Today's Space Marine 2 update packs in a new free Operation, photo mode, and difficulty level

We're not in Season 2 just yet, but Saber Interactive is keeping things fresh with new content for players as well as finetuning the difficulty of Operations which has been increased in today's Space Marine 2 update.

Today's update seemed to come out of nowhere, with no downtime or announcement of the new content rolling out beforehand, which is par for the course for Saber Interactive at the moment. The developer was cagey about confirming the in last month's Space Marine 2 update, even though we knew they were coming, and similarly, while Saber had announced the for an October release, we didn't have an exact date.

Well, it's here today, along with a new Lethal difficulty for Operations which means less ammo, harder-to-kill enemies, and armour that replenishes only if you stay close to your Battle Brothers, so teamwork is of the essence if you want to unlock the new cosmetics associated with this difficulty level. Today's Space Marine 2 update also introduced a new photo for Operations but it only works in solo, so no snapping pics with your bros just yet, I'm afraid.

As for the rest of the content shared for October , including Season 2 and a new weapon, that's still to come, with no sign of that just yet in the Space Marine 2 update today. Of course, we don't have a date, but the next season is still pegged for this month, along with the Neo-Volkite pistol and the impending debut of the Hierophant Bio-Titan; meanwhile Season Pass owners can look forward to Dark Angels cosmetics that look pretty snazzy!

As well as the free new content, today's Space Marine 2 update also implemented some gameplay and balancing tweaks, including bumping up the difficulty of Operations after it was mellowed out somewhat in Patch 3 (which included ultrawide support and PvE). Saber says it's not done tweaking this aspect just yet, but did acknowledge that Patch 3's difficulty adjustments saw Chaos Operations get an uptick in popularity, suggesting it was too hard at launch.

The changes in today's Space Marine 2 update will make Operations harder but the dev says it's "difficult to measure by how much," adding that it'll "continue to monitor those changes and will continue to adjust the balance of Operations mode. This is not the last change."

Here's the full list of patch notes for Space Marine 2 update 4.0 which were posted over on publisher .

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

Space Marine 2 update 4.0 patch notes New features New Operation - Termination

This new Operation takes place on planet Kadaku. New dreadful foes have arrived. Make good use of the artillery to annihilate them.

Added Lethal difficulty for Operations

Major highlights of it:

• Ammo Crates have limited refills per player.
  
• Majoris enemies can become enraged and will be more deadly and harder to kill.
  
• Armour restores from finishers only if you stay close to your battle-brothers.
  
• Overcoming such a challenge will grant you new cosmetics...

Added photo mode in Operations

Only works in solo. Also, characters can now follow the camera with their eyes.

Gameplay and balancing tweaks

Melee Archetypes: Fencing weapons' perfect parry window will now have the same duration as balanced weapons but it will start from the first frame of parry animation.

Melee Perks: Chainsword, Power Fist, Combat Knife charged attacks perks get significant damage increase.

Basic Auspex Scan: bonus damage on bosses is reduced by 30%.

Melta Charge: damage to bosses is reduced by 70%.

Enemy Spawn Director PvE:

• Tweaked idle spawns.
• Enemy variety within waves is now less random while enemy variety between waves is bigger.
• Extremis enemies can now spawn have additional enemies.

Difficulty:

• Ruthless: Ammo crates have limited refills per player.
• Ruthless: Player's armour reduced by 20%.
• Substantial: Player's armour reduced by 10%

Note from the devs:

"With Patch 3 we have noticed that Operations mode became noticeably easier, especially Chaos operations. We are happier with what we have right now compared to what we had on release, because before Patch 3 Chaos missions were unpopular. Still, we think that currently Operations mode is a bit too easy.

"Overall these changes are going to make Operations mode harder, but it is difficult to measure by how much. We will continue to monitor those changes and will continue to adjust the balance of Operations mode. This is not the last change."

PVP

• Increased delay between announcer messages in PvP.
• The starting animation of the Grapnel Launcher for the Vanguard is shorter in PvP.
• Fixed Power Fist in PvP dealing too much damage with short charged attacks.

AI

• Enemy Dodges: Globally replaced full invulnerability on dodge moves of enemies with heavy melee damage resistance.
• Rubric Marine with Boltgun: Disengage teleport max distance is slightly reduced.

Customisation

• More options for colours customisation for Chaos:
  
  • Tertiary colours: Sotek Green, Night Lords Blue, Death Guard Green, Khorne Red.
    
• Decal colours: Sotek Green, Khorne Red.
  
• Colours: Added Liberator Gold colour to default for primary and secondary colours palettes.
  
• Fixed a lot of issues with display of colours, now they should be more lore accurate (Mechanicus Standard Grey, Ushabti Bone, Phoenician Purple, The Fang, Iron Hands Steel, Retributor Armour).
  
• Decals: Added new Chaos faction decals for the right shoulder.

Levels

• Vox Liberatis - Daemonhost: Disabled respawn until the last altar in the final arena.

General fixes

• Fixed a bug where the Assault perk "Ascension" could kill its owner.
• Fixed a bug where the Sniper perk "Targeted Shot" wasn’t always working in some cases.
• Fixed an unintended animation cancel with the Bulwark by using the block, which resulted in faster attacks.
• Fixed an issue with the Tactical team perk "Close Targeting" not triggering properly.
• Fixed: Tactical perk "Radiating Impact" not triggering properly.
• Fixed an issue with the Sniper perk "Guardian Protocol" cooldown not working properly.
• Fixed an issue where sound was lost after switching the speaker configuration.
• Fixed several issues in Trials.
• Fixed several issues that were causing loss of saves.
• The Thunder Hammer perk "Patience Rewarded" description is now accurate with its actual effect (added "When your Health is below 30%” part).
• Lots of minor UI fixes and improvements.
• Lots of minor animation fixes and improvements.
• Localisation fixes.

Tech

• Crash fixes and general stability improvements.
• Fixed several connectivity issues causing disconnects for players.
• Slightly improved performance.
• Fixed issues controllers not working with Steam Input enabled.

Render improvements

• General improvements and fixes.

Hopefully the game will be a bit more stable now and we'll see less instances of crashing which, for some of us, is just as exciting as all of the new content.