Beefcake shooter Space Marine 2 really dumps you into Warhammer 40,000 at the deep and spiky end. Not only does it expect you to remember the events of the previous game from 13 years ago, it also expects you to have kept up with everything that's happened to the setting in-between. Primaris marines? Rubric marines? Even for someone who reads the novels like me there's a lot to keep track of. What's the difference between a zoanthrope and a neurothrope again?
If you're coming in at the ground floor, here's a fun way to learn what's going on. Clive Standen, who plays Lieutenant Titus—the protagonist of Space Marine 2—is hosting a three-part video series called Titus Talks that goes right back to the basics. The first episode is up now, and it's a basic-concept introduction to the Warhammer 40,000 universe. "This is not an age of optimistic exploration," Standen says. "This is a new dark age."
Standen's square jaw is accompanied by glimpses of the videogame, some gorgeous miniatures from the tabletop wargame 40K began as, and playful animated segments on a chalkboard. The soldiers of the Imperium are labeled, "Good guys! (But not really) (It's complicated)" and one planet's weather is summed up as "Cloudy with a chance of tyrannocites."
While this is a fine first step one into 40K as a whole, the next episode will begin to get into the details by explaining what exactly a space marine is. Let's hope there's time to explain that they sometimes eat flesh and pray to their guns.
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