Warhammer 4o,000: Space Marine 2 is full of high points, but one of the lowest comes very early on. The end of the Operation I: Skyfire mission has you defending artillery cannons against swarms of Gargoyles, and it can be a real pain in the ass. The sci-fi shooter’s latest update should change that.
The mission takes you from trench warfare against the Tyranids on the surface of Kadaku up through a sprawling megastructure until you’re on the roof, repelling aerial attacks to secure the planet’s last line of defense. It’s a great introduction to the flow of the game and a spectacular reveal once you reach the skies and see them flooded with the Gargoyle brood.
But then you’re tasked with defending four of the targeting beacons from multiple swarms and a ground assault while your brothers in arms stare at their space marine boots. It’s an unexpected difficulty spike in a game that’s mostly about the simple joys of carving up mob after mob of brutal alien hordes, at least if you’re playing solo with AI-controlled allies.
Fortunately, Space Marine 2‘s Patch 3.0, released on September 26, addresses this as well as a bunch of other things in the game. In addition to the PVP Sparring Arena, private matchmaking, and ultrawide support on PC, the update tinkers a lot with the AI bots that accompany you during the campaign in single-player. The biggest change is that your space marine brothers will more aggressively aid your during fights without stealing too much glory for themselves:
- Various inhibiting restrictions were lifted, allowing bots to be more helpful and effective, while still not beating the game for the player
- Bots will now help focus-firing zoanthropes when the player attacks them.
- Heavily eased restrictions on bots finishing of enemies instead of leaving them for the player, to reduce annoyance.
- Bots are now allowed to help with Gargoyle objectives
- Fixed a variety of bugs related to bots getting stuck
- Fixed a bug where bots can run out of ammo on weapons without a magazine
While this has consequences for the entire campaign, the developers at Saber Interactive specifically call out the Gargoyle objectives. Previously, the AI bots would follow you around and hang back even when the health bar on one of the towers was plunging to zero. Now, they’ll actually join in the fight, similar to if you were playing with real humans. It’s also interesting to see the restriction “heavily eased” on bots finishing off enemies. Brutal finishers are a way to quickly restore your character’s shield in the middle of a tense fight. I’ll be curious to see if that becomes harder with the renewed bloodlust of the bots.
The rest of the patch deals primarily with bugs and map fixes. It also improves the customization options for dressing up your marine. Operations Mode spawns for Chaos enemies have been nerfed a lot as well, though elsewhere, enemies like the Hive Tyrant have been made more difficult in the regular campaign. A lot more content is on the way for Space Marine 2, including new classes, but for now this looks like a nice set of tweaks.