Space Marine 2’s unyieldingly dull power fantasy has me begging for an Imperial Guard survival horror game

“When the plebeian kneels to the monarch, he is offering his neck,” writes Gene Wolfe in The Sword Of The Lictor. I read that this morning over coffee. Thanks Gene! I was literally just thinking about bowing - and more specifically, thinking about just how many stories that centre the monarch would be made more interesting from the perspective of those forced to bow.

When James, Edwin and myself played the preview level of Space Marine 2 together, I remarked on how the Imperial Guard worked as a good reference point for just how massive the space marines themselves are. Having played around three hours of the full game now - and having it found it wear very thin in about half that time - I’m realising that putting the player on the other side of that power imbalance would have made for a far more interesting game.