Space Marine 2 tips and tricks for beginners

Taking on the Tyranids and making the Imperium is hard work. As a swarm careens towards Titus it often feels like the odds are stacked against you and Space Marine 2 conceals some unexpected complexity behind its cast of gruff Ultramarines and world-saving bravado. Dropping into the 40K universe comes with a tough learning curve, so here’s some hard-learned tips and tricks to get you started on the right foot.

Avoid Operations or Eternal Ward until you’ve finish the Campaign

You’ll get warned about this, but we figured we’d warn you here, too. The Eternal War PvE and Operations PvP modes contain story nuggets that heavily reference and spoil the events that transpire in the Campaign. To avoid spoiling the thrill of experiencing it all first hand, we highly recommend completing through the story before jumping into the optional modes what happens in the main storyline.

Explore levels

Though Space Marine 2’s campaign missions stick to a stringent linear format, they are rich with little nooks and secrets that are well worth seeking out. They often lead to hidden pathways and, more interestingly, loot like ammo and grenades, health-regenerating Medicae Stimms, collectibles, and even the odd lore tidbit. All useful stuff, especially on higher difficulty settings. It’s also one of the best way to come across alternative weapons, useful if you standard issue pistol isn’t quite cutting through the hordes like you want.

Managing supplies is key

One of the distinctive aspects of Space Marine 2 is that even on normal difficulty, the Tyranid and Chaos forces pose a real threat; the game isn’t anything but a walk in the park. This is exacerbated significantly when you up the difficulty. Our best advice is to use your resources wisely and really think before swapping to different weapons, using a Stimm, or chucking an ordinance.

Similarly, ammo is scarce, to the point that you’ll often be scrambling to find the next ammo drop. And, even when you do, the mags up for grabs are pitifully small. If you’re using weapons with low-ammo capacities, you’ll quickly run out and be left with only you melee weapon to deal with the squirming hordes. This ties into our tip above: explore and keep exploring to try and stay on top of your stock of grandes, ammo, and Stimms.

Abilities and builds

Once you’ve graduated beyond the Campaign and dipped your toes into the Operations PvP and Eternal War PvE modes, you’ll have access to classes. These all offer a unique playstyle, focused around a defining ability, similar to Titus’ Righteous Fury ability in the Campaign. These abilities reflect the preferred playstyle, build, and utility of each class. It’s recommended that you build your marine around your chosen class’ ability.

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For example, Titus’ Righteous Fury ability is all about regenerating health in melee combat and dealing increased damage for a short period. Accordingly, you’ll want to double down on upgrading your favourite melee weapon.

Learn melee weapon combos

Every melee weapon in Space Marine 2 has its own set of combos. Hitting pause (Esc on PC) will show you all the combos available for you to use with your currently equipped melee weapon. For example, the Combat Nnife is a fast-paced slicer so has longer combo chains and even a lunging attack. Meanwhile, the Chainsword is slower but packs more of a punch, making it suitable for large swarm control thanks to shoves, cleaves, and AoE foot stomps. We recommend experimenting with different melee weapons and their movesets to get a feel for what works best and what suits your playstyle.

Clear swarms before fighting elites

As delightful as they are to experience on screen, swarms are a menace. This only intensifies when elite enemies show up. Fighting an elite while also dealing with a swarm is a surefire way to lose your armor and health rapidly, leading to, you guessed it, an early game over screen. We strongly advise dealing with the swarm first before focusing on an elite. The grenade launcher bolter or regular grenades are excellent at chewing through and displacing hordes. Meltas, similarly, are ideal for annihilating swarms and doing big damage to elite enemies moving with the pack.

Plan your weapons carefully

While you might find that running a Melta and Plasma Pistol is a very strong combo, you’ll notice you have almost no ammo. Run double mid-range bolters and you’ll lack close-range firepower. All this to say that it’s important to fine-tune you weapon loadouts for versatility. We recommend experimenting with all weapon types and combos during your Campaign playthrough to get a better feel for managing different scenarios.