Matt Wales
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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2‘s doing alright for itself, what with its franchise-best launch and a whole load of critical acclaim, but developer Saber Interactive isn’t stopping yet. The studio has now pledged a whole bunch of fan-requested fixes, starting with connectivity issues as a “top priority” and maybe even the introduction of an FoV slider if it really must.
All this comes via a lengthy message to the community on Steam, which follows Saber’s recent request for fan feedback regarding areas they want to see addressed first. Top of that list are those aforementioned connectivity issues, which the developer acknowledges have resulted in server problems, the inability to connect with friends (technologically rather than emotionally, I assume), plus lost saves. Saber says its “working day and night” to increase server capacity and reduce server load, with a bigger patch to address these issues due “soon”.
It also addresses the issue of bot teammates, after players complained their general ineffectiveness makes solo games “significantly harder”. Saber claims bot behaviour is by design, saying it doesn’t want them to “take the spotlight from the player” – but the studio does at least acknowledge bots can sometimes be “a bit too passive”. As such, it’ll be introducing improvements specifically during campaign boss fights in the next patch, and is also considering ramping up their usefulness during “specific objectives” in the future.
There’s a whole lot more beside those two topics in Saber’s post, including a promise to adjust Veteran difficulty in a future patch to help solo players finding it too hard thanks to those bots. “It will remain challenging,” says the developer, “but it will be slightly more fair because we will tweak AI aggressiveness on this difficulty.”
Beyond that, Saber gives a whole lot of yeses, nos, and maybes to player suggestions, confirming the likes of new classes and new melees weapons are under consideration, while marine face customisation and new armour colours are definitely on the way. FoV slider fans have less immediately positive news, however, with Saber saying Fo sliders are “not something [it’s] comfortable with, as it can degrade the visual aspect of the game.”
“And on top of that,” the studio continues, “it is very complex. Our game is not a first person shooter, the camera that we have is very cinematic and constantly changes position and FoV based on what you are doing.” Despite that reluctance, Saber acknowledges the request is a popular one so is “considering it anyway”. A left/right shoulder swap, however, is a definite ‘no’, because it would need to be supported for all melee animations and transitions.
There’s plenty more where that came from, and the full Q&A is well worth a read if you love your minutiae. And if you haven’t done so already, you might also consider playing Space Marine 2, which Eurogamer contributor Rick Lane called a “spectacular and mostly thrilling follow-up” in his four star review. “It’s the KFC party bucket of video games,” he wrote, “delightfully messy, almost certainly bad for you, and best shared with friends.”