For a few moments, my two teammates and I stood in awe at the edge of a building, watching a horde of Tyranids lay siege to a fortress. Hundreds of monsters poured across a long bridge, past the burning wreckage of destroyed Astra Militarum tanks. Red laser beams from positioned snipers flashed at waves of Termagants, useless in numbers.
While this sounds like some kind of epic Endgame movie, it is not – it is just one of the many epic scenes shot during one of the Operation missions in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II. On the surface, these additional three-player PvE missions might feel like “extra” content to indulge in outside of the main campaign – but what you’ll actually find here is a series of compelling standalone challenges, class selection, and an impressive progression system that makes Operations mode feel like an entirely different game tucked into the campaign we’ve come to expect.
The team at Xbox Wire are huge Warhammer 40,000 fans, and what better way to test our mettle as a trio than to throw ourselves into one of these missions?
Operation missions let you play as your own Space Marine, choosing from six classes: Tactical, Assault, Vanguard, Bulwark, Sniper, and Heavy, each offering unique loadouts, perks, and an ultimate ability. The Vanguard, for example, has the Grapnel Launcher ability that lets you zoom through the air towards an enemy and kick them, which feels as cool as it sounds every time. My teammates chose the Sniper and Heavy classes – the former’s ultimate ability is an invisibility cloak that allows for powerful shots from a distance, while the Heavy provides a powerful barrier that can protect the team from ranged damage.
Before you begin an Operation, the Battle Barge serves as your base to prepare for the mission ahead. The Armoury offers an extensive range of customisation options for your Space Marines. Here you can customise your loadout for each class and up to three weapon slots within it, including a main weapon, a sidearm and a melee option. Completing Operations will earn you XP which you can use to unlock cooler weapons, add perks to suit your playstyle and access new skills that will help you in the more difficult battles to come.
Another wonderful detail is that even in an area that is basically just a place to look through menus, the attention to detail in the design is incredible. The authenticity of the models, the idle animations of the NPCs – units wandering around, repairing equipment, a Skiitari unit silently blessing a pair of giant missiles in a corner. Everything feels built with attention and care to create a believable and immersive Warhammer 40,000 setting.
You can also unlock and create new cosmetic designs for each of your Marines in each class. Fans of the series can unlock and choose from several canonical Space Marine chapters – but the customization goes much deeper. Every single section of armor can be customized to your heart’s content, so if your real-life Space Marine army is painted purple like mine, you have all the tools to (re)create your dream units.
Organising your loadout is key, as once you start an Operation you’ll find that these missions are a real challenge even on the easiest difficulty setting. The Tyranid swarms are frankly relentless, so you’ll have a much easier time on the battlefield if you use classes and loadouts that complement each other. As you’d expect, there are plenty of different enemy types to consider – you’ll blitz through soft enemies with ease, but some of the bigger enemies require a harder beating and can give other classes a run for their money.
Stomping through the mission as a burly Marine is an extremely satisfying feeling, and the available weapons – from standard bolt guns to numerous close combat options – provide all the brutality you expect from Space Marine II. However, the gallery of finisher animations is what really sets the combat apart, offering intense, gory, and simply breathtaking views of your Marine decapitating a horrific creature and brutally beating it to a pulp with its own severed claw, among other endings that are almost too gruesome to describe.
The operations themselves are much more varied than you’d expect – each has multiple objectives. At one point, my team is ordered to hold their ground against waves of savage enemies before a Hive Tyrant appears. Instead of gunning it down, we’re ordered to do something unexpected – lay a booby trap and watch in awe as a giant stone statue topples and crushes it. Once again, an epic spectacle that you’d expect as some sort of climax, but in Space Marine IIThis explosive scene is simply the benchmark for spectacle.
The statue tactic is only part of the solution – the creature survives, and the mission culminates in a boss battle against the tyrant. The fight feels grueling in the best possible way, sprinting and dodging waves of relentless attacks while desperately chipping away at your health bar in a multi-stage battle. Space Marine II does everything possible to make you feel like a tough guy, but you’re not invincible – those big bosses will take a lot out of you.
The enormous effort that has been put into Operations is a miracle – one might expect it to be a completely different game or DLC expansion, but instead we are blessed by the Machine God with a second strand to Space Marine II that feels as alive as its bombastic campaign. And we haven’t even played the PvP multiplayer yet…
Assemble your squad and prepare to fight the Horde in Space Marine IIwill be released on September 9th for Xbox Series X|S.
