The Six Missions in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

I swear, if I hear one more commenter say “this game is a spiritual successor to the original Space Marine,” I’ll ask them, “What planet are you living on?” Warhammer 40K is a universe built on relentless grit, grimdark absurdity, and enough testosterone to fuel a dozen black holes. The original Space Marine at least felt like it understood the basics: big chainswords, massive enemies, bloody carnage that makes your retinas bleed—in a cool way, not like you just walked into a McDonald’s fryer by mistake. Now, Space Marine 2 launches, brimming with swagger and that Over-The-Top aesthetic, only to stumble around in the same six missions that feel like déjà vu, slammed into a track by committee. Let me tell you why.

Here’s my breakdown mission by mission: we’ll cover the plot beats, the gameplay highs and lows, and the vibes. Buckle up—there are a few longship-caliber detours in here.

Mission 1: “Fury’s Orbit”

You drop onto a burning Forge World, gunmetal sky swirling with ash and fire—exactly the kind of dramatic opening you expect. Forge fires spitting out more molten metal than a medieval foundry on crack, fortifications barely holding, Emperor knows how many riot-shielded cultists swarming the landing pads. Starting strong, right?

Well. Yes and no. Yes, because for the first five minutes, I was like, “Okay, this is Warhammer. This feels like cleaving my way through literal forge-metal and heretic corpses.” The textures sat there, gleaming, practically daring you to stare at them. NPCs—angry, screaming, full of zealotry, hack-and-slash fodder—felt right.

But then it drags its feet. That early momentum peters out with reused “kill waves” through corridors that look suspiciously like they use the same grate patterns and corridor lighting that appear in missions two and four. I counted: at least three corridor segments felt cloned. Maybe they thought nobody would notice. I sure did.

Then Eres the Sergeant’s exposition kicks in—clichéd, on the nose, boiled-down “we must hold the line” spiel. Could they not have given him something less rote? A joke? A sip of 40K–brand watery ale? No. Straight line of duty. I get the trope, but I want some damned personality. Just one “By the Emperor, those servo-skulls got auto-tuned or something?” footnote would’ve helped.

Still, mission one earns partial credit for spectacle: the planetary vistas, the sound design, chainsword vox-crackles. It just makes me wonder what else could’ve been in there instead of corridor rinse-repeat.

Mission 2: “Strato-Hell”

You’re air-dropped—or drop-dropped?—into a swirling cloud layer, flying machinery jammed to the gills with plasma fire and flak exploding in your face. Finally, we’re airborne. Vision-obscuring steam, flashes of lightning. You could’ve just been playing AC Valhalla, doing fly-spectacles over Norway, except with way more skulls.

The opening is impressive, but then it becomes... segment-based. You’re lugging over Zephon, the new master of dramatic one-liners—“They will feel the Emperor’s wrath” kinda stuff—but immediately I’m like, “How many voices can I hear in this engine?” Voice lines overlap, echo, and somehow the same shriek plays through all three vox channels? Maybe the devs just dumped the same scream on loop; I don’t know, but it’s jarring.

Gameplay-wise, even players who buy cheap PS4 games should admit it, this one’s stronger. Forced flight sections are rare in Space Marine, but here they lean into it—and in a good way. You get to carve through enemies mid-air with insane gunplay. Yet, it’s short. And of course, at the end, you hop into another corridor that’s been reused three times already. Is corridor capitalism a thing in this game? Have we hit maximum reuse?

So yes, Strato-Hell punches you in the face at first—and then makes you watch repeated patterns for ten minutes. It’s like drinking a potent whiskey then realizing the rest of your glass is just Prilosec.

Mission 3: “The Engulfing Forge”

Back to ground, so much for aerial venting. You’re in the heart of the forge—rivers of molten metal, massive machinery belching steam, humming power conduits. Suddenly, I find myself staring at the same forge-floor layout that was in Mission 1. What are the odds? Either they took a creative shortcut or their recycled assets outnumber my patience.

Plot’s still phoning it in: we meet Tech-Heretic Marinara (that’s 40K for “some random Tech-Priest”). He says, “The power grid is failing, we must reactivate the crucible,” and somehow I’m supposed to get hyped. I’m thinking, “Crucible? Are we melting unapproved lore in there?” Nothing about the lore—Tech-Priests being part flesh, part machine, part questionable codpiece—is capitalized on. It’s sterile. I wanted Cawl-level weirdness, not “please swap this manual disk in the port.” Insert disk, corridor, fight, repeat.

Combat’s decent. Melt-bots, flame-rollers, servo-dogs running around—it’s a variety of enemies. But the environment? Same grate patterns, same furnace backdrops. Even the songs on the longship—I mean, soundtrack segments—repeat. I swear I nodded to one cue, thinking, “Wait, haven’t I heard this already?”

If your mission three was on sale at the reuse store, sorry, but I passed.

Mission 4: “The Trenches of Astoroth”

Finally, something with grit. You slide into muddy trenches, rat-infested, tangled barbed wire; the sky’s orange from ash, distant explosions booming. Real battlefield feel. This is one of the few that captures the “grimdark “spirit I signed up for.

The mission opens with one of the rare bits of world-building: a vox-log of a commissar going mad, screaming about the lighting never changing, the enemies never stopping.

But yes, we hit the corridor again. Trench corridor. It’s not identical to Mission 1’s corridors, but come on. Couldn’t think of another layout—maybe some elevated catwalks, some packed bodies, more verticality? Instead, it’s flat mud, fences, and the same debris props reused. There are maybe two sprite modifications. I counted.

Enemies have some tactical flavors: infiltrators pop into your back pocket, mortar teams lob shells that force you to move. That’s commendable. But there’s also the half-hearted surprise of “Hey! Are you near the wall? Surprise flamer!” which I appreciate, but at this point is almost a meme.

Tone-wise, this is where sarcasm seeps back in. You’re knee-deep in what might as well be Skyrim mud, and I think, “Maybe they meant to recreate WWI but forgot to add grief?” The mission is solid, but feels like a DLC placeholder rather than fresh content.

Mission 5: “Cathedral of Blood”

Now we’re talking. A gothic cathedral, stained-glass halos glowing ominously, gargoyles, broken pews, bones everywhere. The best environmental storytelling in the campaign. You almost expect a choir to start chanting “Dies Irae.” The echoing halls and shifting light—finally something designed with care.

The narrative team finally pulls their heads above the recycle bin and gives some pause to those who buy PS5 shooter games. In those halls, you stroll past shrines to unknown heroes, remnants of slain chaplains, inscriptions in High Gothic that you could read—if they weren’t so dark and window-shadowed. And you could care, because they hint at past tragedies, past battles, all of it drenched in lore. They put effort in. Kudos.

Alas, again with the corridors. Granted, hallways here feel grander, more ornate, more distinct—but say it with me: same linear layout. Just ICONIC corridors in church robes. I navigated five separate corridors that all link to the same boss arena. Literally remixed chunks of ornamentation.

Boss fight is well-designed tho. You fight this massive daemon endowed with red-glowy eyes and a set of chainswords the size of small buses. The fight’s phases are layered, forcing cover use, forcing hot-swap between bolter and blades. I smiled. I cheered. Finally, something feels earned, rather than corridor rinse-repeat.

Mission 6: “The Final Spire”

Ah, the grand finale—standing atop a spire in orbit, the world crumbling below you, warp-tainted energies ripping reality. You feel like you’re in a cosmic acid bath. The graphics engine flexed here: the warp fringes, the stars going red-shift, the environment warping around you.

But the gameplay... It’s like they deep-fried Michael Bay in energy swords and called it “cinematic.” Enemies teleport, chunks of the floor vanish, the camera even tilts—trying too hard. Honestly, I thought, “Are we in Assassin’s Creed now? On a spaceship doing blade dives?” The aesthetic was overcooked, almost in party mode.

And yes, corridor reuse strikes again—spooled into space-spires lined with the same metallic grates and energy conduits you saw back in Mission 1’s forge corridors, like a mad lib of asset duplication.

Narrative? You hear your sergeant screaming about a breach, then you scream back, “Tell me your plans, man! What motif am I supposed to care about? You’re just yelling!” And it fades to credits.

You finish the six missions and ask yourself: Did I really go through six unique experiences, or was I just shuffled along in six shades of corridor purgatory?

Final Thoughts: Six Missions, Six Shades of Déjà Vu

Let me be blunt: Space Marine 2 is trying. I can see the ambition: high-output combat, big environments, cinematic bombast. There are sparks of genius—Cathedral of Blood’s boss fight, the trenches’ atmosphere, and the aerial dogfights in mission two. Those moments actually hit.

But the glue that holds them is stale waffle mix. Corridor reuse isn’t just overuse—it becomes the default. By mission four, I was half-expecting the same grate texture to blink, go “gotcha again.” The scripting is serviceable, but dialogue reeks of “replace text later.” Characters are all function, zero flavor. I mean, we went through six missions, and the only NPC who might linger is the daemon boss, and that’s because he has flames.

From the perspective of someone who loves lore, devours every codex entry, and could give you a breakdown of Viking longship songs in AC Valhalla (and yes, I could go all the way to twenty-three just about tunes), I expect more world-building, more unique locations, more eccentrics. Where’s my Tech-Priest who sings to his fusion-gun? Why didn’t that cathedral have a severed angel statue singing about the Emperor? And don’t get me started on character motivations—why is Sergeant Eres shouting generic lines when I want him to deliver a line like, “Trevor, you spark-flank-charging muppet, watch your bolter!”

Yes, I’m disappointed. But here’s the thing: I still care. I want them to lean into the lore. To commit to weirdness. To replace corridor capitalism with corridor creativity. Make each mission’s layout, tone, and NPCs distinct. Inject unexpected 40K humor, the kind that makes me question whether the universe is gaslighting me with skull-smiles.

Space Marine 2 has a backbone of meat and metal that could be awesome. But the overly safe design, the repeated level chunks, the rote lines—all of that drags it down. Still, I finished it. I kept playing. Maybe next time, they’ll remember that gritty soul in the sparks and chain-noise, and build something as distinct as a longship song that actually changes with each port.

Let me know when they patch in mission seven: “The Emperor’s Macramé Workshop.” I’m simultaneously looking forward to and dreading it.