Space Marine 2 Update: Nerfs Reversed Following Fan Criticism

Space Marine 2 is implementing hotfix 4.1 following backlash over gameplay changes that were rolled out last week. Likewise in response, devs Saber Interactive posted a community update announcing Space Marine 2 Public Test Servers.

Space Marine 2 “BS” Nerfs Prompts Patch Update & Public Test Server

Changes Will Be Reverted Starting October 24

With the rollout of Patch 4.1 on October 24, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 announced that it is launching Public Test Servers sometime around next year, 2025. This announcement came following fan backlash over last week's release of Patch 4.0 which brought in a series of nerfs that were the cause of frustration among players.

In response, devs Saber Interactive said they are reverting the "most pressing" balance changes it initially rolled out in the big 4.0 update. "We’ve been monitoring your feedback since last Thursday’s Patch 4.0 and have decided to address your most pressing concerns with a new balancing update, coming this Thursday," game director Dmitriy Grigorenko said. "This is why, moving forward, we’d like to harness this energy by establishing Public Test Servers," he added, saying that they are hoping to make it happen "around early 2025."

Over the last several days, Space Marine 2 has been on the receiving end of the ire of its players, apart from suffering negative review bombings on its Steam page. "Saber Interactive saw the Helldivers 2 nerf controversy and must have said to themselves 'Yeah, let's nerf the fun like Arrowhead Studios did,'" reads one Steam review. "This is a classic Spongebob 'How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?' moment."

In a follow-up community update from Saber Interactive, the devs explained that the reason for the previous balance changes in Patch 4.0 was that they "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," they explained. "Unfortunately, this had an impact on the easier difficulty levels as well."

As the Patch 4.0 changes will be reverted, Extremis enemies’ spawn rates in Minimal, Average, and Substantial difficulties will also be reverted back to pre-Patch 4.0 levels and will be "significantly reduced" in Ruthless difficulty. Moreover, player armor gets increased by 10% at the Ruthless difficulty, and bots are getting buffed to deal 30% more damage to bosses.

Apart from these, the hotfix slated to arrive today will also provide a comprehensive buff to Bolt weapons. "We've been wanting to address the Bolter family for a while, as they've been underperforming across all difficulty levels," the devs explained. Here are a couple changes players can expect in hotfix 4.1:

　⚫︎　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%
　⚫︎　Heavy Bolter: Damage increased by 5%

"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," Grigorenko said.