After a first opus released more than ten years ago, the Warhammer 40k: Space Marines license is back with ever more testosterone and enemies of the Empire.We had the opportunity to play for an hour on the game;hang up your seatbelt, it will bleed.
Lieutenant Titus reporting
We are back at the controls of the protagonist of the first opus, Titus, who is back to do battle with the Tyranid vermin.We land on a jungle planet (Kadaku) totally devastated and in full conflict with the aforementioned threat.Accompanied by our two brothers Gabriel and Chairon, we make our way through the battlefield while exploding everything in our path.
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The game has clearly decided to borrow codes whether from Starship Troopers, Gears of Wars or even World War Z.We are faced with real waves of monsters that go so far as to pile up against walls in order to reach the top.Real hordes made up of a fairly classic bestiary in itself.The game has chosen to divide its adventure into a rest phase chained by fight phases.It’s nice, but somewhat redundant and not necessarily the most rhythmic.A somewhat linear structure while the environments depicted are very beautiful and appear vast.In my opinion, it would be better if the game was not too long, because such a structure can quickly become boring.
The rendering of the Ultramarines is rather well done, we see the heaviness, but also the power of our character who connects executions (allowing in particular to recover his life shield) worthy of the fatalities of mortal kombat.We have a set of weapons at our disposal, but the difference sometimes leaves something to be desired in terms of feeling.It sometimes seems that only the rate of fire is really different.It is also possible to activate a power that strengthens you and allows you to make Tyranid sashimi much more efficiently.It should be noted that the melee is well rendered, but also lacks diversity, we chain the same three blows constantly and we against the enemies to execute them more quickly.
At level technique, there is not to say, the game is sumptuous and quite detailed in its genre.However, this has a price and it is at the technical level that we feel the problems.On the preview version, the game struggles to maintain a constant 30 fps (5800X3D – 6950XT) and we even have drops to 10 fps during certain hordes of monsters, which makes the whole thing rather unplayable.We hope that this is mainly related to the fact that we had in our hands a version under development and that the final title will be better optimized.
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 is supposed to be released at the end of 2023, but no date has yet been made public by Focus Entertainmentthe current publisher of the game. We are therefore not immune to a possible postponement for the beginning of 2024, which would undoubtedly allow us to bring polish in the game, especially in terms of technique.Apart from that, we already feel that the game will be entertaining in terms of gameplaybut we hope that its history will not be too manichean as it can sometimes be the case in the W40k license.
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This preview was made by Glaystal via a key provided by the publisher.