Games Workshop and developer Saber Interactive have kept studiously silent about whether we’ll get a Space Marine 2 PVP multiplayer mode when the game launches in September – but I have faith that the Emperor will provide. While we’re waiting, let’s review three features I think would make SM2’s PVP as awesome as possible (and how likely, or otherwise, they are).
For the record, the final Space Marine 2 release date isn’t until September 9, and there’s still an awful lot of details we don’t know. We’ve already analyzed all the available info on the (confirmed) Space Marine 2 coop multiplayer, as well as all the Space Marine 2 weapons and Space Marine 2 enemies we know are included.
But an essential ingredient – and one of the longest lived, most popular parts of the first game – still eludes us: what will the player-versus-player gameplay look like? Much angst and salt has been spilled online over PVP multiplayer remaining unconfirmed for SM2.
But, for my money, it was never realistically in doubt; it has to happen. To omit it would be an affront to imperial decency and to the Emperor of Mankind himself.
The real question, for me, was always what it would include when it emerged, and how it would build on and evolve the original Space Marine’s PVP – which blew our minds back in the forgotten, halcyon days of, er, 2011. Rumors and purported leaks abound, of course, but one never bets the farm on such things – and anyway, imagination can be fun.
So let’s spit-ball for a while – here are a few features I’d personally love to see in SM2’s competitive multiplayer, listed from ‘likely’ to ‘almost certainly not’.
For the avoidance of doubt: I am not considering playable 40k Dreadnoughts, drivable vehicles, or playable Xenos characters here. I don’t want to set myself up for too much heartbreak.
Multiple flavors of Primaris marines, including gravis and jump packs (likely)
When this game comes out, it’ll have been over seven years since Warhammer 40k 8th Edition introduced the harder, better, faster, stronger Primaris breed of Space Marines to GW’s sci-fi setting – so there was never any doubt these upgraded Astartes would take the lead in a sequel.
It follows that we’ll be playing as Primaris marines in the PVP multiplayer – but which kinds of Primaris marines? The 40k miniature wargame now has a host of Primaris troops, boasting specialised loadouts and different sets of Space Marine armor.
The regular, balanced Tacticus plate used by most units is a given – our protagonist, the noble Ultramarine Titus, wears it, for a start. And trailers of the single player campaign have already shown off marines in the lightweight scouting Phobos pattern armor, so it’s not fanciful to imagine we can play as Phobos marines too – perhaps with better speed, agility, and melee playability than the vanilla Tacticus marines.
Might we also get playable PVP classes wearing the heavy, Gravis pattern armor – trading manueverability for toughness? In terms of offering a variety of playstyles and strategies, it seems eminently possible to me. Allowing PVP players to pick the light, medium, and heavy armor sets, with their attendant pros and cons, makes a lot of sense – and offers a ready-made structure to balance out the weapon options, too.
See, on the tabletop, Phobos-armored marines get access to a pistol-and-knife combo, SMGs, and specialised high-tech boltguns; Tacticus marines mostly carry medium-range, medium-power guns like bolt rifles, plasma incinerators, and pyreblaster flamethrowers; and the chonky Gravis units get the big toys: heavy bolters, twin melee power fists with automatic bolters or flamers attached, and radiation-powered multi-meltas meant for taking down Warhammer 40k tanks.
Locking these weapon types to the armor classes they best suit seems extremely logical to me, and provides some useful, narrative-friendly structure to keep PVP games balanced.
As for jump packs, these were a strong bet anyway, since they were in the original Space Marine’s multiplayer, and removing them would start a riot. Plus, since the new Primaris assault marines were shown in a Space Marine 2 trailer before GW even revealed the models, not adding them to the game’s PVP would be unconscionable. No, we’ll certainly be able to jet into fights on wings of fire in multiplayer. The only questions here are about balancing out that ability against others – we’d presume jumps will be limited range and on a hefty cooldown.
Helldivers 2 style Stratagem abilities (somewhat likely)
Warhammer 40k – and especially the Space Marines – are replete with high-tech wargear, support weaponry, and assorted strategic doodads. A big part of their overall schtick is that they – unlike the poorly equipped foot-slogging soldiers of the Astra Militarum – have the very best death-dealing doodahs the Emperor can offer them.
The Stratagems in Helldivers 2 – powerful support abilities on a cooldown, which call in gun turrets, air strikes, and whatnot – are thus perfectly suited to a 40k shooter.
Even that name was artfully borrowed from 40k – Warhammer 40k stratagems were activatable in-game support abilities on the tabletop, long before Helldivers was even a twinkle in Arrowhead’s eye.
I don’t think it’s completely wild to imagine a similar system in Space Marine 2, allowing you to select specific stratagems for your loadout pre-game, and call them in at opportune moments.
Some popular H2 stratagems – like orbital strikes – should be omitted on lore grounds, since the 40k equivalent would wipe out a minimum of one large city per shot.
But ammo-limited special weapons outside your core class options? Deployable Firestrike Servo-Turrets? Auspex sweeps in the manner of Call of Duty UAVs? Single-use teleport shunts to a random point on the enemy side of the map? Yes, please.
Playable hero characters, Star Wars Battlefront style (almost certainly not)
Space Marines are the Imperium’s larger-than-life, elite, transhuman heroes – but even an all-hero army has, like, super heroes. And playing as an even more overpowered mega-badass than everyone else in the lobby – even for a minute or less – has an undeniable appeal.
It’s been done before, of course – in Star Wars Battlefront (the second original game, and both of the Dice/EA remakes). In those games, if you rack up enough points from kills and objective captures in a multiplayer match, you can spawn in as one of a range of heroes, from specialist troopers with better weapons, right up to Darth goddamn Vader.
At its best, this mechanic is glorious nerdy wish fulfilment; the ultimate power fantasy, allowing you – for a brief time – to absolutely flatten every player in your path, just as your chosen hero would in, er, ‘real life’. At its worst (or, for some players, all the time) it can obliterate any sense of continuity, fair competition, and narrative immersion. I see both sides of that argument – and I think it’d be a feature best confined to specific game modes, which you can choose to avoid.
But there’s no denying the 40k setting is jam packed with fantastic elite characters, above the power level of a regular Space Marine, that it’d be ace to play as in a multiplayer brawl.
At the bottom end of the spectrum, you’ve got veteran, specialist astartes ‘officers’ like the psyker Librarians, able to fry enemies with warp lightning; the solemn, mace-wielding Chaplains, who pulp enemies in melee and buff allies by chanting prayers; and half-mechanical Techmarines, specially trained by the Adeptus Mechanicus not just to repair friendly armor and machinery, but to sabotage enemy tech too. It’s not hard to imagine any of them fitting in as temporary, up-powered spawns in a marine-on-marine PVP match.
On the completely bonkers top end of the scale (yes, I’m going there, deal with it) are the Warhammer 40k primarchs. Ultra-powerful demigods created by the Emperor as the original genetic blueprints for all the Space Marines, these dudes are 12-foot-tall mega-marines capable of wiping out multiple Astartes warriors with a swipe of a sword.
At the time Space Marine 2 is set, most are dead or lost – but two are definitely alive on the Imperial side – Roboute Guilliman and Lion El Jonson – and a handful are still at large fighting for 40k Chaos factions: primarily Mortarion of the Death Guard; big red Angron of the World Eaters; and Magnus of the Thousand Sons.
All are prominent players in the current lore; all have recognizable and, frankly, epic looks that would be amazing to see in this game; and all would have to be so absurdly powerful as to entirely upend the balance of any match as long as they remain alive. Saber would have to work very hard to ensure they were mighty enough to be realistic, but beatable enough not to entirely ruin even a ‘heroes allowed’ game experience.
Look, I said it was almost certainly not going to happen – and maybe it’s best that way. But I still say it’d be awesome.
With the clock ticking down and fan speculation mounting, it can’t be too long until we get concrete details about Space Marine 2’s PVP multiplayer options. While we wait, you can bookmark our Space Marine 2 news and Warhammer 40k news pages, or follow Wargamer on Google News to get all our good stuff on the daily.
For a wider view, check out our guide to the best Warhammer 40k games of all time – or take a look back at our August 2023 Space Marine 2 preview for our detailed thoughts on the first playable build of the game.
Source: Wargamer
