WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, from developer Saber Interactive, is about as raw and direct as video games come. Orcs with cockney accents invade a planet known as a Forge World. As Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, you descend upon this world to massacre their hordes and root out the infestation. In this universe, orcs are vermin—and you are the exterminator. Titus refuses to wear a helmet, presumably so we can admire his heroic face, which is, ironically, about as expressive as a stormtrooper mask.
The emotions, then, are left to the player. This is a visceral experience not unlike Doom, sharing its dour palette of browns and greys: a burning world of colossal concrete structures reduced to rubble. You charge through it in hulking blue power armor, smearing green orc flesh into red gore. Only when the sky shifts into toxic yellows, reds, or purples do you glimpse anything resembling natural beauty.
What separates Space Marine from Doom is its third-person perspective and the limited mobility of its protagonist. Titus is a tank above all else, absorbing gunfire like a moth to a flame. You can dodge-roll to escape immediate danger, or charge headlong into enemy hordes and tear them apart with your chainsword. When your shields fail, your thick armor still absorbs punishment. And when your health finally runs low, you restore it by executing stunned enemies. This mechanic was later lifted wholesale by Doom (2016), where it was rebranded as the “Glory Kill.”
The game sticks rigidly to what it does best. Its gameplay loop—relentless slaughter—never grows stale thanks to a steady stream of new weapons, enemy types, story beats, and arena constraints. By the end, you will have killed thousands. At times, fellow Ultramarines join the fight, turning encounters into full-scale battles. Certain sections grant you a jetpack, allowing you to launch skyward and crash back down with devastating force.
The enemies come in varying sizes and threat levels. Some must be stunned and executed in melee, but most are cannon fodder, arriving in endless waves through tunnels, floor grates, or from platforms above. The absence of traditional healing initially gave me pause—until I realized lone orcs had been strategically placed as makeshift medkits, ripe for restorative executions.
Clear visual cues ensure you never miss important pickups. Ammo crates flash blue. Red lights mark codex skulls containing recorded messages from the time of the invasion. Massive containers hold new weapons—shotguns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles. Choosing the right loadout for each situation is essential; otherwise, the difficulty spikes sharply.
I did run into issues with the controls. Too many actions are spread across the keyboard to make mouse-and-keyboard play comfortable. I eventually switched to a controller, which felt more natural overall—but made precise aiming miserable. Whenever sniping was required, I reluctantly switched back. Never before have I been forced to alternate control schemes within the same game like this.
The campaign spans 17 chapters of varying scope and difficulty, punctuated by excellent boss fights or boss-adjacent encounters. Some scenarios task you with destroying enemy cannons—or activating your own—to support allied troops. Another has you boarding a ship and manning its guns in a brief rail-shooting segment. Every sequence feels well-motivated by the narrative, and the difficulty curve is handled with care.
The story itself is little more than a clothesline pulling you from set piece to set piece, and it’s largely skippable. The extreme linearity ensures constant forward momentum, while friendly NPCs spout copious amounts of military jargon I could have done without. A major plot twist didn’t exactly catch me by surprise, but it was an effective turn that introduced a new enemy faction. The ending, meanwhile, left me fuming—for all the right reasons.
The entire package is unapologetically masculine: self-sacrifice as virtue, brotherhood above all, and blunt, no-nonsense dialogue. You can practically smell the sweat inside the armor and the fuel burning in the chainsword clenched in your hands. For the Ultramarines, combat is religion, and their scripture is the Codex—a sacred manual of battlefield conduct. Decades ago, this kind of high-octane power fantasy was everywhere, especially in the 1980s, and I eventually grew tired of it. Now I realize how long it’s been since games like this were in vogue. They deserve preservation.
Before playing Space Marine, I had little interest in the notoriously unsexy Warhammer 40K universe. This game changed that. I’ve since picked up more material and am ready to explore it further. The setting spans genres I already enjoy—or want to. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader awaits somewhere down the line. But first comes Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2—whose glowing reception is what led me here in the first place.
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