September 9, 2024: We’ve updated this guide to include more detail on the game editions, season pass, and bonuses.
Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2’s release date has hit! The original 2011 Space Marine game was remarkable – an aggressive third-person shooter that perfectly captured the 40k super-soldier power fantasy. Now, over a decade later, we finally get to resume Titus’ story. We’ve tracked Space Marine 2’s progress since it was first announced in December 2021, to its time of release – here’s a summary of all you need to know.
If Space Marine 2 is your first foray into Games Workshop’s grim dark future, Wargamer can help – our complete guides to the hulking, power-armored Space Marines, the terrifying insectoid Tyranids they fight, and all the other Warhammer 40k factions, are recommended reading.
Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 – quick links:
You can also now check the recently revealed Space Marine 2 system requirements over on our sister site PCGamesN.
Space Marine 2 editions
There are three digital editions of Space Marine 2 currently available – Standard, Gold, and Ultra.
The main intended benefit for getting the Gold or Ultra editions is acquiring the Season Pass right away – though the Ultra edition is the only version that includes the Ultramarines Champion Pack DLC, which unlocks a snazzy, exclusive, gold-trimmed full-body armor set and Heavy Bolter gun skin. Here’s what’s included in each edition, and their prices:
| Edition | Includes | Price |
| Standard (pre-order) | Macragge’s Chosen DLC | $59.99 (£54.99) at Humble |
| Gold |
|
$89.99 (£79.99) at Humble |
| Ultra |
|
$99.99 (£89.99) at Humble |
Space Marine 2 pre-order bonuses
If you pre-ordered Space Marine 2, you’ll also get a small cosmetic DLC pack as a bonus: the Macragge’s Chosen DLC.
It includes three cosmetic items:
What does the Space Marine 2 season pass include?
Per usual for such products, there’s not much precise detail at this stage as to exactly what you’ll be getting with the Space Marine 2 Season Pass – but the relevant store pages confirm it’ll include:
- Price discount on “additional content” – i.e. at least some post-release DLC
- “Armor, weapon, and Champion cosmetics from your favorite Space Marine chapters through four phases” – starting with the Dark Angels in 2024.
We now know there’s a fair stack of free content planned in the post-release Space Marine 2 roadmap – a new weapon, enemy, and a PVE mission that will further increase Space Marine 2’s length are all promised.
But exactly what paid DLC is on the way, for Season Pass holders to enjoy a discount on, we don’t yet know.
Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 gameplay
Like its 2011 predecessor, Space Marine 2 is a gory, action-oriented third-person shooter. It’s got highly satisfying, aggressive melee combat, no cover system, and so many enemies that you’ll spend at least as much time mowing through foes as blasting them with bolt rounds.
When we added the original Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine to our list of the best Warhammer 40k games ever made, we praised it not for having extraordinary graphics or a stupendously compelling story (it had neither) but for offering core gameplay that absolutely nails the power fantasy of being one of the Emperor of Mankind‘s ten-foot, genetically enhanced, power-armored elite.
You can read our Space Marine 2 review for our full thoughts on the new game, but the long and short of it is that fantastic visuals and combat are only hampered by lacklustre AI (and it’s not a huge upgrade in the plot department either).
Space Marine 2 combat is every bit the direct evolution from the 2011 original’s fluid, gunplay-to-melee rush that we were hoping for – only with much more spectacular visuals, and much more impressive, satisfying ways to rip your enemies’ guts out (seriously, the Space Marine 2 executions are gnarly as all hell).
There’s a very heavy focus on timing-based attack combos, dodging, and parrying that has drawn comparisons to FromSoft’s ‘Soulsborne’ games – and there are some shared vibes for Souls fans to enjoy, especially at higher difficulties – but the inherent challenge level is much more approachable – at least if you have pals to watch your back.
We’ve found the combat’s rhythm more comparable, generally, to the delightful dance of smacks, parries, and counters in the Batman: Arkham games – only with infinitely more blood and Heavy Bolters thrown into the mix.
Where the original pitted Ultramarines Captain Titus and his squad against hordes of green-skinned Orks, your main Space Marine 2 enemies are the horrifying Tyranids – a gigantic hive mind of razor-clawed, insectoid killers.
Just like the first game, however, it doesn’t take many Space Marine 2 missions for the nefarious powers of the 40k chaos gods get involved before long, and you’ll also be fighting the magic-wielding traitor Space Marines of the Thousand Sons.
How does Space Marine 2 multiplayer work?
There are four gameplay modes in Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2:
- Single player campaign.
- Co-op multiplayer campaign.
- Operations mode – Co-op PVE missions themed around the campaign
- Eternal War – 6v6 PVP multiplayer matches split into three modes: Capture & Control, Seize Ground, and Annihilation.
Space Marine 2 release date
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 was released on September 9, 2024 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. You could play it four days early, from September 5, if you bought the Gold or Ultra Editions.
This is much later than we were originally expecting. At first, the Steam page had listed a generic “late 2023” release date, and we’d estimated that we’d have our copies of Space Marine 2 by Christmas.
But thanks to delays, it was not so – and the new release date was announced via a fresh trailer (watch it below) unveiled at The Game Awards on December 7, 2023.
On the upside, generally, fans reacted well to that final delay, mindful that the quality of Games Workshop’s licensed videogames have been infamously unreliable in the past, and appreciative of the idea developers at Saber Interactive were getting a few extra months to polish everything up.
We personally tested two full playable builds leading up to release – one in 2023 and one in late July 2024. Both left us impressed, but our 2024 Space Marine 2 preview had much more meat on the bones.
Warhammer 40k Space Marine story
The Space Marine 2 story takes place a century after the original game – and, while we still play as Captain Titus, the game opens with him returning to his chapter – the Ultramarines – and demoted to Lieutenant. The protagonist is now voiced by Clive Standen, taking over the vocal reins from the 2011 original’s Mark Strong.
At the start of Space Marine 2, you find out Titus was serving in the Deathwatch during his long absence from the Ultramarines – a secretive elite force drawn from multiple chapters, and under the command of the Warhammer 40k Inquisition.
He rejoins the Ultramarines assisting the Astra Militarum and other Imperium of Man factions battling a massive Tyranid “splinter fleet” threatening the Imperium’s territory and people.
Between missions, you’ll interact with other Imperial NPCs aboard the Ultramarines battle barge, to be briefed on your next course of action – much of the game’s storytelling comes in this form.
The game’s six campaign missions and six operations take place across three locations. You’ll chop bugs and heretics up in the “claustrophobic jungles” of the planet Kadaku, the “planet-spanning metropolis” of the Hive World Avarax, and Demerium, a cemetery world for the honoured dead that holds a dark secret.
As to the details of the war you’ll be waging, the Tyranids are – of course – enemy number one, at least at first, but the sorcerous Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines are also in the mix, pursuing their customary secret plots and chicanery. We’ll avoid major spoilers and just say they turn out to be the more pivotal baddies as the plot progresses.
What happened in Space Marine 1?
The original 2011 Space Marine game was set on the Adeptus Mechanicus Forge World Graia as it came under siege by Orks. Determined to protect the planet’s precious manufacturing capabilities and technology, Captain Titus, Veteran Sergeant Sidonus, and Tactical Marine Leandros made landfall to fight their way to critical objectives, securing the planet against the tide of greenskins.
A betrayal led Warhammer 40k Chaos forces into the fray, ending with Captain Titus successfully banishing the Ruinous Powers from the planet.
However, due to his suspicious ability to resist Chaos and stay – apparently – uncorrupted, and thanks to the testimony of Leandros, Captain Titus was placed under arrest at the end of the game by the Inquisition, led away under guard by Black Templars space marines.
Space Marine 2 trailers
Focus Entertainment released around 20 Space Marine 2 trailers leading up to the game’s release, showing off everything from initial cut-scene graphics, to a developer commentaries and deep dives into specific modes, to snapshots of specific Space Marine 2 weapons.
As some are pretty similar, we’ll just include the biggest ones here – starting with the original December 2021 reveal trailer above (which thoroughly whet our whistle at the time, with snazzy cutscene graphics, Titus’ face, and flocks of Tyranid gargoyles, but unsurprisingly shared little detail).
The first part of the trailer shows the Ultramarines landing on an unnamed planet before laying into the Tyranids with almost mechanical brutality. We get to see Thunderhawk gunships descend from the skies, disgorging their Space Marine payloads before the carnage begins.
The whole pre-rendered sequence is framed by Astra Militarum guardsmen gawking from the sidelines, giving us an idea of the scale of both the marines and their Tyranid foes. This section of the trailer ends with the reveal of Titus himself – older, more battered, and a Primaris Lieutenant now, but still the same Titus we grew close to back in 2011.
Gameplay reveal trailer
Almost a year to the day after the game was first revealed, we got to see our first glimpses of actual in-engine gameplay.
Opening with shots of the besieged city from 2021’s World Reveal trailer, we swiftly get our first in-engine 3d view of Captain Titus – all battle-damaged azure ceramite and gleaming gold trim.
From there, it’s all blood, fire, and destruction – we see gameplay footage of Titus laying into crowds of chittering Tyranids (and even a gnarly, kerb-punching finishing move). There’s delicious detailed footage attack animations for several iconic weapons, including the thunder hammer, chainsword, power sword, boltgun, and occulus bolt carbine.
Skulls Showcase gameplay trailer
Marking 2023’s ‘Skulls’ Steam promo for Warhammer games, the next trailer was a scant one minute of gameplay snippets that nonetheless had us hyped, mainly for the selection of gnarly execution animations it showed off for the first time – ripping ‘Nids, running them through with chainswords, and headshotting them point blank with bolt pistols. Yum.
Extended gameplay trailer
Chunkier by far than the previous SM2 footage, this trailer’s nine-minute runtime was padded slightly with long sequences of Titus walking slowly through various levels – but it made up for it with a bunch more stunning set-pieces, and lots more detailed audio, giving a real sense of how playing through the campaign missions is going to sound and feel.
Multiplayer modes reveal trailer
Emperor be praised! Space Marine 2 PVP multiplayer was finally confirmed in May 2024, with this two-minute snippet. It revealed the game will have two multiplayer modes: 3-player co-op ‘Operations’ missions against the Tyranids, and ‘Eternal War’ 6v6 competitive multiplayer matches, with multiple modes within that.
We also got a glimpse of the equipment unlock and customization system, shared across PVE and PVP multiplayer, which will let you collect armor pieces, styles, and color schemes to deck out your marines online.
Gameplay overview trailer
This detailed ‘director’s commentary’ style trailer dropped less than three months before the Space Marine 2 release date, and features the game’s Creative Director Oliver Hollis-Leick laying down a chunk more detail on each key area of the game: Campaign, Operations, and the Eternal War PVP modes.
Extended Multiplayer Gameplay trailer
The most recent SM2 trailer dropped just a month before release, and packs in four and a half minutes of footage from a PVE co-op ‘Operations’ mission, plus three minutes of intense combat in an ‘Eternal War’ PVP match, pitting six Ultramarines against a mixed Chaos marine squad.
The Operations mission shown is Infernus – one of two that were playable in the Summer 2024 preview build – and sees a mixed squad of Astartes from three Space Marine chapters fight through waves of ‘Nids in the jungles of Kadaku, before planting explosives in a prometheum refinery right under the path of the main bug swarm, setting up a spectacular, explosive ending.
We also see a series of intense snippets from a PVP multiplayer match in the “Capture & Control” mode, which has the two six-marine teams battle over majority control of a key objective point that moves around the battlefield intermittently – racking up victory points for how long they hold it each time.
For the first time, this trailer shows proper, close-up, in-game multiplayer footage of the Chaos Space Marine side of things, including an Alpha Legion sniper; a shield-bearing Death Guard melee fighter; and a World Eaters legionary wielding a scoped bolter (weird flex).
We’ll keep this guide updated beyond the September 2024 release date – and no doubt we’ll also see you on the battle barge for some Operations and Eternal War deathmatches!