Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition

Space Marine is a good game, but the “Master Crafted Edition” is little more than a light remaster of the 2011 original. The combat feels satisfyingly weighty, the weapons fill distinct roles, and the story gains welcome momentum around the midpoint. Unfortunately, much of the campaign is visually bland and repetitive, moving between industrial corridors and predictable combat arenas. Important mechanics—including weapon restrictions, enemy vulnerabilities, objective triggers, and the checkpoint system—are often communicated poorly. Shooter veterans should choose Hard. It punishes careless play without becoming particularly difficult or creating major progression walls. The later chapters contain the campaign’s strongest moments, but the remaster does little to improve the dated AI, uneven encounter design, or limited visual variety. Overall, it’s an enjoyable piece of Warhammer action, especially for established fans, but everyone else should wait for a deep discount.

I think this is pretty good all in all. It would have been nice if it were discounted for existing owners of the anniversary edition but I grabbed it for cheap on Loaded. Plays smooth and looks decent. I would say that if you have never played the original before now then this version should be the one to play as it has a more modern take on controls and fidelity. My only real criticism is like what others have said, the sound mixing isn't great and hearing dialogue can be somewhat annoying. Play with a headset and subtitles on should fix things enough.

Losing visuals (can still shoot and navigate the pause menu) 20+ times a chapter really takes the fun out of this game.

There would be no good reason for this game to have mixed reviews, it's exactly what you would expect from a remake... It's literally the exact same game as the OG SM and the Anniversary edition SM.... It's actually good, especially when I went in expecting bugs and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to happen at some point with the crybabies trashing the reviews on it... It ran absolutely flawlessly and I have zero complaints on this game, it's 100% as good as the OG and Anniversary. Only people who wouldn't like this are people who wouldn't have enjoyed the other two and never played either in the first place, or rats that pick apart everything like their opinion has any value. This game is enjoyable and it always will be. All versions. Except the PvP OG, anniversary, Master crafted and SM2's PvP is absolute garbage and there is no fixing it.

I will start out by saying that I experienced zero technical issues. No crashes, the game runs stable at a set framerate. With that said, you are a fool if you buy this at full asking price. The game is worth no more than 10 euros. I played this game for the first time back in 2011, and I thought it was a cool game at the time. I then replayed it in 2019, and I thought it was solid then. Now I think the experience is... okay? It's not necessarily because the game is older mind you, but as I got older myself I just don't like these type of games like I once did. The ranged and melee combat is good. Shooting is bloody, melee is meaty. The story is simple, but it didn't make much sense to me why Titus would be vilified by the inquisition near the end. The graphics has held up decently, but the world design not so much. Every area in the game is a bleak brown-grey industrial zone, I mean it makes sense for a forge world but it does get repetitive despite how short the game is. The only genuinely beautiful scene that remains is the one with the massive bridge you need to cross by train. Things I absolutely hated about the game are the QTE events. It is extremely anticlimatic how even the final boss fight is a QTE event. This is probably the biggest thing that reveals the game's age. I also found it difficult sometimes to ascertain where I needed to go, it doesn't help here that basically every location in the game looks the same because of everything sharing the same color palette. Objective markers only occassionally showed up. Buy this if you want the complete Titus story. As for me? I had a good time, but I will never replay this game again.

It is Space Marine, with somewhat better graphics and pretty much all the flaws of the original. Ultimately, it is great if you love and adore the game, genuinely. I personally always had a strange love-hate relationship with it. My controversial opinion is that, the last time I played the original, two years ago, felt definitively like it would be the last time I would play the game (I have played it about 7 times over the years since release and the first, was in fact, on release) and still enjoy it, and I was entirely right. Deep down, I hate how Space Marine plays. Its mind numbingly dull, its environmentally faithful to the setting but utterly boring, every mission feels like backtracking even when it isn't due to the complete lack of spirit and soul in the setting. Thematically it feels like Dawn of War 1's initial campaign, but with the drastically inferior Ultrasmurfs instead of Blood Ravens, but all on maps that are more or less the first two levels of Firewarrior. What the game does right is the writing and even then, the story takes about 5 hours to become passable and is only truly great and endearing in the final three or so. Even then, this time around, I found myself unable to justify playing it any longer on account that the game is utterly unfun to me, especially compared to how tremendously superior Space Marine 2 is. A lot of my problems with Space Marine comes down to the fact that it actually does have good characters, iconic ones even, especially with the set up and pay off they have in 2, but they are all held back by being Ultrasmurfs. In every way, this game continuing the tradition of 40k games being Blood Raven centric, would have drastically improved it. Ultimately, it is what it is, a byproduct of the beginning of the end of my favourite 40k era. Still, I have so many fond memories of the game. Nowadays we have Darktide, even Hired Gun, as well as the extremely cool Boltgun, etc, to put us into the universe of the 41st millennia. And with Space Marine 2 out and about and doing extremely well, it is really hard to pick this up for anything but nostalgia. But ultimately, nostalgia is the only thing that had me buy it *again* at full price. Is the game bad? Of course not. Is it good? For a 40k game, its an early masterpiece considering how cursed the franchise is with breaking out of the isometric perspective genres of games. But it is certainly, drastically, far more poor in every sense than most other iterations of the setting. The far more approachable and traditional, game format did introduce many to the 40k setting however and ensured that Relic heard our prayers for more games. So really, buying, supporting and playing this game did have tremendous benefit for the hobby and the IP all around. But I assure you, almost none of the people who became 40k fans because of this game are painting Ultrasmurfs right now. It is such a rich and decadent setting and truly, it being Ultrasmurfs and Orkz sells it so terribly bad. The game itself was dated in every regard when it came out and even remastered, it shows its age terribly. A game where rather than being a moving piece of battlefield cover, you still find yourself hiding behind waist high walls or just retreating like a ♥♥♥♥♥ from simple engagements. The game mechanics encourage you to fight the Orkz head on, but punish you severely for doing so. Forcing you to play the game in the worst way possible, like Gears of War but without an actual cover system. So yes, without the 40k setting, characters and sauce, this game would be completely irredeemable. So I must say, yes, it is a good 40k game but an extremely below average game overall. Can I recommend it to hardcore fans or newcomers? Not at all, this remaster is for those of us who played the original with friends for hours upon hours. For those who were so happy to finally get a more accessible game in the mainstream. But really, its a stale bread full of chemistry only us nostalgic fools can tolerate and even then, I could not bring myself to play it more than a handful of sessions. The cutscenes and final third of the plot is good, I highly recommend you simply watch them on youtube and hop straight into the immensely, vastly superior Space Marine 2. I insist on this fact actually, just play Space Marine 2. I actually greatly enjoyed Hired Gun in comparison to Space Marine, remaster or otherwise. I do really enjoy the protagonist and Leandros, however. Some of the Chaos designs are peak too. I think a lot of my disillusionment also comes from the fact that I absolutely, completely and utterly hate Orkz (love the memes tho) and even though my favourite character in this game IS an Ork, my life long loyalty to Craftworld Eldar has meant that I internalized a lot of xenophobia toward the Monkeigh and the Greenskins. 99% of my deaths were to Bomb Squigs, which just further concretes how much I hate Orkz and hearing "WAAAAGHHH" obnoxiously every few minutes made the first two thirds of the game nauseating to play. Space Marine, its a terrible game, but I loved it! Once, long ago. And it may now catch dust and cobwebs on my steam library now, but I will remember its glory and what it did for 40k. And now, we live in a world where we can reap the benefits of the seeds it sowed. Heretical or otherwise.

Codex Astartes approved - For the Emperor!