Alongside being a colossal sales success for Saber Interactive, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has demonstrated an impressive amount of sticking power as a multiplayer game. Its most recent daily peak concurrent was over 21,000 players, higher than numerous big-swing multiplayer games released in the last 12 months like Dune Awakening and Marathon.
Not a bad performance for a game that led as a traditional linear action experience, and a large amount of credit must be given to Saber’s impressive update schedule. Since the game’s launch it has added tons of new missions, monsters and classes and more to its Left 4 Dead-style cooperative mode. It’s the kind of update cadence you’d expect from a live-service game. Maybe Space Marine 2 deserves to be considered one.
Those updates show no signs of slowing, either. The recent Warhammer Skulls event brought another beefy patch for Space Marine 2. Patch 13.0 adds yet another mission to the game’s Operations mode—Purgation—in which your squad must reclaim a Mechanicus facility located in the Kadaku swamps. It also adds a battle simulator where you can practice ripping apart enemies before heading out on missions for real, as well as the ability to swap perk loadouts during a session and expanded customisation options.
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The biggest changes, however, are made to siege mode, the horde scenario added in June last year. Dubbed Siege 2.0, the patch implements a “major revamp” for the mode. For starters, it adds a new blessings and atonements system, which gives players extra perks every five waves while also throwing modifiers into the mix. The overall difficulty has been adjusted to make the experience more challenging, with new bosses cropping up every five waves.
Saber says the goal is “to make siege mode sessions quicker and more intense,” while also “giving players more options for build crafting to make each run different”. Given the extent of the changes, the patch also resets the number of completed waves in player save files. Sounds like you’ll have to earn your bragging rights all over again.
The patch coincides with a new free trial for Space Marine 2, and a big old discount that knocks 70% off the asking price. The trial lets you play two campaign missions, three operations and all the PvP modes. If you like what you see, you can get the full game for $18 (£16.50). That discount ends on June 3.
