Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine adds DLC in surprise 'Anniversary Edition'

Rise, brothers, to venerate Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine as it celebrates its tenth birthday this month. Relic Entertainment and Sega have a surprise for us all too, turning the third-person ork-smasher into an 'Anniversary Edition' which includes all the DLC as well as bonuses like the soundtrack. That's all for free, which is nice.

The Anniversary Edition announcement lists all everything thrown in: basically, a few weapons then a load of stuff for the multiplayer mode, including chapter skins and maps and the opportunity to become a Dreadnought. On the shinies side, you also get the full soundtrack, wallpapers, a ringtone, and other bits and pieces.

Space Marine captured quite how chunky and absurd the holy warriors are, able to shrug off bullets and cut through a dozen mook with a single swing of their chainsword. You really are a big stompy boy whose gun fires micromissiles. It's not an amazing game, but it's a Warhammer experience few others offer.

"Despite growing tired of its relentless sameness," Alec Meer said in our WH40K: Space Marine review back in the day, "I also kind of miss it now I'm not playing it anymore - it's immensely satisfying to hammer and Lascannon your way through a small army then proudly pan an absurdly blood-splattered Titus around the now-empty room it all happened in."

It is. Alec later celebrated Space Marine as one of those wonderful perfectly average 7/10 action games.

Though Space Marine ended with the setup for a sequel, we never saw one. Publishers THQ filed for bankruptcy about a year after launch, and Relic were eventually sold off to Sega. The THQ name was bought by Nordic Games (along with many games), who now weirdly wear THQ's tanned hide like their own as THQ Nordic.

If you don't own Space Marine already, it has a discount on Steam bringing it down to £13.59/€15.29/$20.39 until Thursday the 30th. It appears Sega have bumped the usual price of £20 up to £40 with the release of the Anniversary Edition, so: 1) don't be fooled by that 66% discount; 2) if you want it, don't wait.