Warhammer 40,000 has no shortage of fantastic games based on its intense (and famously grim) lore. From visually stunning boomer shooters like Boltgun that call back to the genre’s origins, to strategy series like the Dawn of War trilogy that capture the epic scale of the franchise’s combat, gamers who love this over-the-top brand of sci-fi have their bases covered.
Among this massive pantheon of games, 2011’s Space Marine always felt like the title that never got its flowers for perfectly capturing the spirit of the fiction it’s based on. It wasn’t until its critically acclaimed sequel impressed players last summer that the original started to get some love, and this week, Sega is giving those fans a chance to revisit the gorey third-person shooter with a remaster that’s free on Xbox Game Pass.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Master Crafted Edition is a re-issue of Relic Entertainment’s original shooter that’s been updated for contemporary consoles. The game features modern controls, a new user interface, updated audio and character models, and 4K resolution for top-of-the-line displays. Developer and port experts SneakyBox (Star Trek Resurgence, Lords of the Fallen) are the team behind this new version.
The re-release is especially great for console players, as the 360-era game was never backward compatible with the Xbox One or the Xbox Series X|S. This version will also include the original’s competitive multiplayer mode, and will be cross-platform. Unfortunately for PlayStation 5 owners, however, this remaster is exclusive to Xbox and Windows.
What makes the original Space Marine great is its clever mish-mash of Gears of War-style third-person shooting and classic God of War-style melee combat. At any moment, players can go from firing iconic Warhammer weapons like the Bolter and Melta Gun to wailing on the enemies of Mankind with a Chainsword. The two elements work extremely well together, and are the basis of the 2024 sequel’s refreshing feel.
The game’s story follows Captain Titus, a duty-bound Ultramarine whose unit is dispatched to the Imperial world of Graia during an Ork invasion. While its scope may seem like a step back from the sequel, which had players fighting insurmountable swarms of the Tyranids, I find that fighting smaller groups of enemies leads to a different feel to combat. Instead of playing crowd control by cutting through waves of excitable insectoids, Space Marine is all about managing enemies constantly looking to outsmart and outmaneuver your squad. Both games are great, but employ similar ideas in distinct ways.
Players who loved Boltgun or Space Marine 2 should also note that the Master Crafted Edition is the best way to see how this ongoing story kicks off. In Boltgun, players are cleaning up the tragedy that occurs at the end of the 2011 game. If you’d like to see how Captain Titus became a pariah among the Astartes, this is a chapter well worth seeking out.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Master Crafted Edition is a surprising but welcome addition to Xbox Game Pass. It’s not as welcoming to new Warhammer fans hoping to grasp the complex lore as the 2024 sequel, but if you’re among the players who sang Space Marine 2’s praises for its fun-first approach to gameplay, you owe it to yourself to give this definitive edition of a cult classic a download.
