New Space Marine 2 update will undo controversial difficulty changes

While Space Marine 2 has been pretty hard to knock since it dropped in September, last week’s Patch 4.0 wasn’t particularly well-received by the co-op shooter’s community. However, Saber Interactive is responding swiftly, and has announced that another patch is arriving imminently to revert some of the controversial changes the previous update made.

I didn’t think anything would arrive this year that would challenge Helldivers 2’s crown as the best new co-op game of 2024 – however, The Emperor had other plans. Space Marine 2 has been an absolute revelation and has provided both Warhammer fanatics and those looking for a great third-person shooter with some brilliant bug blasting. However, it experienced a bit of a wobble with Patch 4.0, which disappointed players with balancing tweaks that pushed up the difficulty considerably. Now, Saber has explained what happened and revealed that it will be reversing or tweaking many aspects of last week’s update in Patch 4.1.

With win rates increasing and some players complaining that Operations mode had become too easy, the aim of Patch 4.0 was to make things a bit more challenging once again. However, Saber went about this by simply upping the number of enemies in Operations – an increase that was applied across all difficulty levels. As a result, lower difficulties became too hard and hectic.

“Your feedback made it clear that the game had become more intense and stressful on lower difficulties, and this was never our intention,” says game director Dmitriy Grigorenko. “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.”

As a result, spawn rates in Minimal, Average, and Substantial difficulty modes will be reverted back to their pre-4.0 levels, while Ruthless difficulty spawns are also being decreased slightly. To further help those playing on Ruthless, player armor is increasing by 10% to make you tougher, which again partly rolls back a nerf that arrived last week.

As for the brand new Lethal difficulty, the Tight Formation mechanic is getting completely removed. Grigorenko explains that this was an experimental first attempt at introducing gameplay modifiers – something Saber wants to bring in over time – but he admits that “the proximity requirements felt too restrictive.”

As well as these difficulty tweaks, solo players are also more of a helping hand as bot teammates will now deal 30% more damage to bosses in Operations. All Bolt weapons are also getting damage increases, ranging from 10% to 20%.

Space Marine 2 Patch 4.1 drops on Thursday, October 24. You can check out the full patch notes here.

Aside from the actual changes, this comment from Grigorenko in today’s patch notes really stood out to me: “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.”

While Space Marine 2’s recent issues are on a much smaller scale, this really echoes what has been going on with co-op shooter rival Helldivers 2. Despite there being no competitive PvP elements, Arrowhead got so caught up in balance and trying to force meta changes that players became frustrated about not being able to use their favorite weapons and builds. To improve the game and win back favor with its community, Helldivers 2 underwent a 60-day rework to address its biggest concerns – something that only recently concluded. Now, it’s in much better shape.

If Space Marine 2 is your first time dipping your toes into the Warhammer universe, check out some other amazing Warhammer 40k games that we recommend playing. Alternatively, these war games may help instill a similar sense of valor and ruggedness.

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