When you’re making a video game that has a campaign, that mode is affected by various factors that the dev team have to decide upon early on to steer it properly. In the case of Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, they knew that they wanted to have it so that players could either play the game on their own, or bring in two other players and do the entire campaign in co-op. That might not sound like a bad thing, and it wasn’t based on reviews and sales of the title, but it did leave the team in a place where they had to “compromise” with the story to keep the co-op working.
In an interview with GamesRadar+, creative director Oliver Hollis-Leick noted that one of the things that held the story back at times from where Saber Interactive wanted to go was that the main marine that players controlled, Commander Titus, had to be with fellow Ultramarines Gadriel and Chairon throughout the story. After all, that’s who the other co-op players would control throughout the campaign should that option be used. If they hadn’t been there, or were allowed to “go out on their own,” the team could’ve done some more interesting things within the story:
“One of the levels where we tried to do that, is where Chairon goes rogue on his own and gets separated from the rest of the squad. And that, that was us really trying to stretch that. So it felt like they were divided for a time, but, yeah, the closest we could get is for Gadriel and Titus to almost kill each other in a cinematic, and then, and then we’ve got to go back into battle again as a three man team. So yeah, the co-op thing makes that tough.”
Space Marine 2 game director Dmitriy Grigorenko added to that by jokingly stating:
“I remember arguing with [Hollis-Leick] a lot, saying that there’s not enough time for our characters to talk about the plot, to argue with each other, because there’s stuff exploding in the background. Nobody’s going to listen to that – we have to be short!”
It is curious to think about what the game would be like if the co-op element wasn’t included. However, the game hasn’t suffered because of it, which is important. It’s sold over 2 million units since launch, and many have praised the old-school of just having a direct and brutal storyline and gameplay feel. If anything, this is something they can keep in mind for the next title.
