After the backlash to Patch 4.0 of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Saber Interactive has released a new update to address the same. More specifically, it’s rolled back several changes to lean further into the game’s power fantasy, with comments by game director Dmitriy Grigorenko.
Operations previously had increased spawn rates for Extremis enemies. However, these have reverted to pre-patch 4.0 levels on Minimal, Average, and Substantial difficulties while their spawn rate is “significantly” reduced on Ruthless. Weapons like the Auto Bolt Rifle, Heavy Bolt Rifle, Bolt Sniper Rifle, Heavy Bolter, and more will also deal increased damage in Operations.
Those playing through the new Lethal difficulty can also breathe a sigh of relief as the “Tight Formation” mechanic, which required executing enemies near allies to regain armor, is gone. Check out the patch notes below for more details.
To ensure balancing updates land better, Saber will roll out public test servers in early 2025 to test major changes before they go live. Stay tuned for details on specific dates in the coming months.
Patch Notes 4.1
Gameplay and Balancing Tweaks – Operations mode
AI director and enemy spawns
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 emphasized 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
Weapons (only in Operations mode)
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%
Difficulty
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.
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.
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%.
General Fixes & Tech
- 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.
