Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 developer Saber Interactive has announced Update 4.1, coming to the game on October 24, and detailed the patch notes.
Update 4.1 follows last week’s controversial Update 4.0, which was widely criticized by the Space Marine 2 community for making the game significantly more difficult, even on easier difficulties. The backlash to Update 4.0 spread to Space Marine 2’s Steam page, where disgruntled players reviewed the game.
The patch notes to Update 4.1 were published alongside a message to fans from game director Dmitriy Grigorenko, who, after dealing with the criticism over the past week, admitted: “The most important thing for me personally is that I forgot that as soon as the game comes out, it’s no longer a developer’s game. It is yours first and foremost.”
To that end, Saber will set up Public Test Servers (PTS) that will allow players to try out major balancing updates and make their voices heard before they are pushed to public branches. Expect PTS to go live in early 2025.
As for the changes made with Update 4.1, there’s plenty to dig through (patch notes below), but overall they should make Space Marine 2’s PvE Operations mode easier via a range of improvements to weapons and the Space Marines, nerfs to the enemies, and in some cases the complete removal of controversial mechanics.
Players of Space Marine 2’s new Lethal difficulty will be happy to hear that the universally hated ‘Tight Formation’ system, exclusive to Operations mode’s hardest difficulty, is not long for this world. Grigorenko revealed that the system was designed as a first step toward introducing gameplay modifiers, both negative and positive, “but your feedback indicated that the proximity requirements felt too restrictive.”
“Classes like Assault and Vanguard especially felt punished because playing them effectively requires a certain freedom of movement,” Grigorenko added. 4.1 omits the Tight Formation system entirely and Saber will continue working on modifiers until they are ready.
There is also a problem with the Tyranid’s feared Zoanthropes, with their shield effectiveness reduced. Indeed, enemy spawns have disappeared across the board. Starting with 4.1, the spawn rates of Extremis enemies on Minimal, Average, and Substantial difficulties will return to their pre-Patch 4.0 levels and be significantly reduced on Ruthless difficulty.
Finally, Bolters are finally getting an buff. Since the explosive launch of Space Marine 2 last month, Bolters have underperformed, much to the disappointment of Warhammer 40,000 fans who love the Games Workshop tabletop weapons and lore. As of 4.1, damage has increased in Bolter’s weapon family.
And if you were wondering if 4.0 had manipulated the Space Marine role, Saber confirmed that it had, although this was a bug and not a design decision. 4.1 fixes a bug that caused the roll distance to be shorter than before.
These are all welcome changes and players have already responded positively to them, but what made Saber go so fast with 4.0 in the first place? Grigorenko said that Patch 3.0 had seen an increase in win rates (for example, Ruthless went from 60% to over 80%) and had received feedback that Space Marine 2 had become too easy even on maximum difficulty.
In addressing this, 4.0 went too far in a number of areas, most notably spawn rates, even on lower difficulties. “Your feedback made it clear that the game had become more intense and stressful on lower difficulties, and this was never our intention,” Grigorenko said. “As I’ve personally emphasized in interviews, Space Marine 2 is all about the power fantasy, and Patch 4.0 has had a negative impact on that for many of you.”
IGN has plenty more on Space Marine 2, including a deep dive into the game’s burgeoning modding scene and its complications. Last month, Saber Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told IGN how the breakthrough success of Space Marine 2 had “changed everything” for the company. And Eagle-eyed fans have almost seen the Space Marine chapter now, but have confirmed they’ll be getting a cosmetic pack after the Dark Angelsand even an unannounced new enemy type Thousand Sons.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Update 4.1 patch notes:
Gameplay and balance adjustments – Operations mode
AI director and enemy spawns
DG: Here was our reasoning before Patch 4.0: When the game released 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 increased to over 80%, and we received a lot of feedback stating that the game had become too easy, even at the maximum difficulty (at the highest level ). time).
With Patch 4.0, our goal was to adjust enemy spawns to increase the total number of enemies, rather than returning to increasing their health. Unfortunately, this also affected the easier difficulty levels.
For example, the win rate on the easiest difficulty dropped slightly after Patch 4.0, from 95% to 93%. This may not seem like much, but numbers don’t say 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 has had a negative impact on that for many of you.
Therefore, we are reverting these changes. The spawn rates of Extremis enemies on Minimum, Medium, and Substantial difficulties will return to their pre-Patch 4.0 levels and will be significantly reduced on Ruthless difficulty to hopefully strike a balance between how difficult the game was at launch and how “easy” it is became with Patch 3.0.
Minimal, medium and significant difficulties:
- Reduced the spawn rate of Extremis enemies to match pre-Patch 4.0 levels
Relentless difficulty:
- Significantly reduced spawn rate of Extremis enemies
Weapons (Operations mode only)
DG: We’ve been wanting to call out the Bolter family for a while now because they’ve been underperforming on all difficulty levels. Many of you have provided regular feedback on this and the data confirmed that improvements were needed across the board. The percentage damage increase is based on which classes have access to which type 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: The player’s armor is increased by 10%
DG: In response to your feedback, we are partially reversing the change from the previous patch on Ruthless difficulty. With Patch 4.1, we hope to find the right compromise between how easy the Ruthless issues felt after Patch 3.0 and how it felt after last week’s Patch 4.0.
The reason this was lowered last week was that after Patch 3.0 we noticed a very substantial increase in win rates on Ruthless as Minoris enemies no longer wanted to clear the entire armor bar with their attacks, ranged AI damage across the board was taken away, and the ability to regenerate armor by parrying normal Minoris attacks was added.
Additional note: Despite the latest patch notes mentioning a decrease in Armor with substantial difficulty, this change was incorrectly left out of our last update, and therefore you won’t see it being rolled back as part of this week’s patch.
⚙️ Deadly: The ‘Tight Formation’ system has been removed
DG: Let’s first clarify our reasoning for introducing this mechanism. As we worked to add a new difficulty level, we had to make sure this new challenge was meaningful and interesting. With “Tight Formation,” our goal was to add a new layer of challenge for our most experienced players by adding horizontal progression instead of just vertical progression (i.e. dealing more damage to increasingly stronger enemies). This game is about the power fantasy, and enemies who take dozens of melee hits break it. So the challenge had to come from other sources.
This system is also designed as a first step towards introducing gameplay modifiers in the future, both negative and positive – something World War II players will be familiar with – but your feedback showed that the proximity requirements felt too restrictive. Classes like Assault and Vanguard felt particularly punished because playing them effectively requires a certain amount of freedom of movement.
As a result, we are removing the system completely and continuing to work on modifiers until they are ready. We’ll continue to monitor your feedback after the implementation of Patch 4.1 to ensure that Lethal difficulty feels as challenging and rewarding as it should.
⚙️AI
DG: One recurring piece of feedback we’ve seen is that the AI allies can sometimes feel useless. We’ve already improved ally behavior in Patch 3.0, and we hope this additional improvement will help solo players complete their operations.
- Bots deal 30% more damage to bosses.
DG: The battle against Zoanthropes is often cited as a source of frustration. In addition to the changes to the AI director, we’re taking away some of the effectiveness of their shields to alleviate some of that frustration.
- Zoanthrope: The cooldown for swapping shields with another linked Zoanthrope is increased by 10%.
General solutions and technology
- Fixed a bug that caused the roll distance to be shorter than before.
DG: This was probably the most impactful and annoying consequence of Patch 4.0. Although i-frames were the same, the distance difference made it much less effective versus ranged attacks. Now that this bug has been fixed, you should feel a big improvement in your battles against enemies and bosses from a distance.
- Fixed bug when unlocking reward stickers for Lethal difficulty.
- Crash fixes and general stability improvements.
Our teams are continuously working on improvements to the stability of the game. This patch is no exception, so you should encounter fewer crashes.
Wesley is the UK news editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
