Reset the clock, folks. A multiplayer shooter where nobody in the universe ever truly wins has rolled back some poorly received nerfs and sweetened the deal with a spoonful of buffs. Space Marine 2 update 4.1 is coming this Thursday, and it's bringing a sledgehammer for the nerfs introduced with update 4.0 last week, in record time mirroring and resolving the sort of balance debate that consumed Helldivers 2.
In the newly minted 4.1 patch notes, game director Dmitriy Grigorenko explains the approach that led to update 4.0 and thanks players for being vocal with feedback. "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," he says. "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."
Grigorenko opens with some fresh good news: the Space Marine 2 team is looking to establish public test servers in early 2025 to "harness this energy" and help polish updates pre-release. The game is seemingly gearing up for a long tail of support after its runaway launch. (Continuing the parallel, Helldivers 2 devs said in August that their own test servers are actively being worked on.)
Patch 4.1 is intended to get the game back on the right track, then. First of all, the 4.0 difficulty tweaks that ended up hitting lower difficulty levels inordinately hard are getting rolled back almost entirely. "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," the patch notes clarify.
"Space Marine 2 is all about the power fantasy, and Patch 4.0 negatively impacted it for many of you," Grigorenko adds. So Ruthless will still be ruthless, but slightly less ruthless, and the lower difficulties are back to the way they were.
Meanwhile, "we are partially rolling back" a change to armor on Ruthless difficulty, with update 4.1 bumping it up by 10%. "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," Grigorenko explains.
We also have a new addition to the list of Schrodinger's balance updates: "Additional note: Despite the last patch notes listing a decrease in armor 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." I think that counts as a win, brothers.
Finally, an entire system is getting ripped out. "Tight Formation," a modifier which forced players to stick close to avoid a swift death in Lethal difficulty missions, is getting the axe. Grigorenko says this was intended as a way to "add a new layer of challenge" that's more inventive than even tankier enemies, but players found "the proximity requirements felt too restrictive."
With that in mind, the devs are going back to the drawing board "and will continue to work on modifiers until they’re ready," with Grigorenko pointing to this Tight Formation trial 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."
To top it off, the famously underpowered Bolter weapons, which have "been underperforming across all difficulty levels," are getting some buffs. Here's the full list of changes:
- 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%
