Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

A commercial blowout with no suspense to it

Place it in history first. The game detonated at launch: over five million copies sold by late November 2024, and by January 2025 more than six million players had answered the call. Pair that with Metacritic 82 and OpenCritic's 81 Strong tier and it is, without argument, one of 2024's biggest successes. It held a permanent seat in the year's multiplayer conversation, and even losing its category at the awards season did nothing to dent its phenomenon status. None of that was luck. It caught a fanbase that had waited thirteen years and, with catharsis direct enough, pulled in plenty of outsiders too — you do not need to know the lore to grasp, in your first swarm, exactly why this thing is fun. Better still, it refused the live-service capture that swallowed so many of its peers: no aggressive monetisation wall, no progress-blocking grind, just an honest question — would you like to flatten massed enemies with big ranged firepower? — and for a market worn down by chore loops, that directness is its own scarce draw.

Who should buy it, and who should think twice

So who is it for? If what you want is the close-up menace of a heavy-armour frame, the catharsis of ranged-and-melee combat woven together, and a deep reverence for Warhammer's setting honoured on screen, this was built for you — and on that lane it has almost no competition. Flip it around, though, and you need clear eyes: if you are chasing deep builds, a mountain of maps and the kind of grind that holds you for hundreds of hours, the launch thickness will not support that expectation and the progression runs shallow, hitting bottom after a few clears. Mistake it for a long-haul grinder and the gap will sting. It is a clean, ringing haymaker, not a deep well you can drink from for months. The healthiest framing is a brilliant ten-plus-hour campaign plus a live service still growing into itself — so decide whether you want a memorable experience or a long-term home before you commit now or wait for the content to fill out. There is also a quieter third audience worth naming: the lapsed Warhammer fan who fell off the tabletop years ago and just wants to feel, for an evening, like the towering figures on the box art. For that player the campaign alone is the whole purchase justified, and the thin endgame barely registers as a flaw, because they were never going to grind it anyway. Know which of these three people you are, and the buying decision answers itself.

Which version to buy, and whether anything can replace it

On versions, the standard edition already holds the full campaign and the multiplayer suite, which is plenty for almost everyone; the season pass suits only the diehards set on long-term investment who want seasonal content the day it drops. Buy the standard edition first, then judge the roadmap's delivery before deciding whether the pass is worth it — that is the steadier play. Which brings us back to the central question: can it be copied? Not soon. Its hardest card — the Swarm Engine's hundreds-on-screen scale, and the meat-grinder magnitude that flows from it — is something Helldivers 2's top-down co-op simply cannot, by its nature, hand you. Others may build a more intricate co-op shooter, but recreating this up-close, heavy-armour presence inside an action game is something nobody else has yet managed, and the licence that makes it possible is not one a rival can simply pick up off the shelf. That combination — proprietary tech, a beloved setting, and a studio that finally knew what to do with both — is the moat, and moats like that do not get crossed in a single year. On the whole I give it an 8.3: a sequel with obvious gaps that remains, on the lane it chose, very nearly irreplaceable, and a far more confident game than its thirteen-year wait had any right to deliver.