two homies, exactly.

[00:16:39] But when we talk about combat, as we had said before, there's a strong emphasis on melee.

[00:16:44] And there's a really, really strong usage of what is known as push-forward combat, which is a gameplay methodology that was coined by id Software when developing Doom 2016.

[00:16:53] The idea behind this is that there's a design mechanic that's also popularized in Bloodborne, but it's meant for the player character or just the player themselves to stay aggressive in combat.

[00:17:05] So what you're doing is you're attacking enemies head on.

[00:17:08] Like you said, if they're on the map, they're within range.

[00:17:10] They're within melee range for sure.

[00:17:11] And you're going to try and stagger these enemies to the point where they get into a position where you can perform an ultimate takedown on them.

[00:17:19] I can't remember what the name of the mechanic that is.

[00:17:21] This is execution.

[00:17:22] It's an execution in the game.

[00:17:24] And the executions are all different depending on what's your melee weapon or what kind of gun that you have in your hand at the time.

[00:17:30] Or the enemy that you're fighting.

[00:17:31] Or the enemy that you're fighting.

[00:17:32] I think it's over 50, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:17:35] I think there's an achievement to get like 40 or 50.

[00:17:37] Which is crazy because I wanted more.

[00:17:39] I wanted more execution.

[00:17:41] And that's not me complaining about the ones that exist.

[00:17:44] It's just I always want more of a spectacle.

[00:17:46] For sure.

[00:17:46] It's one thing I want to be greedy on.

[00:17:47] I'm like, yes, give me more.

[00:17:48] Give me like seven executions per weapon type.

[00:17:51] There you go.

[00:17:51] You know what I mean?

[00:17:52] And then change that up for the enemies.

[00:17:54] But no, that was really fun.

[00:17:56] And I think that like the idea in Space Marine 2 is that you have a health pool.

[00:18:00] And then you have kind of like an armor, like a power armor status that gives you shielding over your armor.

[00:18:07] And that is taken down whenever you're hit by an enemy.

[00:18:09] But by performing an execution, you replenish your armor.

[00:18:13] So even if you have low, low health, you can get through a level.

[00:18:16] You can get through an experience.

[00:18:17] You can get through a boss as long as you're making sure that you hit your executions when you need to.

[00:18:22] And you time it correctly.

[00:18:24] Which actually provides this really fun, fast-paced combat gameplay.

[00:18:28] It allows a lot of flexibility in your situation, a lot of strategy.

[00:18:32] And this is something that you and I said before when we reviewed this game on the unlockables,

[00:18:36] is that that is what makes the gameplay loop kind of worthy of spending hours and hours and hours in.

[00:18:42] 100%.

[00:18:42] Like you mentioned the executions give you back armor.

[00:18:44] Also, the shot that we talked about before where you parry or you dodge out of the way and you have the quick shot.

[00:18:49] The rapid shot, yeah.

[00:18:50] That also gives you armor as well.

[00:18:51] So being able to mix and match those based on the enemies that you're fighting.

[00:18:55] And then the opportunities that you provide for yourself just keep you in the middle of a fight longer and longer and longer.

[00:19:01] Additionally, with your health, if it does chip away your armor all the way and it starts hitting into your health,

[00:19:05] you have that bit of like white health that's behind your normal health where it gets replenished as long as you're striking back against enemies.

[00:19:12] So it really, once again, encourages you to be aggressive, push forward and say, okay, if I'm going to wade into a melee fight with 10 people and I have low health or, you know, like no health, as long as I'm swinging, I should be fine.

[00:19:24] As long as my kids continue to connect.

[00:19:26] So that's the great thing too, is that we talked about the game being a little bit of like a call to kind of gaming's, you know, history, gaming's past, how they set it up.

[00:19:34] It's not as a cinematic experience as maybe you're used to in these more 2020 ish games, but you hop into an area, you get like a bowl of enemies to fight.

[00:19:42] The doors are locked.

[00:19:43] You have to do something else in the meantime.

[00:19:45] And then they just throw waves of waves of waves of bad guys.

[00:19:47] You know, they give you a target rich environment for you to use a lot of these skills and executions and weapons themselves on.

[00:19:55] So, I don't know, it's the kind of thing where it would be maybe more repetitive or not as fun if they didn't just hit that loop so tightly.

[00:20:04] Like the loop itself is just so strong.

[00:20:07] Every time you go into a room and a door locks, I'm just like, yes, good, good.

[00:20:13] It's great.

[00:20:13] And yeah, the gameplay loop is tight and it kind of just, it leads you in.

[00:20:16] And I think, again, another accolade that I think of Space Marine 2 and the developers and their focus coming into the game is that they did just have such a correctly, I guess, portioned or correctly kind of scoped focus as to what they wanted this game to be that it didn't over its day.

[00:20:35] It's welcome.

[00:20:35] I agree.

[00:20:35] You're looking on how long to beat.

[00:20:37] You're looking at nine and a half hours just to beat the main story, which is very quick.

[00:20:40] There are six missions in the main story.

[00:20:42] And you think, oh, that's not that many missions.

[00:20:44] I feel like I could just get over it, but these missions are like 45 minutes to an hour long, depending on how you're playing.

[00:20:50] And then main missions plus sides can jump up to 15 hours.

[00:20:54] So roughly, if you're trying to look at the campaign and its total scope, it's about a 15-hour experience, everything all said and done.

[00:21:01] And when I say campaign, I mean that there is a normal campaign with the six missions that you play as Demetri and Titus and his two allies as you're going through the different levels.

[00:21:12] There's also a PVE mode called operations.

[00:21:15] So what happens is there's this hub ship in space.

[00:21:18] And in between missions, you always go back.

[00:21:20] You get a little bit of lore.

[00:21:21] You talk to Captain Acheron, and he gives you another assignment.

[00:21:25] I can only spare three men.

[00:21:27] I love it.

[00:21:27] I love it so much.

[00:21:29] But there's also different stations that are set up throughout different areas of the ship where you can go to these stations and you can select whether or not, hey, I want to keep doing the campaign.

[00:21:40] I want to go to what's called operations mode, which is the PVE mode.

[00:21:44] Or I can go to PVP.

[00:21:46] Whatever your choice is.

[00:21:47] Because I personally think the operations mode is one of the coolest and also one of the strongest facets of this game.

[00:21:53] For sure.

[00:21:54] Because I'll say this up front.

[00:21:55] As cool as I think the campaign is, I do think the campaign is relatively one of the weaker aspects of the overall experience.

[00:22:04] Like, I enjoyed it.

[00:22:05] I liked it.

[00:22:06] It's not like the best thing that I've ever, you know, seen or played in the world.

[00:22:11] I mean, it's relatively formulaic.

[00:22:13] And I've heard that there are some no-nos that are committed according to the 40K nerds, particularly when you get into, like, later levels.

[00:22:20] And there was emotional resonance in this game.

[00:22:22] There is a core arc that happens and obviously a character growth that you see in Dimitri and Titus.

[00:22:27] That was my favorite part.

[00:22:28] But when you think about the nuts and bolts of, like, what happens in the narrative, it is a little bit mundane in the campaign versus the operations.

[00:22:35] I think the operations is really cool because not only is this kind of designed for you to play with your friends, which you can also do in the campaign.

[00:22:42] You and I played together on the campaign.

[00:22:44] But I feel like the operations opens it up a little bit more.

[00:22:48] You can pick different class types of space marines, which are kind of defined by the different chapters you're playing as.

[00:22:54] These are classes like assault, heavy, bulwark, sniper, tactical.

[00:22:58] But the operations mode goes hand-in-hand with the campaign.

[00:23:01] So in between whenever you're going into the campaign, there are certain objectives that Titus is relying on a separate squadron of space marines to complete so he can get to his ultimate objective.

[00:23:13] So he can, you know, defeat the Tyranids or, you know, maybe some individuals related to chaos, you know, whatever the case may be.

[00:23:21] And I think that those are really, really cool.

[00:23:23] And also like there, as we were playing through the operations mode, I felt like I was being informed more about what was going on the story, doing this stuff that seemed like it could easily just be throw away, put him in an arena, toss him in there.

[00:23:35] Don't let him do anything that's relative significance.

[00:23:37] But whereas like you're just, this is like the side B of the side A campaign.

[00:23:42] So if you've ever played maybe, I think it was Mass Effect 3, if I'm not mistaken, they had like a PVE section where you're kind of doing something similar with missions and you have different classes.

[00:23:51] So, you know, this is not something that hasn't been done before, but I think it is done very well.

[00:23:55] And especially in the 40K world that they're building here.

[00:23:58] One, getting the B side is really good, especially considering how cool a lot of these missions end up being.

[00:24:04] Oh, yeah.

[00:24:05] I'd say maybe three or maybe even four out of like the six operation missions that you have probably have top five coolest parts of the game as a whole.

[00:24:15] In general, yeah.

[00:24:15] Which is saying a lot considering the crazy stuff you get into in the campaign as well.

[00:24:19] Well, so though the operations mode is fantastic.

[00:24:22] It's the biggest treadmill that you have available.

[00:24:26] One, it's the thing to where you have your classes.

[00:24:29] I played like the Vanguard personally where you have a grappling hook.

[00:24:31] Everyone has the unique move and ability that they are able to incorporate into the actual play style for those missions.

[00:24:38] Or when you're fighting certain enemies as the sniper, you're generally staying back sniping, assisting with your allies.

[00:24:43] I'm the Vanguard.

[00:24:44] I'm going to be getting in people's faces.

[00:24:46] And then you have someone like the Bulwark with a sword and a shield or a chainsword and a shield.

[00:24:51] And then they're putting that flag down, replenishing everyone's armor, and then just keeping people in that fight longer so that they can stay alive, blocking enemy fire.

[00:25:00] So everyone has a role and you have a thing that you need to be doing in order to get into those higher levels of difficulty later on.

[00:25:05] Which I think is super cool.

[00:25:06] That's something that's, again, what I think, even though, as I said before, I really liked the campaign.

[00:25:12] I liked the direction that they took with Titus in this game.

[00:25:15] It's something that is lacking in the campaign where there's gameplay versatility, strategic thinking of, oh, I need to be a Bulwark class because my friend is an assault class.

[00:25:24] We need an aerial striker since Will is a Vanguard sort of situation that relies on that kind of versatility in gameplay combat.

[00:25:31] And it makes you do that mix and match, too, because you can only be one of each class in the operations mode.

[00:25:36] So if you're over there playing the assault and you have the jetpack, I can't also be one.

[00:25:39] So I kind of have to either go outside of my comfort zone and try someone else or just incorporate what that character is doing into what my skills are going to be during the upcoming mission.

[00:25:48] So very fun.

[00:25:50] I think the operations is probably my favorite part, especially considering that's where I spent the majority of my time.

[00:25:55] That's how you level up your characters.

[00:25:56] Yeah.

[00:25:56] That's how you unlock a lot of really cool armor.

[00:25:58] So that gives you the ability to paint your Space Marine up in the different chapters that they have available, which they have a ton.

[00:26:06] It's all day, baby.

[00:26:07] Salamanders all day.

[00:26:08] They have a ton of chapters.

[00:26:09] So that's one thing.

[00:26:10] As someone who's not a 40K fanboy, being able to see people online kind of go crazy when they're like, oh, my God, they have the white scars.

[00:26:18] Oh, jeez.

[00:26:19] They have the iron greyhounds.

[00:26:21] Yeah, the greyhounds.

[00:26:22] They got the scorpions.

[00:26:23] So it's awesome being able to see people.

[00:26:26] The blood angels.

[00:26:27] Yeah, the blood angels, of course.

[00:26:28] Good old Sanguinous.

[00:26:29] Rest in peace to the boy.

[00:26:30] Rest in peace.

[00:26:31] But yeah, being able to see people.

[00:26:33] It's been years.

[00:26:35] Nothing in the horse heresy at this point is going to be a spoiler.

[00:26:39] Look, go read all 530 Warhammer books.

[00:26:42] I'm downloading the audiobooks now.

[00:26:44] I'm downloading them on Audible right now.

[00:26:46] But it's just it's a fantastic incorporation.

[00:26:49] And like you said, something that could have either been easily just like a throwaway or maybe even not included at all in the game.

[00:26:55] And it probably still would have been a perfectly fine game.

[00:26:58] But I think the operations specifically is probably what takes the overall package for Space Marine 2 above and beyond what someone would consider just like a more traditional kind of third person shooter.

[00:27:08] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:09] And that I think that brings us to another point, which is something that I didn't have as much touched on.

[00:27:13] But I know that you had a whole lot of fun in.

[00:27:15] And I've heard it's something that is just unabashed fun.

[00:27:18] And that's the PvP mode.

[00:27:20] What did you think about Eternal War?

[00:27:21] Eternal War.

[00:27:22] First off, you get three different modes.

[00:27:24] You have Annihilation, which is just a standard TDM.

[00:27:27] You got Seize Ground, which I'm pretty confident is like the just captured three different points that are on the map and you and your team hold those points.

[00:27:36] You know, they kind of have that tug and war style there.

[00:27:38] And then Capturing Control, I believe, is one where a point is on the map is just one point.

[00:27:42] It counts down to when that point is active.

[00:27:44] And then you have to hold that point with your teammates until it goes down and then it switches to a different one.

[00:27:49] So it kind of keeps the fight moving around the map at all times.

[00:27:52] But honestly, every single game mode is very fun.

[00:27:56] I spent probably the majority of my time in Annihilation just straight up slaughtering people.

[00:28:01] But this is the kind of game mode to where if you, you know, maybe had an itch from like an older game, like a Gears of War type of thing,

[00:28:07] where it's like a heavier, more aggressive third person shooter,

[00:28:10] this may kind of scratch that itch that you are looking to or maybe fill that hole that you're looking to fill up.

[00:28:16] Same thing as far as being able to make your characters look however you want to.

[00:28:20] So you can have all the different chapters or mix and match them as much as you want.

[00:28:23] Your actual cosmetics do transfer over from the PVE side from when you're playing Operations.

[00:28:30] So if you spent a lot of time playing as a bulwark in Operations and then you go over to PVP,

[00:28:35] your different like outfits and your armor may carry over, which is nice,

[00:28:39] but you'll still need to level that character up a little bit separately.

[00:28:41] That's right.

[00:28:42] Only downsides for PVP for me, it's probably the lack of executions.

[00:28:48] The other two game modes have that in spades and it's something that I kind of expected considering

[00:28:52] in the Operations as well as PV, sorry, the campaign rather,

[00:28:57] your character can go down kind of on all fours and then you have to have somebody pick you up.

[00:29:01] Very Allah like Gears.

[00:29:03] So I imagined if I'm shooting somebody in PVP, they would drop down to one knee,

[00:29:06] I run over, stab them with a chainsaw or something, kind of do something cool.

[00:29:10] Not so much, they mostly flop over.

[00:29:12] So I mean that kind of makes it a little bit more tactical,

[00:29:15] like you can't just hop in there and expect someone to pick you up after you fall.

[00:29:19] This is a Halo reach.

[00:29:20] It's more like standard Halo where you're just like, boom, I'm dead.

[00:29:23] Yeah, kill man.

[00:29:24] But lots of fun, lots of good balance between all of the classes

[00:29:27] and it's just something that you can just sink hours in with a couple of friends,

[00:29:31] me and a few of my friends.

[00:29:33] So Pudding and Peace, we would hop on and play for like three, four hours at a time

[00:29:38] and it felt very old school, like 360 PVP where you just play into the night with some homies

[00:29:43] and have a good time with it.

[00:29:44] That's awesome.

[00:29:45] Yeah, I think that it's really cool that they have these three modes that are kind of pretty

[00:29:50] well balanced and really well put together.

[00:29:52] And again, a game that's kind of out of its, it's a game that is existing out of place in its time

[00:30:00] because most games don't launch in the state that this game launched.

[00:30:03] I'm not saying that it launched perfectly.

[00:30:04] It had a few key features that a lot of folks that were looking for didn't see kind of like

[00:30:08] ultra wide support on the PC.

[00:30:10] But overall, I would say the experience was relatively bug free.

[00:30:14] I played both on the PC as well as the PS5.

[00:30:18] We got our codes for the PS5.

[00:30:20] And that was something that was really just like fascinating to me kind of going through

[00:30:24] and playing and being like, wow, this is largely a bug free experience,

[00:30:27] especially when you have situations like you have to, you know, balance a multiplayer engine

[00:30:32] alongside of main co-op mission.

[00:30:35] A lot have gone wrong.

[00:30:36] Optimizing for PC as well as consoles.

[00:30:38] So yeah, there's a lot of that gone wrong.

[00:30:39] And so again, kudos to the team for being able to accomplish what they did here.

[00:30:44] I did have a note in our notes here, a question in our notes about, you know,

[00:30:49] what's going on with the roadmap for this game?

[00:30:51] What's going on with the PvP in the live service?

[00:30:54] And you did answer my question, Will, but to kind of just share it with folks.

[00:30:58] Obviously, looking at season one in September, we've already gone past that at this point.

[00:31:02] But they did ultimately do a free update for ultra wide support, private PvE lobbies.

[00:31:08] So they used to not be private.

[00:31:09] So that was something we ran into where randoms would join into our campaign,

[00:31:13] which isn't the worst ever because I have some good times.

[00:31:15] Yeah.

[00:31:16] Some of them are doing what you're supposed to do.

[00:31:17] They're not just like mogging and, you know, trying to do the Soulsborne invasions.

[00:31:21] Taking up all my stims and taking all my ammo.

[00:31:23] Exactly.

[00:31:23] Taking your guardian relics, all that fun stuff.

[00:31:26] But they also included a battle barge sparring arena inside of the battle barge ship,

[00:31:30] which is really cool.

[00:31:31] It's very interesting.

[00:31:32] Yeah.

[00:31:32] Yeah.

[00:31:32] Because it's like, you know, you're fighting inside the ship.

[00:31:34] Yeah.

[00:31:35] It's funny.

[00:31:36] See, me and a couple of friends were just in there like killing a little bit of time.

[00:31:39] So we're just killing each other over and over again with the chainsaw.

[00:31:41] Very silly.

[00:31:42] It doesn't give you anything.

[00:31:43] It doesn't do anything.

[00:31:44] But once again, it just feels very like old school in a good way.

[00:31:47] So I'm like, oh, it's like you get to just like practice with the homies.

[00:31:49] Yeah.

[00:31:50] But we look at go forward into 2024.

[00:31:52] The world thing at season two, there are going to be new PVE operations missions.

[00:31:56] There's an updated lethal difficulty, which I know, Plaz, you're the sweaty gamer.

[00:32:01] Let's say I just started beating through everything on Ruthless.

[00:32:03] So yeah, this is pretty much coming at the perfect time for me to pump it up again and

[00:32:07] see what my Vanguard can do.

[00:32:08] How are you doing on Ruthless, by the way?

[00:32:10] Really good.

[00:32:10] How does that feel?

[00:32:11] I'm trying to think.

[00:32:12] I think I've really only been playing with random people that we generally play with.

[00:32:15] Okay.

[00:32:16] Aren't at the level for playing Ruthless yet.

[00:32:18] They're not on my level.

[00:32:18] They're not on my level.

[00:32:19] They can't do it like me.

[00:32:21] No.

[00:32:22] But Ruthless is honestly not that bad.

[00:32:25] Yeah.

[00:32:25] It is unforgiving as in you put yourself in a position to get downed and you will be

[00:32:30] downed immediately.

[00:32:31] But still, if everyone's playing what they're supposed to do and you have a nice setup as

[00:32:35] far as your classes, I think ultimately it's a breeze to get through.

[00:32:38] It's so funny.

[00:32:39] At one point, I got through one mission with a random team and it was like, oh man, this

[00:32:42] is light.

[00:32:43] Yeah.

[00:32:43] We had one person go down.

[00:32:44] We really mopped it up.

[00:32:45] It was on Ruthless.

[00:32:46] It was super easy.

[00:32:47] So then we tried a second mission.

[00:32:50] Then five steps in, it spawns a Carnifax and wipes us.

[00:32:53] So we're like, well, we're not doing that one.

[00:32:54] So it's adaptive.

[00:32:55] It's adaptive difficulty to how long you're doing.

[00:32:56] I don't even know if it's adaptive.

[00:32:57] I think it's just aggressive.

[00:32:59] Okay.

[00:32:59] Interesting.

[00:33:00] It wasn't like, oh yeah, you did really well last mission.

[00:33:02] Yeah.

[00:33:02] I don't think it remembered that far.

[00:33:04] It just went, oh, you're playing on Ruthless?

[00:33:06] Sure.

[00:33:06] Here you go.

[00:33:06] Here's a mini boss.

[00:33:08] They'll throw those at you.

[00:33:09] And some of the worst times, you'll be sitting there, no ammo, low health.

[00:33:12] And then it's like, oh, here's a Nuranthrope.

[00:33:14] I'm like, oh, sweet.

[00:33:15] See, I love that.

[00:33:17] This is my favorite.

[00:33:18] But yeah, to close off season two, they're including a Neo-Vocalite pistol as well as

[00:33:23] a new enemy, which is really interesting.

[00:33:26] If I'm looking at the picture of the PVE missions, it looks kind of like rotten and decayed.

[00:33:31] It sure does.

[00:33:31] So I wonder if Nurgle is going to kind of be involved here.

[00:33:34] I'm curious if with new enemies, because they have that through for a couple of the spots.

[00:33:38] I wonder if it's new enemy as in just an enemy to the existing kind of teams or like groups

[00:33:43] that we're fighting now.

[00:33:44] That's a good question.

[00:33:45] Or if it's going to introduce like a new, you know.

[00:33:48] Something similar to the Tyranids.

[00:33:51] That'd be kind of neat.

[00:33:52] Chaos.

[00:33:52] Yeah, they introduce like a different Chaos Gods group or maybe someone that's a little

[00:33:57] more necrotic.

[00:33:59] I see what you did there.

[00:34:01] Yeah.

[00:34:01] I see what you did there.

[00:34:02] That's really cool.

[00:34:03] Yeah.

[00:34:04] I'm hoping for something.

[00:34:05] And this is that's the cool thing is that I'm going to keep Space Marine 2 installed

[00:34:08] on my PlayStation, on my PC.

[00:34:10] So whenever we do get these updates, we're going to jump in.

[00:34:12] I'm looking at season three now.

[00:34:14] Again, they're playing a new PVE, new PVP game mode, new PVP arenas, a new and another

[00:34:20] new enemy, new PVE prestige ranks.

[00:34:23] So after everybody has kind of ultimately maxed out on the PVE modes and then another battle

[00:34:29] barge expansion, which is interesting.

[00:34:30] I don't know what that means.

[00:34:31] What would it be exactly?

[00:34:32] But it's supposed to be early 2020.

[00:34:33] Well, sometime in 2025, I should say, maybe first half or so.

[00:34:37] Maybe potentially a new campaign style thing, which would be really cool.

[00:34:40] I would love that.

[00:34:41] I'd be down with that.

[00:34:42] Yeah.

[00:34:42] Season four, we're looking at probably mid 2025, a horde mode, another new enemy and

[00:34:46] a new weapon.

[00:34:47] So horde mode would be sick.

[00:34:49] I'm hoping for a nice new influx of people once they drop the horde mode, because I feel

[00:34:53] like that's something that a lot of people, maybe if you don't have the like 40 minutes

[00:34:56] or so to dedicate to a straight up operations mission, because they do take a while if you're

[00:35:00] not just sprinting through it.

[00:35:02] Shoot.

[00:35:03] Shoot.

[00:35:03] The horde mode is going to take just as long, I'd imagine, right?

[00:35:05] If you're trying to go max.

[00:35:07] But yeah, if you're just trying to beat it.

[00:35:08] If you're just trying to hop in and kill a couple bad guys, then yeah, maybe 15, 20

[00:35:12] here and there.

[00:35:12] We'll see.

[00:35:13] We'll see.

[00:35:13] Yeah.

[00:35:14] I do think that I liked the I felt like the length definitely for some of the missions

[00:35:19] went on for a while.

[00:35:21] I after a while, though, but particularly towards the end, this is a this is a warning to all

[00:35:25] potential players for the our good friends and listeners and friends and family who haven't

[00:35:29] played Space Marine to yet.

[00:35:31] If you're listening to this now, just be aware when you get to the end of this game, the last

[00:35:36] three missions are one mission.

[00:35:38] It's brutal.

[00:35:38] So just keep in mind that if you start that you're in for a long haul.

[00:35:42] You're locked.

[00:35:42] You're in for the long haul.

[00:35:43] You can't go get brunch, you know, afterwards or something like that.

[00:35:46] You're you're in for the day.

[00:35:48] But yeah, that's really cool.

[00:35:50] Again, I wanted to circle back to the swarm engine.

[00:35:53] Well, what did what did you think about that?

[00:35:55] Overall, it was incredible.

[00:35:56] It was incredible when they first started showing it in some of the gameplay trailers,

[00:36:00] you know, people were noticing that.

[00:36:01] And of course, recognizing that Saber did make which, you know, World War Z, I think World

[00:36:05] War Z was perfectly fine.

[00:36:07] Yeah.

[00:36:07] You know, some people would say it's underrated.

[00:36:09] I don't think anyone really say it's overrated.

[00:36:10] Not that that's a dig or anything, but I would say it's rated.

[00:36:14] Like I played it on Game Pass.

[00:36:15] Yeah.

[00:36:15] And I had a good time with it, but it's not something that kind of kept me coming over

[00:36:18] and over and over and over again.

[00:36:21] But seeing what they did with that engine, kind of improving on it for Space Marines,

[00:36:25] making the Tyranids, you know, look like a very imposing threat when you have 20 of them

[00:36:30] jumping at you at the same time.

[00:36:32] You know, looking off into the background and seeing them swarm all over the hills, especially

[00:36:36] in some of the earlier areas in the campaign just looked incredible.

[00:36:39] Of course, even looking up to the skies, I should say, and seeing the swarm of the flying

[00:36:43] ones just like, you know, just kind of bladding, blocking out the sky.

[00:36:47] I don't know.

[00:36:48] It's nice.

[00:36:48] The swarm engine does a really good job.

[00:36:50] It really makes the enemies themselves look imposing and impressive.

[00:36:54] And it gives me more things to kill.

[00:36:55] So I'm down with it.

[00:36:56] I'm always down with that.

[00:36:57] And I would say that when we talk about like the swarm engine combined with the overall

[00:37:03] presentation, like some of the sky boxes and the designs in this game are like by far

[00:37:07] and away the coolest that I've ever seen in a modern game.

[00:37:11] This game, I would argue alongside to Hellblade 2 Senua Saga.

[00:37:16] I think this and Senua Saga are two of the most next gen games that I've played.

[00:37:21] And I feel like that's one of the issues that we've seen with the PS5 and the Series X is

[00:37:25] that we've kept our foot firmly rooted in the PS4, Xbox One generation because so many

[00:37:30] of the player base, the bulk of the player base still plays on those consoles.

[00:37:34] So many people still do.

[00:37:35] I have personal family members and friends who still have Xbox One.

[00:37:39] So it's like, you know.

[00:37:39] I mean, it's fine.

[00:37:40] Look, it works.

[00:37:41] And that's great.

[00:37:42] And it still works.

[00:37:42] And it's still, you know, fun for people to play to this day.

[00:37:45] But, you know, again, I think that's another, you know, welcome thing that I'm seeing is

[00:37:49] here.

[00:37:49] Like, this is a game where you can play it.

[00:37:51] And you're like, it's so visually stunning with obviously like the enemies that are

[00:37:54] combined on screen.

[00:37:55] The 4K assets that you have alongside of just like the beautifully rendered, you know, sky

[00:38:00] boxes.

[00:38:01] You see the Cadians fighting in the background.

[00:38:03] The ultimate like cathedral ship that's like rising up out of the clouds.

[00:38:08] So cool looking.

[00:38:08] Like insanely good.

[00:38:09] This is the game where you bring your friends over and you're like, dude, dude, dude, look

[00:38:12] at this.

[00:38:13] Check this out.

[00:38:14] And they're like, oh my God, I go to Hulu Home and buy this game.

[00:38:17] And you're doing work for Saber.

[00:38:18] There you go.

[00:38:19] And that's great.

[00:38:19] We're happy for you.

[00:38:21] Um, yeah.

[00:38:22] Another note when we talk about like the technical experiences, I touched on this a little bit

[00:38:25] saying that I play both on PC and PS5.

[00:38:28] The interesting thing about playing on PC is that does involve, I think it is maybe one

[00:38:33] of the best visual ways to play this game because it allows, you know, increased rendering.

[00:38:38] Obviously, if you're playing on a 40 series, that's going to give you even more ray tracing.

[00:38:42] Yeah.

[00:38:42] You're going to get more upscaling and they do have optimization that is put in there for

[00:38:46] that.

[00:38:47] Um, especially when you adjust your settings to high and ultra wide or rather ultra settings.

[00:38:52] And then you can also play an ultra wide, which is even more immersion.

[00:38:55] I will say though, I got to give my personal gameplay edge to the PS5.

[00:39:01] Okay.

[00:39:01] And this is not me, you know, shilling for Sony.

[00:39:03] This is just me saying that when I'm playing space Marine, there's a feeling of clunking

[00:39:25] agreed.

[00:39:25] They did an awesome job there.

[00:39:26] I would say too, talking about technical experiences, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the first

[00:39:31] couple of weeks, I would say maybe first week or two, fairly rough when it comes on the

[00:39:36] technical side of like connecting to missions and getting in touch with people.

[00:39:39] We had some issues there.

[00:39:40] Yeah.

[00:39:40] You, I, and Nave, who was over on the Gaming Together pod, he was playing on Xbox.

[00:39:44] You were playing on PC at the time and I was playing on PlayStation.

[00:39:48] So being able to try those out and just not really getting connected the first couple

[00:39:53] of days, I mean, and that happens, right?

[00:39:54] And it's modern day gaming.

[00:39:55] Right.

[00:39:55] You have issues with like servers and maybe it's something too, where it pops so hard.

[00:40:00] They maybe didn't have like the kind of server capacity that they needed to.

[00:40:04] We saw something maybe earlier this year like that with Helldivers.

[00:40:07] Yeah.

[00:40:07] But still just definitely one of the points where I was like, you want to get in, you want

[00:40:10] to play, you want to have fun.

[00:40:12] But I'd be in situations where you'd get that infinite loading screen and it would just

[00:40:16] really kind of kill the vibe.

[00:40:17] Like you talked about there, which one thing that I've always kind of held onto, got that

[00:40:21] personal grudge, the triple mission at like the end of the game.

[00:40:24] Yeah.

[00:40:25] You're sitting there playing through, it takes like an hour and some change.

[00:40:27] You get to the very end, you do what you're supposed to do.

[00:40:29] You get to that final cut scene.

[00:40:30] It takes you back to the barge and you have to go through a loading screen and I was sitting

[00:40:35] there and sitting there and it wasn't loading.

[00:40:39] And I was like, oh no, oh no.

[00:40:41] And then it kicked me back to the menu, but like it didn't give me the achievement of course,

[00:40:46] but it didn't just give me overall like, hey, you beat the game.

[00:40:49] So I had to then the next day, go restart it with another friend and like play through

[00:40:52] Because this is when you and I beat it together.

[00:40:54] Exactly.

[00:40:55] You and I beat it that one night.

[00:40:55] And I wonder that if that was like a cross play functionality issue, if you had, if you

[00:41:00] had had that same kind of issue with someone playing on the PS5 versus me on the PC.

[00:41:04] I'm not sure if it was a cross play or if it was just a server overall connection issue

[00:41:08] in general, because I think it would do some issues like that with people, PlayStation

[00:41:12] five playing as well.

[00:41:13] And it would be across all of it to be operations campaign.

[00:41:16] And then also PVP.

[00:41:17] There were just some issues the first week or two.

[00:41:19] I would say, you know, they did a great job getting people's attention on it, saying that

[00:41:24] they understand it's an issue.

[00:41:25] And then after their recent patch that they had, I think it was like early October or

[00:41:29] so, I haven't really had any connection issues.

[00:41:31] So they did a good job fixing it quickly.

[00:41:32] But it did, you know, in those opening weeks of playing, I'm like, I want to get in and

[00:41:36] want to have fun.

[00:41:36] But I don't want to lose a bunch of experience or feel like I waste my time if I get to like

[00:41:42] the end of a mission and it kicks me back to the menu.

[00:41:45] Yeah.

[00:41:46] Yeah.

[00:41:46] I totally understand that.

[00:41:47] And thankfully, I think as time has gone on, they've found ways to sort out those bugs

[00:41:52] and find out those wrinkles.

[00:41:53] And, you know, shout out to this team for being able to jump on that and, you know,

[00:41:57] providing great player experience overall.

[00:41:59] I wanted to jump in to talk about the music, the audio and the voice acting in this game,

[00:42:02] another piece to the presentation.

[00:42:04] I think the music is really fun, you know, going through and thinking about the OST because

[00:42:10] I did listen to the OST, you know, as I was going through and prepping for this, you know,

[00:42:14] review today and thinking about it.

[00:42:17] Like a lot of it is very much more ambient than it is having like, you know, obviously kind

[00:42:23] of statement pieces the way that you see in a JRPG, like obviously like a Final Fantasy

[00:42:27] 7 Rebirth or, you know, a Persona game, right?

[00:42:30] So a lot of the music has character.

[00:42:31] And a lot of those games, the music is what sells the experience for you here.

[00:42:35] I think that there's like obviously between the visual and the audio design and as well

[00:42:40] as just like the overall story, what you're doing in context of Space Marine 2, like the

[00:42:45] music did exactly what it needed to do and it didn't overstep kind of its boundary there.

[00:42:49] And I thought that that was really cool.

[00:42:50] We didn't have like a Breaking Benjamin scene of Halo 2.

[00:42:54] That's okay.

[00:42:54] That's okay.

[00:42:55] But I think that I really loved, I would find myself walking up and down my halls, you

[00:43:00] doing chores, being like, oh, you know, just say brother, you know, that sort of thing.

[00:43:06] For the music specifically, the big thing, kind of what you were saying there as well is

[00:43:10] a lot of the music that I like in the game are like, it's like menu music.

[00:43:14] Yeah.

[00:43:14] Like the opening menu when you first plus, you know, play your X start, what have you,

[00:43:17] just get into it.

[00:43:19] The menu music when you're coming out of a mission and you have that victory sound playing,

[00:43:23] it was also a really good one.

[00:43:24] And so a lot of those, the music I get is from not like playing in the game itself, but

[00:43:28] in the menus or maybe post something.

[00:43:30] And you kind of have that Pavlov where you're like, yeah, I get the victory screen.

[00:43:34] I get some more points and stuff.

[00:43:35] And then they play that nice kind of swelling music in the background.

[00:43:38] Right.

[00:43:38] But a lot of it is what we're talking about too with the audio design just comes back

[00:43:42] to when I'm in the game playing, I kind of want the music to be very light and out

[00:43:47] of the way because I want to hear, you know, like the chainsaws whirring.

[00:43:50] I want to hear the stomps and the screams and the grunts from the VAs.

[00:43:54] And they brought that to a very strong effect in the game.

[00:43:57] Yeah.

[00:43:57] I think the audio design in the voice acting, the vocal direction that they had in this

[00:44:02] game was so great.

[00:44:03] We obviously have Titus voiced by Clive Stanton.

[00:44:06] You know, previously he was voiced by Mark Strong in the original 2011 experience.

[00:44:10] We have Gadriel as Arthur Lee.

[00:44:12] He's known for doing additional voices in Star Wars Outlaws and Rise of the Ronin.

[00:44:17] He was a named character in both Alan Wake 2 and Baldur's Gate 3.

[00:44:20] So my man is making some rounds right now.

[00:44:22] And it shows Gadriel is like one of my favorite characters in this game.

[00:44:26] He's the big homie.

[00:44:27] We also have Chiron.

[00:44:28] You can't forget Chiron with Miles Yakini.

[00:44:31] And then obviously we have the boy.

[00:44:34] Yes.

[00:44:34] The Lord.

[00:44:35] Yes.

[00:44:36] Marnius Calgar.

[00:44:37] Papa Smurf.

[00:44:38] Voiced by Stuart Scudamore.

[00:44:39] Also, I saw your note here.

[00:44:42] Yeah.

[00:44:42] Black Bullthorn in Final Fantasy 16 blew my mind.

[00:44:45] I thought you would like that.

[00:44:45] I loved his character in Final Fantasy 16.

[00:44:48] So it's like not only having this hype character come in.

[00:44:52] I guess this is a spoiler.

[00:44:53] I'm sorry for people who haven't played this game yet.

[00:44:55] But, you know, obviously having Calgar come in at the very end of the game.

[00:44:59] Absolutely incredible.

[00:45:00] You know, transcendent experience.

[00:45:02] You didn't have to say he comes in at the end of the game.

[00:45:03] Because it's been like, oh, you hear his voice.

[00:45:05] It's already a spoiler saying Calgar's in the game itself.

[00:45:08] So it is what it is.

[00:45:09] So it's great.

[00:45:11] Did you have any other thoughts here?

[00:45:13] As far as the VAs know, everyone does great.

[00:45:15] Just like you mentioned, I mean, Mark Strong, I thought, did a really good job in the first game.

[00:45:19] And I went back and listened to some of the voice lines.

[00:45:20] And, you know, he does what he does.

[00:45:22] He's a professional actor.

[00:45:23] The guy is a consummate professional.

[00:45:25] He's awesome.

[00:45:25] So I think Clive did an excellent job stepping in, providing a really good voice for Titus.

[00:45:31] Like just throughout the entirety of the game, whether it be in those more just kind of like brother, you know, straight up talking to his chapter mates.

[00:45:39] Or in the more serious when he's, you know, kind of buckling down and dealing with some of the things that are happening in the story and trying to, you know, hold together a little bit of his own sanity as well as the group that he's working with.

[00:45:50] The emotions there that he needs to bring in.

[00:45:53] And, you know, this is not a super tearjerker game, but it's the kind where it does need some good emoting in order to carry what the game is trying to portray to you, what the story is trying to give to you.

[00:46:03] And he does a great job.

[00:46:04] I think everyone, honestly, Miles, Arthur, and Clive, they all do excellent jobs with that group.

[00:46:08] That main trio that you're running around with.

[00:46:10] Yeah.

[00:46:11] They carry the campaign easy.

[00:46:13] I don't think there's a weak point between the three of them.

[00:46:14] No, absolutely not.

[00:46:15] I think that they work perfectly together.

[00:46:17] And even, you know, the actor for Captain Acheron, obviously coming in with a Scottish accent, you know, incredibly.

[00:46:23] It sells the experience.

[00:46:24] For sure.

[00:46:25] It sells you them conveying the feeling of them being ultramarines, being space marines.

[00:46:30] And I think that's the most important thing.

[00:46:31] And they nail the job.

[00:46:32] But let's go ahead and take a quick music break.

[00:46:35] And when we come back, we're going to talk about our spoiler-inclusive narrative thoughts for Space Marine 2.

[00:47:00] Okay.

[00:47:00] And we're back.

[00:47:02] Well, is this game not have some of the most hype-ish shit that you've ever seen in a video game?

[00:47:06] Ever?

[00:47:06] In the year of our Lord, 2024, this is up there.

[00:47:11] This is up there.

[00:47:12] Especially like that last, we already talked about how the final mission is super long, right?

[00:47:16] It's three in a row.

[00:47:17] You're just chaining them, boom, boom, boom.

[00:47:19] However, it also has the craziest moments.

[00:47:23] The moment.

[00:47:23] Oh my goodness gracious.

[00:47:24] The boy.

[00:47:26] Ugh.

[00:47:26] I think it's like two moments, too, that are crazy, that chain together.

[00:47:29] Yeah.

[00:47:29] The flag, of course.

[00:47:30] Yeah.

[00:47:30] And then, you know, hop out to bed with the...

[00:47:34] He starts blasting the dude.

[00:47:36] So anyway, I started blasting.

[00:47:38] Yeah.

[00:47:39] No, it's incredible.

[00:47:40] It's funny, the moment with the flag.

[00:47:43] Yeah.

[00:47:43] You know, for context, obviously, our listeners, we're talking about the part where you are circling up with your squadrons.

[00:47:49] You've kind of...

[00:47:50] Your space marines have decided that they needed to do a full frontal assault on the Chaos Thousand Suns that are kind of there and present at the moment.

[00:47:59] You kind of get pulled into a warp world, where a world has been absorbed by the warp, or the warp is trying to come into it.

[00:48:05] Either way, who fucking knows, right?

[00:48:07] Like, we're not lore players.

[00:48:08] We just knew something needed to die.

[00:48:09] We just knew something needed to get the work in, right?

[00:48:12] But yeah, it's so cool because this is when they start introducing demons and some of the...

[00:48:17] Obviously, some of the more darker aspects of the Thousand Suns, Chaos Marines.

[00:48:20] And there's a moment where you're circling up and obviously, you know, Titus sees a banner that's lying over in the battle standard.

[00:48:30] And he's like, Sparrow's Marine circle, the brothers circle on me.

[00:48:34] And you literally, seeing people react to this, the moment where he picks up the flag, plants it in the ground, takes out his sidearm and starts blasting.

[00:48:42] And you're just surrounded by your battle brothers, like shooting.

[00:48:46] And one guy's like, brother, I've lost my leg.

[00:48:48] And he says, keep firing.

[00:48:49] I mean, it's the coolest shit.

[00:48:52] Like, you can't make this stuff up, man.

[00:48:53] No, you can't.

[00:48:54] You can't make...

[00:48:54] Clearly, Saber did.

[00:48:56] But like, it's just so cool because, you know, I'm here as a normie.

[00:49:01] We're both normies when we talk about...

[00:49:03] Like, we're not out here painting miniatures.

[00:49:05] We're not out here on our weekends going to game workshops to play tabletop campaigns.

[00:49:10] But like, jumping in here...

[00:49:11] I'm a casual motorist.

[00:49:12] As a casual, enjoying it to that degree, I can only imagine what the diehard 40K fans felt like in this game.

[00:49:19] So this game is the ultimate love letter to like all of those folks out there who for years have just been subsisting off of, you know, novels and audiobooks and, you know, headcanon, tabletop campaigns and, you know, whatever, you know.

[00:49:31] You get some videos.

[00:49:31] Yeah.

[00:49:31] You get some games.

[00:49:33] Obviously, they got Darktide.

[00:49:34] They got lots of games.

[00:49:35] Yeah, they got a ton of games.

[00:49:35] The thing is, is that I just don't know if that's feeding into the power fantasy for the people who love the space marines, right?

[00:49:41] I got you.

[00:49:41] They're arguable not so good guys of the 40K, you know, universe.

[00:49:45] No good guys.

[00:49:46] But yeah, you know, so I had a few questions that I wanted to ask you because I know that you kind of, you key into some of these things.

[00:49:53] There's moments in this game after, at the early point in time, before you even realize you're dealing with a thousand suns, the chaos marines, where Titus has these like mental schisms and he's like gripping his head and he falls down and Gadriel and Chiron both make a comment about it.

[00:50:09] Like, are you okay?

[00:50:09] At one point, they have to bring him back to the battle barge because he's like inoperable and like they're doubting his leadership.

[00:50:16] My question is that, is this like, is this similar to, is this actually what we're supposed to believe on its face that that was an after effect of the Rubicon surgery?

[00:50:24] Or is that him coming back into contact with chaos, with the warp?

[00:50:28] My understanding is that it is his, him coming back into contact.

[00:50:32] Like, I understand to some degree it must be the Rubicon surgery because I know it is supposed to be really, you know, harsh on the body.

[00:50:39] And that's why people were so surprised, you know, like, oh, he wasn't, you know, born primaris.

[00:50:43] He was, he was created like that.

[00:50:44] Or, you know, he bounced back very quickly after the surgery, I should say, when normally you're down for significantly longer than, you know, good old Titus was.

[00:50:51] But Titus is also built different.

[00:50:53] He's him.

[00:50:53] So, I mean, you got to get back in there.

[00:50:55] He's absolutely him.

[00:50:56] But when you're playing through the first game, from what I went back, because once again, didn't beat it, but I just kind of get myself a nice refresher on it.

[00:51:01] You know, you get, you interact with that same, that power source, that, that same kind of MacGuffin that you end up interacting with as well.

[00:51:08] In part two.

[00:51:09] Okay.

[00:51:10] But you are pointed out in the first game that it's like, hey, you're, you're not falling into, you know, the, the chaos.

[00:51:18] You're not becoming corrupted.

[00:51:19] It's like, you have some kind of like warp resistance, which people look at that as like, that's not so great.

[00:51:26] It's a witch.

[00:51:27] Like, it's, it's exactly what it is.

[00:51:28] It's the kind of thing where you'd assume, oh man, I have resistance to the warp.

[00:51:31] That's cool.

[00:51:32] People like, that's not cool.

[00:51:33] That's a heretic.

[00:51:33] That is, that is definitely not cool.

[00:51:35] They say that is not cool.

[00:51:36] Which kind of kicked off what happens at the end of the first game and then the beginning of this one.

[00:51:41] But I'm also curious.

[00:51:42] So I don't know if that's something that maybe additional story would tell.

[00:51:45] Cause I don't feel like it's fully resolved by the end of this story.

[00:51:49] I don't think so either.

[00:51:50] At one point at close to the beginning of the game, when you first come across like the chaos writings and you see that something is wrong.

[00:51:55] Yeah.

[00:51:56] You get that moment, you know, he gets the headache.

[00:51:58] I think his eyes kind of go green a little bit, but the, like, you know, he's falling on the ground and they try to figure out what's going on with him.

[00:52:06] Titus, of course, cause he's like, I don't want to deal with this, but it's not really ever brought back up.

[00:52:12] So I, I'd like to see either a continuation of that or just, you know, maybe in part three, some other kind of DLC work that they do.

[00:52:20] Like, is this really an issue for Titus or is this something to where he's maybe now kind of like ascending past what he was previously?

[00:52:29] You know, you can have the power of the warp without being fully corrupted.

[00:52:32] I'm not sure.

[00:52:32] I'm not, I don't know how the Lord works like that.

[00:52:34] Can you truly interact with the warp without the corruption or is it just a matter of time?

[00:52:38] That's a good question.

[00:52:39] But I think there's a reason why the emperor is talking to him.

[00:52:42] It could be.

[00:52:43] This kind of goes hand in hand with something I wanted to talk about in terms of like everything that's presented to you in the game.

[00:52:48] Obviously, as you go forward, this is a spoiler.

[00:52:52] Chaos is trying to get a hold of something that's on Kadaku.

[00:52:56] And I believe it's the same power source that you were saying that was like the MacGuffin that was in the first game, right?

[00:53:02] Yep.

[00:53:02] And this is a power source that's going to allow them to, it's really, really bad if they get a hold of it because that means that Chaos Marines can just show up anywhere they want to.

[00:53:11] And then sow, sow havoc and do the terrible, terrible, bad, bad things that they do to human beings in this universe.

[00:53:19] Something that I thought was really interesting is that, you know, we were talking about this earlier is that the Lord of Change, the great demon that you fight in this game is this huge bird looking monstrosity that's in this game that you're kind of like fighting and you're running towards as like your whole battalion of space Marines are trying to deal with him at the end of the game.

[00:53:37] Which is a crazy looking sight.

[00:53:39] Like it's just, you just see the scale, like the epic scale, you know, the equivalent, you look at your miniatures and you're just like, is this a 2000 point army?

[00:53:46] Like what's going on here?

[00:53:47] I don't understand.

[00:53:49] Yeah, what's going on here?

[00:53:50] Yeah, no, it's almost perfect.

[00:53:52] It's almost perfect too.

[00:53:52] It's almost exactly what we wanted.

[00:53:55] But yeah, it's just really cool seeing obviously right before that point, you coming in contact with the big armored unit.

[00:54:03] Are you talking about the dreadnought?

[00:54:05] Dreadnought.

[00:54:05] Yes, the big homie.

[00:54:06] The big homie.

[00:54:07] I think it's Valtus.

[00:54:08] Yeah, yeah.

[00:54:09] The incredible, incredible moment where he walks in and the first time you see him is he's decimating a hell brute.

[00:54:15] Just smokes that hell brute.

[00:54:16] Oh my God.

[00:54:17] He says, lead me to the slaughter.

[00:54:18] Yes, sir.

[00:54:19] And you're like, oh, it's just you get chills running down your spine.

[00:54:21] And then he literally, there's a hell drake coming in to just annihilate everybody.

[00:54:24] Just picks up a column and just says, you know.

[00:54:27] I cast you down.

[00:54:28] Nice try, shit ass.

[00:54:30] Yes.

[00:54:32] And just throws a fucking column at him.

[00:54:33] He says that verbatim.

[00:54:35] No, it's.

[00:54:36] Yeah, you're sitting there like, oh, I got a boss fight coming up.

[00:54:38] This is going to be crazy.

[00:54:39] And then, yeah, he gets hit in the face with a cup.

[00:54:41] His health bar drops all the way down to zero.

[00:54:43] No, no.

[00:54:43] That abomination is mine.

[00:54:45] No, I love it.

[00:54:46] That's awesome.

[00:54:46] I love the incredible moments that we have there.

[00:54:48] But what's interesting is that what you're dealing with is a lord of change.

[00:54:51] The thousand suns are kind of governed by the god of change.

[00:54:56] But like, that is not, the demon that you fight in this game is not the great demon.

[00:55:01] It's just a normal.

[00:55:02] Just a normal demon.

[00:55:03] Unnamed demon.

[00:55:04] Probably a greater demon, but a demon all the same.

[00:55:06] A demon all the same.

[00:55:07] But it's just like crazy to me to think that, okay, this is 40K that we're in right now.

[00:55:11] And this is like, this guy doesn't even have a name.

[00:55:14] Nope.

[00:55:14] We're just fighting him.

[00:55:15] He's just a random.

[00:55:16] He's absolutely, it's taking like so much effort from this like battle barge to actually deal with this unit.

[00:55:23] And it's crazy.

[00:55:23] We throw a whole ship at him in order to decommission ship at him to deal with this situation.

[00:55:29] And it's just, yeah, super hype moments.

[00:55:32] But obviously there is a greater sorcerer enemy that's kind of like in charge of this legion of thousand suns, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:55:40] Imura.

[00:55:41] Imura.

[00:55:42] Yeah.

[00:55:42] And you have to kind of, you're responsible as Titus for tracking him down and fighting him.

[00:55:47] Yeah.

[00:55:47] And at the very end when the demon starts pulsing like these warp bubbles.

[00:55:53] Yeah, where he freezes everybody.

[00:55:55] Yeah.

[00:55:55] He like puts everybody in like a little freeze.

[00:55:58] Yeah.

[00:55:58] And then you duck behind a pillar which protects you and your group.

[00:56:01] And Calgar just tanks it.

[00:56:02] He tanks it.

[00:56:02] He just tanks it.

[00:56:03] The iron halo goes on.

[00:56:05] He hopped out the bed.

[00:56:07] Yeah.

[00:56:07] He turned his swag on.

[00:56:08] He turns his swag on.

[00:56:09] And he goes straight through the portal, jumps into the warp.

[00:56:13] I'm like, that's my goat right there.

[00:56:14] That's my guy right there.

[00:56:15] I didn't know who you were 10 minutes ago, but I will follow you into hell.

[00:56:18] That's a leader I could follow.

[00:56:19] That's a leader I could get behind.

[00:56:20] Calgar 2024.

[00:56:21] You know what I mean?

[00:56:21] Let's be real.

[00:56:22] Let's be honest.

[00:56:23] Let's just be honest.

[00:56:24] I don't know about that.

[00:56:25] I don't know about that if we're being real.

[00:56:27] No more demons.

[00:56:28] No more demons.

[00:56:28] No more demons.

[00:56:29] Yeah.

[00:56:29] No, I can't.

[00:56:30] That's a point that I can get behind.

[00:56:32] But yeah, so it's really interesting that they take them into this kind of like black secluded

[00:56:36] thing.

[00:56:37] And there he's trying to play tricks, mind tricks on Titus and his squadron that had followed

[00:56:43] Calgar into this warp because, you know, they don't want, they worry about their commander.

[00:56:46] They don't want him to get marked by this, you know, devious, you know, agent of change.

[00:56:51] But yeah, there's a moment where he's in the warp and he's getting kind of beat up on and

[00:56:56] then he seemingly dies.

[00:56:59] Right.

[00:56:59] And then he hears the emperor's voice in his head.

[00:57:01] Have you read anything or have you talked to anybody about like what that actually means?

[00:57:06] If that is, I've heard, I've heard that the fact that because apparently he hasn't been

[00:57:12] heard by anybody in like thousands of years that like people are even questioning whether

[00:57:18] or not he's real anymore, which is very, very much heretical thing to say.

[00:57:22] Why would you say such a thing?

[00:57:23] Why would you say such a thing?

[00:57:24] I'm going to call the chaplain on you right now.

[00:57:26] Right now.

[00:57:27] But apparently like, you know, Titus hearing the emperor's words is super significant for

[00:57:33] the lore overall because I think it might mean a coming change for the 40K franchise,

[00:57:38] for the 40K universe in general.

[00:57:40] Like something like precipitous is about to happen because of the events in Space Marine

[00:57:45] 2, which I think is really, really cool.

[00:57:46] We have this game that's like offering a new story, offering a continuation of Demetri

[00:57:51] and Titus's, you know, narrative.

[00:57:52] But then at the same time, we're affecting this grand tale overall.

[00:57:56] Which is awesome.

[00:57:57] Yeah.

[00:57:58] Yeah.

[00:57:58] Really, really cool.

[00:57:59] At the end of the day, do you have any final spoiler inclusive thoughts of stuff that you

[00:58:02] enjoy, stuff that you liked?

[00:58:04] So overall, I'm trying to think like going through the game itself.

[00:58:07] It's funny because when you're going through the main story, aside from chaos being introduced,

[00:58:11] there's not a whole lot of spoiler stuff like things happen, but it's hard to say

[00:58:15] it's a spoiler because it doesn't affect the greater until they really get to the end

[00:58:20] and start working against the God, Emura, and then, you know, Siege and that greater demon

[00:58:26] that you fight.

[00:58:28] But one awesome, awesome thing that happens at the end of the game when you get back to

[00:58:32] the battle barge after finally defeating Emura and, you know, saving Demerium is you

[00:58:38] talk to the chaplain again.

[00:58:40] Chaplain's been busting your ass this whole game.

[00:58:42] Somebody over talk about it.

[00:58:43] He's like, I got my eye on you, Titus.

[00:58:46] One step.

[00:58:47] If you start falling into chaos, if you start doing something messed up, I'm cutting you

[00:58:51] off.

[00:58:51] Like you're done.

[00:58:52] It's a wrap for you.

[00:58:53] You're going back to death watch.

[00:58:54] You're going somewhere.

[00:58:55] The whole time you're like, why is this guy busting my balls so much?

[00:58:57] Like what's going on?

[00:58:58] What's going on?

[00:58:59] What's going on?

[00:58:59] What's going on with this guy?

[00:59:00] He takes off his helmet at the very end, still talking trash to you.

[00:59:03] He's like, you may have everyone's respect and admiration right now, but it's like one

[00:59:09] more step and I'm going to take you down, Titus.

[00:59:13] It's Leandros.

[00:59:14] Oh, Leandros.

[00:59:15] Leandros.

[00:59:16] For people, for the unofficiated, for the uninitiated, Leandros is the Marine that you

[00:59:23] were with in your group in the first game who ultimately ends up saying that you are,

[00:59:29] you know, a heretic, that you're becoming fallen into chaos.

[00:59:32] And that's what really gets you picked up by the, what do they call it?

[00:59:36] The Inquisition.

[00:59:37] The Inquisition.

[00:59:37] They almost call them enigmatic.

[00:59:38] So yeah, the Inquisition who then sit there and straight up torture Titus for years and

[00:59:42] years and years before he's let go, freed, and then ultimately goes to the Death Watch

[00:59:47] of his own, you know, volition.

[00:59:48] Yeah.

[00:59:49] But yeah, so in this time that you've been tortured and then serving in the Death Watch

[00:59:53] and then finally coming back to, you know, remake a name for yourself, you know, kind

[00:59:57] of prove that you're innocent and that you're not falling into chaos.

[01:00:01] Leandros has still been with you kind of along the way when you came back for that surgery

[01:00:06] all the way up until the very end where you prove yourself to Marnius Calgar, who,

[01:00:09] you know, at this point is like your second, like that's your homie right there.

[01:00:12] That's your boy.

[01:00:13] Yeah.

[01:00:13] You know, you and Calgar are like this son.

[01:00:14] Well, he was the one that authorized Rubicon surgery in the beginning.

[01:00:17] He said like when they first found out, I think that he was, you know, tortured and

[01:00:22] put away.

[01:00:23] He was like sick.

[01:00:23] Like he was furious.

[01:00:24] Yeah.

[01:00:24] So, you know, him and Titus are boys now at this point.

[01:00:27] So it's very cool seeing the ties that they continue, not just of course from Titus himself

[01:00:32] one to two, but even some of those side characters, Leandros and some of the things

[01:00:36] that they're doing, even that, that warp item that they bring back from the first game

[01:00:40] to interact with in a major way for the second game.

[01:00:43] I don't know.

[01:00:44] It just shows that that saber really cares about that continuation of story.

[01:00:48] You know, they could have just been like, what?

[01:00:49] We have the same name character and you're just doing new stuff.

[01:00:52] And it is what it is.

[01:00:53] It's more of the same fighting.

[01:00:54] They don't make any callbacks or recognition at all.

[01:00:56] The first game.

[01:00:56] But no, keeping those threads going is really important, especially if like you're mentioning

[01:01:00] with the Emperor, they're going to do a larger, you know, more lore altering things in the

[01:01:07] third game.

[01:01:07] I want to see Gilliam.

[01:01:08] It's great to see that.

[01:01:08] I want to see Gilliam.

[01:01:10] I want to see him.

[01:01:10] He's busy with paperwork.

[01:01:11] Look, he's all, he's caught up in red tape.

[01:01:13] He's responsible for the whole Imperium now since he's, you know, big daddy is just

[01:01:17] trying to hold chaos at bay.

[01:01:18] Like dad, I'm just trying to work here.

[01:01:20] You got me running the company by myself.

[01:01:24] Yeah, no, that's, that's so cool.

[01:01:25] Yeah.

[01:01:25] And I love that, that Leandris reveal.

[01:01:27] I think again, kind of what we were talking about towards the tail end of like the, the

[01:01:31] strength between, you know, Chiron, Gadriel and Titus.

[01:01:34] Like I think the coolest thing is the idea of that.

[01:01:36] Like, and I don't know if this was a thing in the original game where it was like, obviously

[01:01:41] the, the takeaway is that the entire game Gadriel is questioning Titus's command.

[01:01:47] He's questioning his authority.

[01:01:49] This specific like unit was supposed to be his unit.

[01:01:51] He was supposed to get that promotion.

[01:01:53] Titus coming in through a wrench into the works.

[01:01:56] Acheron was just doing what he was told.

[01:01:58] He wasn't even kind of in charge of what was going on.

[01:02:00] He's just, he's just working with what he was dealt.

[01:02:02] He has three men, right?

[01:02:03] Yeah, we got three men.

[01:02:04] We got three men.

[01:02:06] And so the cool thing is, is that, you know, Titus obviously is a very, very well experienced,

[01:02:12] you know, space Marine.

[01:02:13] I mean, the man's like, you know, anywhere from, you know, three to four centuries year

[01:02:16] old.

[01:02:16] Right.

[01:02:18] And so this idea that, you know, he knows how to deal with the Tyranids.

[01:02:22] He has in-depth battle experience that Kyron and Gadriel don't.

[01:02:27] And so he's taking this team from step to step to moment to moment throughout this game and

[01:02:32] making decisions, actionable choices.

[01:02:34] He makes a choice to interface with the machine spirit and do it looking at archived or classified

[01:02:40] records that he's not supposed to be looking at.

[01:02:42] And Gadriel's like, that is not according to the Codex of Starzies, does not support these

[01:02:47] actions, right?

[01:02:48] So you hear that over and over again.

[01:02:50] But I think the point is, is that like Titus does not trust these two that he's with because

[01:02:55] he was betrayed by Leandris.

[01:02:57] Exactly.

[01:02:57] And the betrayal cost him so dearly.

[01:02:59] It cost him so much.

[01:03:00] So the entire game, I was, I found myself getting a little frustrated with Titus's character

[01:03:05] because I was like, come on, man.

[01:03:06] You can't give him a little.

[01:03:07] You can't give him a little.

[01:03:08] Like, give him something so they know that you're like doing the right thing.

[01:03:13] And at the very end, he kind of curse circles back around.

[01:03:16] And this is like after the first, they get in touch with Imura because Imura is able to

[01:03:21] kill one of the-

[01:03:23] Psykers.

[01:03:24] Psykers.

[01:03:24] Some of the Psykers who are able to interface with the warp and obviously assume control and

[01:03:28] enter and everything bad happens.

[01:03:29] But he's like, you're right.

[01:03:31] One of the problems that I faced was that I wasn't, I wasn't as forthcoming with my

[01:03:36] old, my old battle squadron.

[01:03:38] Right.

[01:03:38] And I'm not going to make that same mistake this time.

[01:03:40] And he's like, you're right.

[01:03:42] I'm not doing the right things, but like I'm doing it for a good cause, a good reason.

[01:03:46] And he's like, and then Gadriel comes over to his side.

[01:03:48] He's the big homie.

[01:03:49] Character growth.

[01:03:50] Yeah.

[01:03:50] Character growth.

[01:03:51] And so, so, so both of them have that like kind of character growth there, that moment

[01:03:55] too.

[01:03:55] There's another really cool moment where Chiron, he goes berserk earlier on.

[01:03:59] He goes apeshit.

[01:04:00] This is the first time you get in contact with the Chaos Marines.

[01:04:03] He goes absolutely wild.

[01:04:05] And I think you learned later on that his home world was devastated, decimated by the

[01:04:10] Chaos Marines.

[01:04:12] And like, you know, family members were slaughtered or taken or turned into monstrosities, whatever

[01:04:17] the case may be.

[01:04:18] So he has that personal vendetta against Chaos.

[01:04:20] Yeah.

[01:04:21] And that, that was a really cool moment where you're like, he, he's kind of like, he's

[01:04:24] wary of Titus, but he's more in line with like, oh, I'm just, let's just see where this

[01:04:27] guy takes us.

[01:04:28] Let's just do what he's killing.

[01:04:29] He's our leader, right?

[01:04:30] He's killing them, right?

[01:04:30] So it's like, it's gotta be good.

[01:04:33] So yeah, that was, that was a really cool seeing like the character growth from all

[01:04:36] three of them or just kind of the, the way that they go through change.

[01:04:38] I will say that I wish we got a little bit more like Chaos Marine stuff going on at the

[01:04:45] end of it.

[01:04:45] But again, I understand, you know, again, scope, they had to wrap things up the way that

[01:04:49] they did.

[01:04:50] And of course, you know, there's only so much you can do with the amount of gameplay loopage

[01:04:55] that they have kind of baked into the game.

[01:04:56] So I think it was, it was perfect for what we got.

[01:04:58] I think so.

[01:04:59] That's the downside too, of just having multiple factions of fighting against, especially,

[01:05:03] I mean, one, you want to know so much about the Ultramarines and maybe even some

[01:05:06] of the other chapters and stuff, which of course they don't have time to get into.

[01:05:09] They don't really at all.

[01:05:11] So then you incorporate someone like, you know, the Xenos and the Tyranids and you're like,

[01:05:15] oh, well, let's hear about them.

[01:05:17] Luckily, I think in their case, because they're more of just hive mind, hungry, hungry, you

[01:05:21] know, you don't need to dive too much into their background and do all that, but they

[01:05:24] are also very fun to fight.

[01:05:25] So you want to have as much of them as possible in your missions.

[01:05:28] And then when they switch over to the chaos side, you want to learn more.

[01:05:31] But as you say, you kind of get to that point where you're like, you're on that

[01:05:33] long sprint.

[01:05:34] You have like two missions, three missions.

[01:05:37] And at the end of the game, and then that kind of wraps up their storyline.

[01:05:40] So I agree with you a hundred percent.

[01:05:41] It'd be nice to get a little bit more on the chaos gods or if they're going to just focus

[01:05:46] on, you know, Siench, maybe just doing them specifically just to get a little bit more

[01:05:50] out of that.

[01:05:50] But you got some good pickups like the data tablets, the data slates.

[01:05:55] Yeah, those are cool.

[01:05:55] Give you some pretty good lore.

[01:05:56] And luckily it's not just straight reading, like they're straight up audio that you can

[01:06:00] listen to at a later date as well when you're back on the battle barge.

[01:06:02] So it's nice that you can just check that out if you want a little bit more kind of lore and

[01:06:06] background for these different worlds.

[01:06:07] Give you some insight into the Adeptus Mechanicus and how they think.

[01:06:10] Exactly.

[01:06:10] Which is also really cool.

[01:06:12] Like the good thing about this game and maybe some of the bad thing about this game is that

[01:06:16] they expect you to do a decent amount of legwork on your own.

[01:06:19] They do.

[01:06:20] But I think...

[01:06:21] I like that.

[01:06:21] That's respecting the audience.

[01:06:23] That's kind of what I was thinking.

[01:06:23] They respect you.

[01:06:24] They don't want to just straight hold your hand and give you info dumps because like

[01:06:27] you said, we're on tight nine hours for single player.

[01:06:30] We don't have time for this.

[01:06:31] They say, take my hand.

[01:06:32] We're running through this.

[01:06:34] Yeah.

[01:06:34] If you want to know more, go online and look it up like everyone else is.

[01:06:37] You're going to see a mechanical baby with wings that looks like a newborn child.

[01:06:40] And I need you to be okay with this.

[01:06:42] And I need you to be okay.

[01:06:42] You're going to see a dude that's attached to a wall.

[01:06:45] I can't explain it.

[01:06:46] I need you to be fine with it.

[01:06:47] No, nothing elaborated.

[01:06:48] He opens the door.

[01:06:49] If you want to flush the toilet, I need you to shake this guy's hand.

[01:06:52] And that's how it works.

[01:06:54] But no, it's awesome.

[01:06:55] I think the lore is great in that there's just so, so much of it.

[01:06:58] They can't shove it into the game.

[01:06:59] So it does kind of ask you to go outside of the game, which is nice for the overall world

[01:07:03] in general.

[01:07:04] I feel like people are going to play Space Marines 2.

[01:07:07] They're going to want to go back and want to check the first one out.

[01:07:09] They're going to go read the books.

[01:07:10] They're going to go check out the shows and check out other games.

[01:07:13] This is the kind of game and experience that creates new fans and keeps that blood pumping

[01:07:17] and churning so that they can continue to do more great grim dark content.

[01:07:20] Absolutely.

[01:07:22] And that's going to segue us into our final thoughts for the game.

[01:07:25] Will, I have two questions for you.

[01:07:27] If there are people out there who haven't played this game and they're thinking about jumping

[01:07:31] in, who do you recommend play this game?

[01:07:34] And then two, are we getting Space Marine 3?

[01:07:37] First off, if we don't get Space Marine 3, I'm going to be sick.

[01:07:40] I'm going to be violently ill.

[01:07:43] I'm going to send a doctor's bill to Saber's headquarters and be like, I'm ill.

[01:07:48] I'm sick.

[01:07:48] Focus right entertainment.

[01:07:50] I'm going to send you all my psych notes.

[01:07:52] I'm going to be like, look, I have one make a wish and it's going to be for Space Marine

[01:07:55] 3.

[01:07:56] So I'm going to need y'all to get on this right now.

[01:07:58] Right now.

[01:07:58] But as far as people to play it, honestly, it has a really wide net that it hits.

[01:08:03] Overall, let's just start at the top.

[01:08:04] Game is bloody, nasty, violent.

[01:08:06] If you are squeamish, this might not be the game for you.

[01:08:09] Yeah.

[01:08:09] You know, go check out something else.

[01:08:11] Plenty of good movies, TV shows out there.

[01:08:12] Go have some fun.

[01:08:13] That being said, if you're into, you know, a little bit of violence, a little bit of that

[01:08:16] squeamishness.

[01:08:17] If you are a fan of older games that generally don't hold your hand that much, but will give

[01:08:22] you a lot of content for the price tag.

[01:08:25] I mean, this is an easy pickup, easy win.

[01:08:27] And if you are into really crazy in-depth lore, if you're the kind of person that picks up

[01:08:32] a new game or watches a movie or a new series and the first thing you do is go check out

[01:08:36] the wiki or go to IMDB to look things up, then this is the game for you.

[01:08:42] You are going to have hours and hours and hours of content.

[01:08:45] And then you might end up, you know, painting some figurines, right?

[01:08:48] You might end up picking up the paints.

[01:08:50] You might get a dreadnought yourself.

[01:08:52] Who knows?

[01:08:52] You might get yourself a dreadnought and that's a little 2,000 point arm.

[01:08:56] So, uh, I just, it's a lot, it's a wide net.

[01:08:58] I can say that you can really cast for people to play this game.

[01:09:02] So honestly, if you are curious, I would say check it out because odds are very high that

[01:09:07] you're going to enjoy at least one facet of this.

[01:09:09] Yeah.

[01:09:10] Yeah.

[01:09:11] I can only echo everything you've said.

[01:09:13] I think that again, this game kind of sits in two lanes and it captures, you know, two

[01:09:18] large demographics of audiences that are currently in the gaming market today.

[01:09:22] You have one side of the audience that's going to be like you and I, where we're kind

[01:09:25] of lore hounds with like, we want to understand the context of the world.

[01:09:28] We're interested, you know, on a casual level of what 40k has to offer, but we don't have

[01:09:32] that much, not that much knowledge.

[01:09:34] So this game is really cool for us to, to be able to jump in there.

[01:09:37] Uh, and I highly recommend anybody who does enjoy this lore and story and context to

[01:09:41] kind of, you know, check out the campaign and then go into operations.

[01:09:45] Don't just finish it at the campaign, even though it's like the hypest thing ever.

[01:09:48] Right.

[01:09:48] And then you have this other lane of people who are like very much gameplay first, you

[01:09:52] know, have gameplay, heavy centric people, people that skip cut scenes, whatever, do

[01:09:57] your thing.

[01:09:57] You're valid.

[01:09:58] You're going to play this game.

[01:09:59] You're going to get in there for that tight nine to 15 hours and you're going to have

[01:10:02] a blast and you're going to have a ton of fun.

[01:10:04] And I think that this game is a hundred percent worth full price.

[01:10:07] You don't have to wait till it goes on sale.

[01:10:09] That's something that we say about Ubisoft games all the time.

[01:10:11] But like this game, I think it's enough quality that like go out there, spend the extra

[01:10:15] money, go to your GameStop or just buy it on your storefronts and just jump in overall.

[01:10:20] And I think you're going to have a great time.

[01:10:23] But folks, that is going to be it for tonight.

[01:10:26] I want to give a big thank you to all of our listeners.

[01:10:28] If you've enjoyed our content and you want to support us further, please feel free to leave

[01:10:32] us a rating or review on your podcasting platform of choice, whether that's Apple Podcasts,

[01:10:37] Spotify or GoodPods.

[01:10:38] We welcome any feedback in any interaction community.

[01:10:41] Again, thank you to Focusrite and Saber Interactive for providing the content.

[01:10:45] Codes for review today.

[01:10:48] I want to give Will a moment to let everyone know if they want to find him in their local

[01:10:54] chapter of Space Marines on the internet, where can they find you?

[01:10:57] Well, on the internet, you can find me at Twitter.

[01:11:01] It'd be at RealKingZoZotai.

[01:11:03] That is R-E-A-L-K-I-N-G-Z-O-S-O-T-A-I.

[01:11:08] But if you want to find me out in the world, you'll find me bathed in the blood of my enemy.

[01:11:13] Bathed in the blood of the heretics.

[01:11:15] Yeah.

[01:11:16] Chainsaw sword in one hand and the heart of a Zeno in the other.

[01:11:22] He's right here, folks.

[01:11:23] He's waiting for you to join him at the bulwark.

[01:11:25] Locked in.

[01:11:26] You know, stand as a guardian of humanity at the last bastion.

[01:11:30] But with that, everyone, please keep gaming, take it easy, and we'll see you next Friday night.

[01:11:35] Deuces.

[01:11:35] Deuces.

[01:11:36] Let's do this.