Reading Games Writing: Why Do We Even Want to Be Space Marines? by Dia Lacina
less posting and more conversation
Due to tone being easily lost in text I want to firstly state that: This is not a rebuttal, this is not a petty disagreement, this is not a “I know better.” This is an attempt, as I have written before, to create less posting and more conversation. Also as before, I picked this specific writing due to both agreeing and disagreeing with the argument and how it was made.
The piece in question is Why Do We Even Want to Be Space Marines? by Dia Lacina for Paste. My two main thrusts of thought reading this piece on Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (hereafter: Space Marine(s) refers to the duology of games, space marine(s) refers to the class of individual within the fiction) were:
The admission of ignorance to the greater fictional world of 40k as well as the only contrasting of Space Marine 2 being only against the Space Hulk game excludes the many other adaptations that exist in video game form for the fiction and to the detriment of the overall argument.
I agree that Space Marine 2 is pretty boring in how it approaches presenting the space marines. It has been a longstanding criticism of the tabletop game and all of its extended ancillary works that Games Workshop loves the space marines, specifically the Ultramarines, way too much and neglect some of the more fringe and interesting factions as a result. This is a sin that is repeated by Saber Interactive in their followup to Relic’s cult classic.
When we look at those square-jawed men with their tactical crewcuts and buxom eyebrow ridges, what is the idea we are wanting to inhabit? This is the line of questioning I keep close at hand when I begin playing Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Do we really just want to be giant, fascist, gun-toting Winkelvosses in tank-like bodysuits, screaming into the vacuum of space about “the Xenos Menace,” a prayer candle of Nigel Farage burning at a makeshift altar in our sanctified dropship? Surely that can’t be it, can it?
I don’t see why it can’t simply be that, especially because the wordage chosen, specifically imagining the Winkelvosses in power armor, is evocative and appealing to the imaginary battles of my childhood action figures. This mashing of action figures is a criticism lobbed at the greater MCU, which I disdain, but given that 40k lacks the market dominance of that franchise, the masculine power fantasy fueling it is not as repugnant as the latest Captain America. Space Marine 2 is the much more expensive looking, and therefore “bigger” game to come from 40k in a few years, but last year we also had Boltgun a “boomer shooter” also starring an Ultramarine with a heavily modulated Raul Kholi that bellowed taunts on the command of the player pushing a button. Existing as a modern “boomer shooter,” Boltgun bore no responsibility to deliver anything but action, whereas the ambition behind Space Marine 2 is greater and partially where I can see this question coming into existence.
My time with Space Hulk then was one of the inefficiency of youth set up against a game that demanded strategic and situational sense I’d yet to develop fully, directional sense I still haven’t got a hang of, all while multitasking a squad of Space Marines in two separate game layers in real-time.
The only non Space Marine comparison being Space Hulk causes the comparison to become one of nostalgia rather than a sharp contrast. My memory of a childhood game that was imposing compared to the bland reality of our current time.
In previous editions of the 41st Millennium, they were humanity’s righteous bulwark against the vast, horrifying darkness of space. Now, in the Era Indomitus, with the return of the arisen ubermensch, Primarch Roboute Guilliman, they are its scourge.
I think this usage of scourge is supposed to be metaphorical as in the space marine’s relationship in the greater fiction as representative of it is how they are now its scourge but it is a bit confusing and reads as if they are the scourge in-fiction.
Like the indomitable Astartes Power Armor, many of these organs are designed to identify, seal out, and neutralize outside harm, blights, and contaminants in all forms. This is an enduring metaphor for these hermetically sealed, holy warriors. Anything that could corrupt the Emperor of Mankind’s perfect mass-market marauders simply must be kept out.
I really like this metaphor, I think it’s very relevant.
the more modern era of 40K has skewed toward the raw power fantasy of the Space Marine…
In the modern era, beginning with Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, the franchise has leaned heavily into the unassailable solitary hero as default.
I don’t think this is actually true. The two most recent games: Space Marine 2 and Boltgun, are solitary hero shooters, but then you also have Rogue Trader a CRPG from Owlcat Games that released last December, Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters, Tacticus, Shootas, Blood and Teef, Darktide, Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus, Lost Crusade, Necromunda: Hired Gun & Gang Skirmish, Battlesector, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth, Necromunda: Underhive Wars, Dakka Squadron, Aeronautica Imperialis: Flight Command, and Battle Sister since 2020 which do not revolve around solitary heroes and sometimes don’t even feature space marines as playable characters. And this is only in the video game licensing field, there are also the books and of course the tabletop game which has never focused on an, “unassailable solitary hero as default,” but on massive armies.
Nothing terrifies the Adeptus Astartes but Chaos.
‘Terrifies’ seems like a strong word for their reactions. Wary is more accurate to my reading. One of your squadmates' reaction to Chaos in Space Marine 2 is not terror but berserker rage.
the balance for the Space Marines shifted to a pure war against Chaos.
Given that the Great Crusade warped into the Horus Heresy and led to the current state of the galaxy is because of Chaos does sorta make them the Big Bad for the fiction. I’ve been reading the Horus Heresy series in step with more “contemporary,” aka 40th millennium as opposed to 30th, literature, which gives a large top-down perspective on how its history has unfolded and where the focus is. Each individual will have their tastes and I will admit, I find myself drawn to the Chaos faction figurines more than most of the others when scrolling through wh40k.lexicanum.com. The first Space Marine released in 2010 and featured Orks as the main opponent, matching the Fifth Edition box set which was the latest at that time. Now with Space Marine 2 Orks have been swapped out for Tyranids, matching the 10th edition box set that released last summer.
This is the overriding stance of Space Marine and its sequel.
This is very true, but I see the reimplementation of them in the sequel more as an inheritance of the original work than an inheritance from the larger fiction.
By the start of Space Marine 2, Titus is cleared of heresy (obviously), and even in a scripted death to an endless swarm of Tyranids there is no obvious threat. Thanks to the terrifying operation to create new and more IP-able super marines known as Primaris Astartes, his narrative death is only temporary, and no one will dwell on it. Especially Titus. There can never be real danger to our Space Marine, not even his own thoughts. .
I very much agree with this. I think there was an opportunity to differentiate the player’s control and Titus’ capabilities as a “regular” space marine compared to his resurrection as a Primaris but they actually are not differentiated at all. Primaris are somehow even more badass space marines but that is not shown, only told to us.
who could argue with shooting make-believe demons?
This question summons memories of the infamous EDGE magazine Doom review “lf only you could talk to these creatures…”
Space Marine 2 feels ashamed or scared of asking questions, of making players feel uncomfortable, of engaging with the possibilities that Space Marines open up.
I’m in the last section of Space Marine 2 and I can say I agree with this. The game never really pushes for anything than loyal servitude to a simple action game. Some celebrate this as a return to the simpler days of the Xbox 360 generation, when the first Space Marine was released. This is mostly because Space Marine 2 does not have a battle pass or expectations of being another Forever Game, despite its cooperative and competitive modes of play. There is a bit of emptiness, again something I view as an inheritance from the first game which was also quite bare though not as visually rich as I find Space Marine 2, especially with its hive world maps. You can find audio logs but they are few and most wandering in different hallways from the one that will progress you forward in the mission just give you a different weapon that you’ll see several more times throughout your playtime. I’m wary of wanting to homogenize third person action games and recommending design corrections, but there just seems to be something missing here. A feeling similar to when I played through rain and found that New Game+ mode placed little collectible fragments throughout the same levels I had nosed around in pursuit of something I knew existed but couldn’t access until after a playthrough. I find 40k a really rich setting, its various factions, the scale of it, how you can have a story take place on a minute level and on a galaxy ending level and it all fits within the larger fictional world created. I believe literally any story could be told within this setting. Earlier this year I read the novel Dead Men Walking by Steve Lyons, featuring zero space marines and evoking an overwhelming sense of loss on both a personal and planetary scale. Space Marine 2 evokes nothing but a sense of emptiness, of an impressively large scale but nothing filling it but instances of combat and minimal characterization from its squad.
it’s a dead end future of dopamine releasing button presses.