Making you feel like an absolute killing machine isn’t that hard. Showcasing the human spirit is.

One of the most famous taglines for Warhammer: 40,000 is “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.” Most Warhammer: 40,000 consists of humans, demons, and aliens tearing each other apart. Despite all of that, there are still plenty of moments that are meant to inspire and showcase how strong the human spirit is, even when facing impossible odds. One of the last times a game made me feel as if I was a force of nature, no matter what was stacked against me, was Halo: Reach. So, after many years of lying in wait for something new, Saber Interactive’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 now joins the ranks of “Games That Make Luis Feel Unstoppable” because of the sheer amount of time I was thrown into a certain death situation just to come out of it better than I initially entered it.

The introduction of Space Marine 2 has you crash-landing onto a planet, with the character you’re controlling being the sole survivor of a crashed ship. Sure, this trope has been played out in other video games, but how it’s used here is what makes it so unique. At the end of the intro, you are forced to fight an onslaught of killer aliens known as Tyranids, and rather than cower, the main character, Lt. Titus, stands his post to give his fellow soldiers enough time to complete the mission. Right off the bat, the tone is set for the challenges you must overcome as you progress through the game.

You see stuff like this in just about every level of the game. It feels like Lt. Titus and his friends cannot walk more than ten feet without being swarmed by some cosmic horror beast trying to kill them, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Space Marine 2 is filled with various moments that are meant to inspire you. One of the best examples of this is easy to miss. Rather than showing it off in its own dedicated cutscene, it’s triggered as soon as you enter a certain area, and you can walk right past it if you’re not paying attention. Without giving too much away, Titus and his squad reunite with a large chunk of the Imperium (the faction that you’re aligned with in-game), which consists of Cadians who, for the most part, are normal humans like you and me. As you walk through their makeshift camp, you see how much the Cadians sacrificed for the war. The cherry on top is the speech that is being given by a commander standing on top of a tank the size of a football field. If that speech doesn’t make you want to run through a brick wall like the Kool-aid man, I don’t know what will.

By the end of Space Marine 2, Titus and the Imperium have shifted their focus to fighting space demons, and things are going poorly, with defeat looking more and more imminent. Mirroring the opening, Titus and his squadmates make one final stand against the forces of cosmic hell. Just like many parts of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, this is pretty cheesy because it follows a lot of typical tropes in video games, such as the last final stand or having the true villain reveal their grandiose plan when they believe victory is all but imminent. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. 

Even though Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 does a great job of showcasing the strength of the human spirit, there are some caveats. One of them is the Imperium itself, a society of xenophobic,  zealot fascists who’ll kill anyone they even suspect of heresy, which can be almost anything that slightly deviates from Imperial doctrine. Space Marines are cool, but we shouldn’t idolize the Imperium. Don’t mistake who you’re playing as for the “good guys.” There are no good guys in Warhammer. But when your only options are devoting yourself to a space devil who wants to eat your soul or siding with an alien species that wants to eat everything in its path, well… the Imperium looks pretty good in comparison.

Making you feel like an absolute killing machine isn’t that hard. Just look at the Call of Duty series, which puts players in the shoes of soldiers who, at times, single-handedly turn the tide of a war. But doing that while invoking a feeling of courage or hope while facing seemingly impossible odds isn’t something that most games do well. Space Marine 2 does. And if there’s one thing I learned from playing it, it’s this: when pledging eternal service to the God Emperor of Mankind, the only thing you should fear is failure.