Watch the Trailer now!

The new Obelisk Update is out now, which means the very much awaited Dark Angels Chapter Pack is now yours! It comes with:

• Dark Angels cosmetics for your weapons: the Auto Bolt Rifle, the Plasma Pistol and the Power Sword
  
• The Dark Angels Champion
  
• A unique armour set and banner for the Bulwark Class. The Bulwark class will also get a unique Dark Angels Storm Shield.

The Dark Angels Chapter Pack includes the heraldry items of the Second Foundings and Successor Chapters of the Dark Angels:

• the Angels of Absolution
  
• the Angels of Redemption
  
• the Angels of Vengeance
  
• the Unnamed
  
• the Blades of Vengeance
  
• the Cowled Wardens
  
• the Bringers of Judgement
  
• the Angels of Defiance.

New armour pieces will also be added, including a fan-favourite helmet: the Mark VIII Ravenwing! All these items will be available to unlock as part of an heraldry cosmetic.

Last addition to the customisation menu, the colour lenses are finally here! Choose among 15 different colours to customise your Space Marine even more!

For this Operation, you’ll be sent to Demerium to rotate a replica of the obelisk to disrupt the flow of energy protecting the Aurora device. This operation takes place in parallel to the final events of the campaign.

To reach the console control of the obelisk, you’ll have to make it through a tomb plunged into darkness. To make your progression even tougher, the Chaos forces see a new addition to their roster: the Tzaangor Enlightened, a new Majoris enemy! They will now appear in every PvE Operation with Chaos.

Finally, on tech side, 5.0 update will bring Frame generation support with the integration of DLSS 3 and FSR 3.1.
To read the full patch note of the update, please check it here.

For more details read our FAQ[community.focus-entmt.com].

We're endlessly grateful for the Space Marine 2 community. You have been expressing your desires and hopes towards the game since the very beginning, which is a blessing to us. Thank you, again, for the love and support you're sending towards both the game and the teams. We cannot wait to continue this journey in 2025 with even more content! 😉

The Focus and Saber Teams

The 5.0 update is now live, bringing the long-awaited Dark Angels Chapter Pack, the new “Obelisk” Operation, a new Majoris enemy, new customisation options, and various gameplay and balancing tweaks.

Read the full patch notes down below for further details.

In this new Operation, you’ll be sent to Demerium and your mission is to rotate a replica of the obelisk to disrupt the flow of energy protecting the Aurora device. This operation takes place in parallel to the final events of the campaign.

To reach the console control of the obelisk, you’ll have to make it through a tomb plunged into darkness.


A new Majoris enemy can spawn in all Operations featuring the Thousand Sons.

Note from our Game Director: “The Tzaangor Enlightened is a disk-flying, melee/ranged-hybrid unit. They are fearsome opponents, especially when met in greater numbers. However, catching them after parry or during a long animation makes them an easy target.

We strongly advise you to use Target Lock to face this enemy!”


Added: Dark Angels Successor Chapters cosmetics

Added: Dark Angels Champion skin (Bulwark)

Added: Dark Angels–themed weapon skins for:

• Auto Bolt Rifle
  
• Plasma Pistol
  
• Power Sword
  
• Bulwark’s Storm Shield

Note from our Game Director: “The melee system has been our main focus recently. The issue that we saw is that, on higher difficulties, the melee combat relied too heavily on the “Parry -> Gun Strike” flow. This also made Fencing Melee Weapons a universal choice for almost all situations, and we want to give players more options. To try and achieve that, we’ve made the following changes.

First, normal Melee Damage has increased across the board, so there will be more options instead of just Parry -> Gun Strike.

Second, we are drastically changing how Blocking Weapons work. In short, by blocking enemy attacks, the player will accumulate up to 3 stacks of Melee Damage buffs. Attacking while having those stacks of buffs will spend them and will result in massive AoE Damage discharge.

With these changes, Fencing Weapons will still be great versus limited numbers of enemies, Balanced Weapons will be good versus big crowds, and Blocking Weapons will become ‘damage dealer’ type weapons.”

All Block Weapons have been reworked with a new mechanic: Perfect Block and Adrenaline Surge
Perfectly timed blocks grant up to 3 Adrenaline Surge stacks. Adrenaline Surge stacks greatly increase Melee Damage and are consumed after the next melee attack.

Attacking with 3 stacks of Adrenaline Surge deals massive AoE Damage, staggers enemies, and restores 1 Armour Segment.

Fencing Weapons:

• Perfect Parry AoE stagger radius slightly reduced.

Balanced Weapons:

• Perfect Parry AoE stagger radius greatly increased.
  
• Master-crafted versions: Damage increased by 10%.
  
• Artificer versions: Damage increased by 10%.
  
• Relic versions: Damage increased by 10%.

Blocking Weapons:

• Master-crafted versions: Damage increased by 20%.
  
• Artificer versions: Damage increased by 20%.
  
• Relic versions: Damage increased by 20%.

Unarmed/Firearm Melee:

• Stomps can now be chained indefinitely.

Note from our Game Director: “We are quite happy with recent updates to firearms. Pretty much all firearms are viable on the hardest difficulties now, and our win rate/pick rate data shows drastic improvements.

Still, there are a few weapons that are better than the others, and minor tweaks will be coming with Patch 6.

Further into the future, with Patch 7, we are planning to focus on reworking Weapons Perks. Weapons Perks are underwhelming compared to Class Perks right now, and the issues with some weapons are actually a result of them having a bad Perk tree rather than their basic stats.

The other big outstanding problem that we have is the Grenade Launcher. There are quite a few bugs/misconfigurations that make it the way it is.

1. Due to a bug, a certain Perk restores its full Ammo when it shouldn’t.
   
2. Due to a misconfiguration on our side, its Artificer and Relic versions deal 4x more damage than the Master-crafted version, which was not intended.
   
3. Due to a bug, Perks that increase Auspex Scan damage stack buffs inconsistently. Normally all damage stacks buffs additively, thus providing consistent and predictable results. This bug results in crazy damage numbers with Auspex Scan Perks depending on the order they were activated. This is why bosses get erased by Grenade Launchers with certain builds.

If we approach this directly and fix all 3 bugs, it will make the Grenade Launcher useless and will hurt the entire Tactical class. We will be very careful with how we address this issue. We do want to keep the fun element of destroying entire waves of enemies with the Grenade Launcher. At the same time, no other weapon can match a Grenade Launcher with potentially unlimited Ammo.

Because of these complications, we want to take the time to carefully analyse and make the best decision possible about the Grenade Launcher, so we’re not modifying it in this patch.”

Volkite Damage sensitivity has been increased from 1 to 1.5 for these enemies:

• Devourer Tyranid Warrior
  
• Barbed Strangler Tyranid Warrior
  
• Venom Cannon Tyranid Warrior
  
• Rubric Marine
  
• Flamer Rubric Marine
  
• Zoanthrope

Note from our Game Director: “This change simply increases the amount of XP players are getting in Operations mode if they are zealously exterminating enemy waves. This aims to:

1. incentivise players to not skip encounters, without punishing those who want to skip, and
   
2. makes the game less grindy in preparation for new features coming down the line (e.g., Prestige Ranks).”

Added a new feature that increases the amount of XP players gain based on % of enemies killed during an Operation:

• Rank A: killing more than 85% spawned enemies grants +120% XP pre-patch value.
  
• Rank B: killing more than 60% spawned enemies grants +110% XP pre-patch value.
  
• Rank C: killing less than 60% spawned enemies grants +100% XP pre-patch value.

*The rank is common to the party, everyone gets the same.

• Dodge invulnerability logic is now client sided, meaning that Dodges will be responsive and more accurate with higher ping.
  
• Players are now invulnerable to new instances of damage while in Knockback animation.
  
• Added 10 frames of invulnerability at the start of Jump Pack launch animation (Campaign and Operations only).
  
• Dodge and Parry sound notification clarity has been greatly improved.
  
• Heavy’s Barrier can be activated in more player states (e.g., during stagger animation).
  
• Player controls are slightly more responsive after using Vanguard’s Grapnel Launcher.
  
• Added spawn protection in PvP.
  
• Added Neo-Volkite Pistol in PvP.

Zoanthrope:

• Shielded Zoanthrope will now attack much less frequently.

Enemy Spawn Director:

• You will no longer fight Extremis-level enemies on your first encounter right after the start of a Mission.
  
• Lots of minor animation fixes for various enemies.

Added: Lenses colour customisation.

• Fixed shading of Balthasar Gold and Ushabti Bone colours.

• Fixed a number of small bugs with certain armour pieces not applying colours correctly.

Made adjustments to scripting to make this level shorter and more in line with the duration of other levels:

• The second sequence with the Dreadnought (Repel the Assault) is randomised now and may not happen.
  
• The fusion battery needs to be charged only once in the final sequence.

Large amounts of small fixes in level geometry collision and Terminus enemies getting stuck in some areas.

Note from our Game Director: “In this patch, we are only fixing bugs with existing Perks, but trust me, we are seeing the issues with them. A lot of the Class Perks are not as good as we wanted them to be, and some Perk tree choices are really more efficient than others. With Patch 6, we are planning to massively rework a bunch of lacking Perks to make more builds viable.”

• Getting kicked out of a session will still grant kicked player XP rewards based on checkpoint completion.
  
• Exiting the Turret Charging Wheel in the “Termination” Operation is now quicker.
  
• Improved a few enemies counting for Purge Them All Achievement.
  
• Fixed a bug where Combat Knife charged attacks would occasionally Heavy Hit every time without charging.
  
• Fixed a bug where Heavy’s Primary Weapon was not shooting after joining in progress.
  
• Fixed a bug where party leader could get stuck on a loading screen in rare cases.
  
• Fixed Hierophant’s damage sensitivity to certain weapons (it can still be damaged by normal weapons, but the damage is reduced).
  
• Fixed a bug where Heldrake was not taking any damage from shots in rare cases.
  
• Fixed a bug where Heldrake could be knocked off its pedestal by shots from an under-barrel Grenade Launcher.
  
• Fixed a bug where Imurah would not take any damage from shots in the final mission in rare cases.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where players were shown a long black screen instead of death screen in PvP.
  
• Fixed a bug where players could not see each other's customisation in rare cases.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Neo-Volkite Pistol would deal damage further than its actual visual FX.
  
• Fixed a bug where enemies were able to pierce Block stance with double attack.
  
• Fixed a bug with Bulwark’s Armour of Contempt Perk not triggering correctly and dealing friendly fire.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Neo-Volkite Pistol would sometimes trigger a chain of explosions and cause performance issues.
  
• Fixed a rare bug with Vanguard’s Zone of Impact Perk not triggering correctly.
  
• Fixed Perks that grant player immunity to Heavy Hits and Knockback during charging melee attacks not working with charged attacks unlocked via Weapons Perks.
  
• Combat Knife charged attack buffs from other Perks (e.g., Sniper's Shadow Stab) are now correctly applied on both damage instances.
  
• Large number of minor fixes in Perks, how they stack, and how they trigger in rare cases.
  
• Minor UI fixes and improvements.
  
• Localisation fixes.

Added: FSR 3 / DLSS 3: Support of "Frame Generation" component for DLSS and FSR. For more details about FSR and DLSS, check our FAQ[community.focus-entmt.com].

• Crash fixes and general stability improvements.
  
• General connectivity improvements.
  
• Slightly improved performance.
  
• Slightly improved texture streaming speed.
  
• Improved Anti-Cheat.

Mod Support

Please note that starting from 5.0 update, mods will no longer be supported in public lobbies. You can find the complete explanation here.


“That’s it for the 5.0 update! We hope you’ll like the new Operation and you’ll have fun customising your Marines with the new items available!

Let us know your thoughts on the new gameplay tweaks we made, especially on the revamped melee mechanics. As we previously said, your feedback is invaluable to us as it helps us pinpoint what you really want and would like to see in the future.

Enjoy this update, and have happy winter holidays!

The Emperor protects.”

—Dmitriy Grigorenko, Game Director

The end of the year is approaching, to celebrate this wonderful year that has brought so much joy to us and to the players, we have a few surprises for you! ⭐


On November 12 we released Patch 4.5. This update was important as it brought a brand new weapon: The Neo-Volkite Pistol, as well as loads of balancing tweaks on several weapons (Plasma Incinerator / Bolt Sniper Rifle / Occulus Bolt Carbine / Bolt Carbine (SMG) / Auto Bolt Rifle).

To read the entire patch note, click here[community.focus-entmt.com].

How cool is it? 😎
Note that the Neo-Volkite Pistol will be available in PvP starting from the 5.0 update.

As for every month, we keep reading your feedback closely, and reviewing the ideas submitted onto Focus Together[community.focus-entmt.com]! There’s more and more each week, which gives us plenty of ideas to work with! We want to thank you for that. We keep reviewing them but it takes time!

To see the answers devs have already provided, check it here[community.focus-entmt.com].


5 million Space Marines have joined our ranks to purge Xenos & Chaos! 🎉

Huge thanks to everyone who's joined the fight. It’s been incredible to see the community grow (and to keep seeing it grow)! Here’s to many more battles ahead. ⚔️


As you may have seen, the story of Titus continues in Amazon Prime Video’s Secret Level series!

A new trailer dropped to tease the upcoming episode.

The series will start on December 10. One episode will be fully dedicated to Warhammer 40,000. Stay tuned, it’s gonna be epic! 💥


The 5.0 update will be released in the first half of December! This update contains the very much awaited Dark Angels Chapter Pack, alongside another Operation: Obelisk.

The Dark Angels Chapter Pack features the Dark Angels Champion, which is a unique armour set and banner for the Bulwark Class.

Please note that this set can’t be customised

Three weapons will also receive exclusive visuals based on the Dark Angels Chapter: the Auto Bolt Rifle, the Plasma Pistol and the Power Sword. The Bulwark class will also get a unique Dark Angels Storm Shield.

The Dark Angels Chapter Pack includes the heraldry items of the Second Foundings and Successor Chapters of the Dark Angels: the Angels of Absolution, the Angels of Redemption, the Angels of Vengeance, the Unnamed, the Blades of Vengeance, the Cowled Wardens, the Bringers of Judgement and the Angels of Defiance.

New armour pieces will also be added, including a fan-favourite helmet: the Mark VIII Ravenwing! All these items will be available to unlock as part of an heraldry cosmetic.

Last addition to the customisation menu, the colour lenses are finally here! Choose among 15 different colours to customise your Space Marine even more!

This update does not only bring new customisation, a new Operation will also be added! Called “Obelisk”, you’ll be sent to Demerium and your mission is to rotate a replica of the obelisk to disrupt the flow of energy protecting the Aurora device. This operation takes place in parallel to the final events of the campaign.

To reach the console control of the obelisk, you’ll have to make it through a tomb plunged into darkness. To make your progression even tougher, the Chaos forces see a new addition to their roster: the Tzaangor Enlightened, a new Majoris enemy! They will now appear in every PvE Operation with Chaos.

Finally, on tech side, 5.0 update will bring Frame generation support with the integration of DLSS 3 and FSR 3.1.


Space Marine 2 has been nominated in 2 categories at The Game Awards!

You can show your support and vote for us as Best Multiplayer Game[www.thegameawards.com] and Best Action Game[www.thegameawards.com]!

Also, we're so glad to announce that Space Marine 2 has been nominated for the Steam Awards in the "Game Of The Year" category! ⚔️You can vote here.


Huge congrats to @MendesWithAnS[x.com] for winning the Space Marine 2 fan art contest! Your work left us in awe! It really captures the essence of the Warhammer universe. This win is well-deserved, Brother! 🫡


In case you missed it, our Game Director expressed himself on the mod support on Space Marine 2. You’ll find the complete message here[community.focus-entmt.com]. In short, starting from the next update, mods will no longer be available in public PvE sessions, but will remain the private ones.


That’s it for this month! Thanks again for sticking with us. See you again in December! ⚔️

The Emperor protects.

The Focus and Saber teams

The time has come to make your voice heard! Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is contending for “Game of the Year” at the Steam Awards, and we need your support to claim this honor.

We believe Space Marine 2 shows our dedication to the Warhammer 40k universe, it’s also a testament to the essence of gaming: epic stories, exhilarating combat, and unforgettable moments with your friends.

If you felt the thunder of a bolter, the weight of a chainsword, and the call of the Emperor, show your devotion by nominating us for Game of the Year. Together, we march to victory!

- The Space Marine 2 Team

We’ve seen incredible community engagement since launch, and we’ve noticed that some players have started to create and share mods for Space Marine 2. We wanted to make a game that was moddable from the start (this is why our game pack files are not encrypted, for example). It's always a pleasure for me, as a developer, to see what our community can create. Mods are great, and they will no doubt contribute to this game's longevity.

However, we as developers must also ensure game stability and continuously work towards a smoother experience for all players. Our data shows that a non-negligible amount of recent server stability issues are related to mods, and that instability impacts even those users who don’t have mods installed. We have also received user reports that their save files were corrupted after playing alongside players with mods.

This is why, starting with our next big update in December, mods will be prohibited from public online sessions. That means that you will no longer be able to enter a public game if you have mods installed.

However, we know that mods are a source of fun and creativity, and they will still be allowed in private Operations lobbies. We will continue to provide all necessary server infrastructure so you can play online with your friends with mods. Once we add custom Eternal War lobbies, mods will work for them as well.

We will also be providing an easy entry point to our backend for games with mods installed, so modders won’t have to spend time hacking the game executable after each patch. If we somehow break this pipeline for mods by accident in the future, we’ll fix it. In addition to that, we will be releasing some of our tools to modders so they can develop mods with greater ease.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

The Emperor protects.

—Dmitriy Grigorenko, Game Director

You have until December 12 to vote for us at: https://www.thegameawards.com/nominees


FOR THE EMPEROR ⚔️

The 4.5 update for Space Marine 2 is now live! In addition to bringing a new Secondary Weapon to all players, Patch 4.5 provides buffs to a handful of Primary Weapons and addresses a number of bugs and connection issues.

Read the patch notes below for the complete details:



The Neo-Volkite Pistol, a powerful thermal ray weapon, is now available for the Assault, Vanguard, and Bulwark classes!

Unlike other weapons, the Neo-Volkite Pistol blasts a heat ray onto your enemies, dealing accumulative thermal damage. Focusing on one enemy will ramp up the damage—until it generates a localised explosion for huge damage to your target and all nearby enemies.

Please note that the Neo-Volkite Pistol will only be available in Operations mode for now as we continue to experiment with balancing in PvP. It will be added to Eternal War mode in our next major update alongside a new Operations map, a new enemy, and the Dark Angels cosmetics. Until then though, you’ll be able to try it out against your friends in the Battle Barge’s Sparring Arena!

👉 Slightly reduced amount of heat generated by normal and charged shots for versions:

• Master-Crafted - Alpha
  
• Salvation of Bakka - Alpha
  
• Gathalamor Crusade - Alpha

👉 Fixed a bug that would cause several versions not producing heat at all.
👉 Fire rate increased from 50 to 60 rounds per minute.
👉 Headshot bonus increased from x2 to x2.5.
👉 Scope added
👉 Headshot bonus increased from x1 to x1.33
👉 Adjusted damage falloff curve: Base damage increased by 50% for the first 10 meters, after that, the damage drops to the original pre-patch value.
👉 Max ammo increased by 1 magazine for each version.

• Fixed a bug causing unlocked DLC cosmetic items to get locked again after a restart
  
• Fixed a bug causing the Sniper perk "Targeted Shot" to not work after swapping weapons.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the Sniper invisibility not getting removed after a shot in rare cases.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing players from muting the others in PvP.
  
• Fixed several perks not triggering correctly from enemy kills.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented certain weapon perks from triggering correctly when reaching a specific HP threshold.

• Crash fixes and general stability improvements.
  
• Fixed server disconnects with unstable user connection.
  
• General connectivity improvements.

This month we released new content: the new Termination map and the new Lethal difficulty. We’ve loved seeing you provide feedback and challenge yourself with the new difficulty. We also took into account the constructive criticism and have implemented some balancing features and tweaks into the game. We truly hope you’re enjoying the game.


Let’s start this off with great news: we are now over 4 and a half million Space Marines defending the Imperium!

Seeing the community grow so wide, so fast, makes us incredibly proud. We’re working hard to provide new content for you, listening closely to your feedback, and we cannot wait for you to discover what’s next for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2!

So, thank you, four and a half million times 💙


As for every single release, we closely read the feedback from the players. Therefore, we’ve seen that the new content did not meet everyone’s expectations and that the adjustments disappointed many of you.

To make amends and fix the issues that Patch 4.0 brought, we released a hotfix (4.1), which you may find right here[community.focus-entmt.com]. It brings gameplay and balancing tweaks on weapons, difficulty, AI and much more. Make sure you read the patch note! ⚙️


Another update is coming soon with a brand new weapon: The Neo-Volkite Pistol!

The Neo-Volkite Pistol is a thermal weapon with accumulative damage. Its heat rays have a deadly impact on organic matter, incinerating flesh into ash with explosive force and jets of flame. A weapon of choice against Tyranids! ☢️🔥
The Bulwark, Assault and Vanguard will have access to the Neo-Volkite as a secondary weapon.

On top of this addition, this update will also come with buffs for several firearms.

Later this year – around early-December – will come the much awaited Dark Angel Chapter Pack, along with a new enemy, the Tzaangor Enlightened and a new PvE map set on Demerium: “Obelisk”.

On another note, we’ve seen your feedback about “Blocking” weapons feeling unsatisfying to play with, and are currently in the process of reworking them!

Be patient Marines!

You are constantly submitting new ideas on Focus Together[community.focus-entmt.com] to our great delight. Let’s answer some of them:


New Melee weapons
→ Adding a new melee weapon is something we’d love to have later. However, it also takes a lot of time and production resources to integrate. Be sure that we’ll let you know once we’re more advanced on that subject.

More Campaign missions
→ We’re currently not thinking about adding new campaign missions in Space Marine 2. We rather focus on creating new Operations and Eternal War content.

Eternal war party size
→ We’re currently working on implementing custom PvP lobbies. You’ll be able to invite your friends, alongside various other options to customise your experience (score limit, time limit, class limit and so on)..

Heretic Astartes playable in Operations
→ This will not be implemented due to Space Marine 2's specific setting, how Operations are designed and even the game as a whole. All of the dialogue is written as Astartes talking to other Astartes for example. Missions are also designed so that our characters fight to help the Imperium's war effort.

Add the possibility to replay the Campaign Prologue
→ Whilst not a priority at the moment, this is something we might consider in the future.

Consider adding a bonus reward for players using quickmatch
→ This is something we are considering adding in the future.



Colour lenses
→ We are ready to release the colour lenses with the next big update, which will bring the Dark Angels Chapter Pack.

More than 4 customisation slots
→ This is not a priority right now, we prefer to focus on developing other features at the moment. We’ll come back later on this.

Customisation add-ons
→ More customisation will come in the future. More precise customisation options is a must have as well.

More helmet customisation and patterns
→ This is something we’re actively working on. It will arrive in the lifespan of the game.

Ability to recolor cloth pieces / tabards
→ We can consider adding this option later down the line. But creating a satisfying level of quality for this feature is harder than it looks.

Lieutenant colour customisation
→ This has been greenlit. More customisation is coming for helmets, corresponding to other Chapters.

Change the skin colour of your Marine
→ We’re currently working on an option to add head customisation to your Space Marines.

Allow Deathwatch icons to be placed on the right shoulder
→ Yes, this is something already in the works.


Our VP community is very prolific so let's do a quick shoutout to some creators, by highlighting the GORE in Space Marine 2!!



To keep yourself updated on the latest news about Space Marine 2, make sure you sign up to Focus Together[community.focus-entmt.com]! And join an already-wide community of players on the official Discord[discord.gg]!

See you next time.

As we discussed late last week, we’ve been monitoring your feedback since last Thursday’s Patch 4.0 and have decided to address your most pressing concerns with a new balancing update, coming this Thursday.

Before we get to the details of the new patch, we want to thank you all for being so involved with the game and making your opinions heard. While we noticed criticism with regards to difficulty adjustments—and rightly so—we’d also like to thank you for your very positive feedback on the new “Termination” map. No matter the feedback, we’re grateful that you feel so passionate about Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. The key takeaway for me, personally, is that I forgot that once the game comes out, it's no longer a dev's game. It's yours first and foremost.

This is why, moving forward, we’d like to harness this energy by establishing Public Test Servers. They would let you try out major balancing updates and make your voices heard before they are pushed onto public branches. We’re hoping to make these available around early 2025, so stay tuned to our channels for more info.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ - Dmitriy Grigorenko, Game Director




DG: Here was our reasoning before Patch 4.0: When the game came out in September, the Ruthless difficulty win rate hovered around 60%. Weeks later, and with the changes introduced by Patch 3.0, we saw that the same win rate had jumped to over 80%, and we received a lot of feedback stating that the game had become too easy—even at its maximum difficulty (at the time).

With Patch 4.0, our aim was to tweak enemy spawns to increase the overall number of enemies rather than reverting to buffing their Health. Unfortunately, this had an impact on the easier difficulty levels as well.

For example, the win rate on the easiest difficulty dropped slightly after Patch 4.0, from 95% to 93%. This may not look like a lot, but numbers aren’t everything. Your feedback made it clear that the game had become more intense and stressful on lower difficulties, and this was never our intention. As I’ve personally emphasised in interviews, Space Marine 2 is all about the power fantasy, and Patch 4.0 negatively impacted it for many of you.

This is why we’re rolling back these changes. Extremis enemies’ spawn rates in Minimal, Average, and Substantial difficulties will revert back to their pre-Patch 4.0 levels and will be significantly reduced in Ruthless difficulty to hopefully strike a balance between how hard the game was at launch and how “easy” it became with Patch 3.0.
‎

Minimal, Average, and Substantial Difficulties:

• Reduced spawn rate of Extremis enemies to match pre-Patch 4.0 levels

Ruthless Difficulty:

• Significantly reduced spawn rate of Extremis enemies

DG: We've been wanting to address the Bolter family for a while, as they've been underperforming across all difficulty levels. This has been a frequent piece of feedback from many of you, and the data confirmed improvements were needed across the board. The percent Damage increase is based on which classes have access to which kind of weapon and how the Bolters compete with the other options available.
‎

• Auto Bolt Rifle -> Damage increased by 20%
  
• Bolt Rifle -> Damage increased by 10%
  
• Heavy Bolt Rifle -> Damage increased by 15%
  
• Stalker Bolt Rifle -> Damage increased by 10%
  
• Marksman Bolt Carbine -> Damage increased by 10%
  
• Instigator Bolt Carbine -> Damage increased by 10%
  
• Bolt Sniper Rifle -> Damage increased by 12.5%
  
• Bolt Carbine -> Damage increased by 15%
  
• Occulus Bolt Carbine -> Damage increased by 15%
  
• Heavy Bolter -> Damage increased by 5%

⚙️ Ruthless: Player’s Armour is increased by 10%

DG: We are partially rolling back the change from the previous patch on Ruthless difficulty following your feedback. With Patch 4.1, we’re hoping to find the right compromise between how easy Ruthless difficulty felt after Patch 3.0 and how it felt after last week’s Patch 4.0.

The reason why it was reduced last week was that we noticed a very substantial bump in win rates on Ruthless after Patch 3.0, as Minoris enemies would no longer remove the entire Armour bar with their attacks, ranged AI Damage was nerfed across the board, and the ability to regenerate Armour by parrying normal Minoris attacks was added.

Additional note: Despite the last patch notes listing a decrease in Armour in Substantial difficulty, this change was mistakenly left out of our last update, hence why you won’t see it being reverted as part of this week’s patch.
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⚙️ Lethal: “Tight Formation” system is removed

DG: Before anything else, let us clarify our reasoning for the introduction of this mechanic. As we worked on adding a new difficulty tier, we needed to make sure this new challenge was meaningful and interesting. With “Tight Formation”, our objective was to add a new layer of challenge for our most skilled players by adding horizontal progression rather than just vertical progression (i.e., dealing more damage to ever stronger enemies). This game is about the power fantasy, and enemies that take dozens of melee hits break it. Thus the challenge needed to come from other sources.

This system was also designed as a first step towards the introduction of gameplay modifiers down the line, both negative and positive—something World War Z players will be familiar with—but your feedback showed that the proximity requirements felt too restrictive. Classes like Assault and Vanguard felt especially penalised as playing them effectively requires a certain freedom of movement.

As a result, we’re removing the system entirely and will continue to work on modifiers until they’re ready. We will continue to monitor your feedback after the deployment of Patch 4.1 to make sure Lethal difficulty feels as challenging and rewarding as it should.
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⚙️ AI

DG: A recurrent piece of feedback we’ve seen is that the AI allies can feel useless at times. We already improved allies’ behaviour in Patch 3.0, and we hope this additional buff will help solo players complete their Operations.

• Bots deal 30% more damage to bosses.

DG: Fighting Zoanthropes is often reported as a source of frustration. Alongside the changes to the AI Director, we’re taking away some of their shields’ effectiveness to alleviate some of that frustration.

• Zoanthrope: Shield swap cooldown with another paired Zoanthrope is increased by 10%.

• Fixed a bug that caused roll distance to be shorter than before.

DG: This was probably the most impactful and annoying consequence of Patch 4.0. While i-frames were the same, the distance difference made it much less effective versus ranged attacks. With this bug fixed, you should feel a great improvement in your fights against ranged enemies and bosses.

• Fixed bug with unlocking Lethal difficulty rewards decals.
  
• Crash fixes and general stability improvements.

Our teams are constantly working on improvements to the game’s stability. This patch is no exception, so you should encounter fewer crashes.

That’s it for Patch 4.1! Your feedback is absolutely invaluable to us, and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this new update.


The Space Marine 2 team