It was only a couple of months ago that I played through the original Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine, so with that in mind it made sense to take on the new Master Crafted edition, having the freshest memories of the old game to contrast with the enhanced remaster.
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine tells the story of Captain Titus and his Battle Brothers Sidonus and Leandros as they fight to push back the Ork invasion of the Forge World Graia. It’s a third person shooter that, especially with the sequel launching last year, has become something of a cult classic, though definitely feels like a game from its era.
The Master Crafted Edition, then, is an attempt to modernise the game, bringing updated controls, 4K resolution, improved textures and character models, remastered audio, and additional lines for the Orks to shout at you. You definitely notice the better resolution and the improved textures, especially on enemy models. There was a specific enemy in the original that appeared to lack detail in the facial area, but in this newer version you get much more detail making them a bit more intimidating to look at. The level environments also look more detailed, though there is only so much you can do when a lot of the game is set in corridors with the colour palette of a muddy puddle in an abandoned warehouse. However, as the enemy models stand out more, the game looks decent across the whole campaign.
The modernised controls also attempt to make the game more accessible for today’s audience, but there are some issues. First the weapon selection is not as intuitive as it could be, with the weapon wheel being a bit stiff. Post-patch there is a minor improvement in that the wheel doesn’t just stay on the screen, but there are still some minor delays that can impact the flow of the Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine Master Crafted Edition. In addition, there was an odd decision to originally map the grenade throwing to the right stick. The issue here that to activate the fury meter you have to press the left stick and right stick, which led to grenades being thrown instead of the fury mode being activated which was very frustrating in some areas. Again, an update came out that seems to have addressed this but for the majority of my own playtime this was a regular issue.
There are some minor bugs and issues that also cropped up, including enemies getting caught on the terrain and running in place, and a couple of times where enemies did not react to my presence even when shooting at them. This only happened a couple of times, but it breaks any immersion as you watch a soldier just run against a bit of debris.
If you have played the original release you will be thankful to know that the gameplay remains intact, with the feeling of heavy hitting through out especially when using the hammer and jetpack. Combat can be intense especially when facing the rushing waves of enemies that will quickly swarm you, but the Master Crafted Edition felt a bit easier than the original version, though this could be down to knowing what to expect in each area having recently played through the campaign. All in all, it’s a fun six or seven hours to spend in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, revisiting this game to compare to the newer Space Marine 2.
There is also support for the game’s multiplayer modes, with the original modes including 8v8 play, though this wasn’t an area that we could test prior to release.