Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2's competitive PvP mode makes the Imperium's towering super-soldiers feel like they're made of paper

During the pre-launch review period for Space Marine 2, it wasn't possible for me to try its PvP mode, Eternal War—the servers were online, but there simply weren't enough players at that stage to fill a lobby. Now that the game's available to the general public, that's no longer an issue, so while I have mixed feelings about the overall game, I decided it was time to jump back in and try some marine-on-marine violence.

As I was playing the campaign and co-op modes originally, I struggled to imagine how that combat system, built for fighting hordes of simple enemies and revolving around dramatic kill animations, could translate into a satisfying competitive mode. Unfortunately, I think the answer is that it doesn't. Not only is Eternal War the weakest of the game's three modes, the frustrating thing about it is that it actively discards the strengths that Space Marine 2 does have.

Like the rest of the game, it's a bit of a throwback—it feels most reminiscent of that period in the 2010s where every singleplayer game had a very basic, bolted-on multiplayer mode to try and convince people not to sell on their disc. There's some nostalgia in that for sure. In the era of bloated live service, there's something refreshing about such a simple experience—three very basic mission types (point capture, slightly different point capture, team deathmatch), a handful of maps, and a lot of shooting.

But those maps are drab, boxy arenas, a far cry from the visually spectacular and lush areas you battle through in the campaign and Operations. And where the rest of Space Marine 2 revels in being accurate to the lore, Eternal War seems to hardly care. There's no set-up for its battles between space marines and their traitor counterparts—I know these guys have been at odds for 10,000 years, but it'd be nice to get some stakes for what's happening here and now.

The chaos space marines feel like they've been twisted to fit the PvP framework. Mechnically they're identical to the loyalist Primaris marines, which results in them using equipment and tactics that don't fit these veterans of the Long War at all, or give them any chance to showcase their unique approach to combat.

The odd decision was also made to make every class a different Legion (distinctive regardless of what colour scheme you pick). It makes them a hodgepodge force, but also emphasises the dissonance. Why is my World Eater berserker wielding a boltgun and grappling hook instead of swinging a chainaxe around and going into blood-fueled rages? Why does my Death Guard plague marine hide behind a crackling shield?

That's all nitpicking, for sure, but these are exactly the kind of nerdy details that Space Marine 2 otherwise nails. The way Eternal War glosses over them, combined with the lack of content available, makes this feel like a throwaway addition.

Powder armour

But the biggest issue is that in Eternal War, the space marines just don't feel like space marines. In the campaign and Operations, you feel the heft and power of your character—I think the combat has its flaws, but the thing it does get right is that pure power fantasy of being a towering super-soldier. The PvP throws that away.

Durability is dialled way down for the sake of COD-style quick kills, making power armour feel paper thin. Combine that with the enormous hitboxes and abundance of rapid-fire weaponry and you get marines dropping like flies.

Executions are removed entirely. That absolutely makes sense in an environment where your foes are not going to stand around waiting for their turn to be ripped to shreds. But it means that survival requires hiding behind corners waiting for your health and armour to automatically regenerate, rather than pushing forward and revelling in the heat of combat.

Indeed, you don't really want to be getting up close at all. Melee attacks, so impactful and vital in PvE, feel near-useless here—even if you can survive the hail of gunfire to get up close with an enemy, and avoid getting surrounded by their friends in the process, their point-blank bolter fire will still kill you faster than you can chip them down with your chainsword.

That's a bit of a problem when you've got two entirely melee-focused classes, thanks to the six roles being exactly the same as they are in Operations. It's very difficult to balance abilities across both PvE and PvP, and that's evident here—the Assault's jump pack leap and dive attack, so fun to pull off against swarms of tyranids, just makes them a sitting (floating?) duck in PvP, while the Sniper's ability to go fully invisible and headshot from across the map, a fairly niche set of tools in co-op, feels frustratingly strong when it's being used against other players.

Meanwhile, the strongest tool of all is just a simple bolt gun. My experience has been that there are almost no enemy strategies that can't be foiled by just consistently dumping bullets into them at midrange while they attempt whatever much cooler manoeuvre they're hoping to pull off. The matches I've had where other players realise that too have been a dull glimpse at the mode's future: hulking demigods popping in and out of cover to take tentative potshots at each other.

What you end up with is a very dry and unbalanced PvP shooter that feels about a decade out of step, its primary distinguishing feature just being that your character takes up half your view. Space Marine 2's campaign and Operations are flawed, but with lots of elements I did like—spectacle, authenticity to the lore, and a fitting power fantasy. Eternal War seems to throw it all in the bin, and at a time when it's more difficult than ever to maintain an online playerbase, I have to wonder if people will stick with this mode long enough to even see out its planned four seasons of updates. I don't think its presence diminishes the overall package—just don't expect it to be the thing to keep you coming back to Space Marine 2 for months or years to come.