Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Master Crafted Edition was one of the biggest surprises coming out of the Warhammer showcase in May. Following the success of last year’s Space Marine 2, the original Xbox 360-era nostalgia trap shooter would be playable on modern hardware with graphics upscaled to 4K. Unfortunately, the PC port has been a low-key disaster, and Sega is now offering refunds to everyone who bought it.
Around 100 “mostly negative” reviews on Steam warn players against buying the latest remaster, citing bugs, ugly UI changes, and ongoing matchmaking issues. A common sentiment is that players should just stick to the existing Anniversary Edition released in 2021. “I was very excited for the idea of this being updated but honestly? I prefer the older version,” wrote one Steam player.” It feels better and looks better. Why couldn’t this just be an update or something? And for the price tag it just feels very meh. And this is one of my all time favorite games too. Just gonna install the older version and play through that.”
Sega is now addressing that exact criticism by dropping the price to $20 for anyone who already owns the Anniversary Edition and letting fans who already purchased it on PC get a refund through July 10. It also detailed a series of upcoming patches to address the various issues, including “major improvements to chat input, scoreboard layout, and HUD elements,” and “Fixed softlocks, graphical glitches, and input issues in various screens.” Based on some players’ assessment of the Master Crafted Edition in general, however, it still might not be worth picking up.
The Anniversary Edition is currently 75 percent off, letting us get an already solid version of the old-school FPS for just $10. The Master Crafted Edition was more of a bone for console players anyway, since the Anniversary Edition never came to Xbox or PlayStation, and the original version of Space Marine wasn’t supported by backwards compatibility. Even there, however, Xbox Series X/S players (the game’s free with Game Pass Ultimate) have been complaining about a major bug that’s eating their save files.
“Played earlier today. Shut down the game like I always do, and turned back on today only to get greeted by missing save for campaign,” wrote one player on Reddit a couple of weeks ago. “Happened to me too,” responded another. “I am done with this version of the game for now. I couldn’t play online at all and today I just saw my save is gone.” Refunds aren’t available for that platform though, and the issue doesn’t appear to have been patched out yet.
The Master Crafted Edition isn’t available on PS5 yet, possibly due to the Game Pass deal with Xbox. Hopefully, all of these issues get ironed out before it arrives. In the meantime, Space Marine 2's new horde mode isn’t a bad substitute.
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