This week I’m chatting with the lads about Space Marine 2 now we’ve all had some proper time with it (and yes, we keep it as spoiler-free as humanly possible… mostly). We’re all at different stages: one of us has finished the campaign, I’m partway through, and the household has basically turned into a rotation of campaign, PvP, and PvE depending on who’s awake and how violent it’s allowed to be. We get into what the game nails as a Warhammer experience—scale, atmosphere, that “brother” energy, and the fact it doesn’t stop to over-explain the universe for newcomers (which I actually think is a strength). Then we flip it and judge it as “just a video game.” The core combat loop is fun, but I do think it can get repetitive: lots of “get to this lift, press the button, fight the swarm,” and not enough big gameplay shifts to keep escalating the way something like Gears does. We also talk about weapons we’re enjoying (plasma is great, and I’m weirdly into the precision single-shot stuff), the little PvE discoveries like smashing crates for ammo, and the awkward reality of class-locking in co-op when everyone wants to level the same kit. On top of that, we have a proper hobby-side moan about Kill Team reboxing and the new tokens, plus the bigger question: if Space Marine 2 brings new people in, what’s the actual pathway into the tabletop hobby from there?