Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 just closed out its second year of post-release support with a one-two punch of updates. Patch 14, aka The Confrontation Update, adds a new enemy and significantly expands the game's PvP options. Since Confrontation's release, a separate update has added Steam Workshop support to Saber Interactive's hugely successful shooter.
Let's start with the Confrontation update, which, as the name, suggests is heavily focussed on Space Marine 2's PvP mode, Eternal War. Patch 14 adds two new PvP arenas, a medium-sized map called Sanctum, and Facility, which Saber describes as "one of the most compact PvP maps" available in the game. Alongside these maps, the patch adds weekly PvP rewards, meaning you can earn cosmetics and other in-game rewards by playing matches and completing challenges.
If you're more interested in the cooperative side of Space Marine 2, then the update introduces a new enemy for players to fight—the Scarab Occult Terminator Sorcerer. The Sorcerer is a tough miniboss opponent that will appear throughout the game's Operations mode, and furnished with a wide array of abilities. He's able to create copies of himself, teleport around the battlefield, and attack the player with a powerful laser beam. This video gives a good overview of the Sorcerer's moveset. It seems like he'll provide a stern test for even the most grizzled Ultramarine.
As for the Steam Workshop support, obviously it's early days for Space Marine 2 mods. But there are a few player-made extras that are worth checking out. The main one is the Astartes Overhaul, which has been available on NexusMods for a while. The mod rebalances Operations while adding new weapons and customisation options. It introduces three new classes to play as—Terminator, Chaplain, and Apothecary, as well as four new weapons including an Assault Bolter and an Artifex Bolt Rifle that comes with optional incendiary bolts.
Most of the other currently available mods are addons for the Astartes Overhaul. These range from adding some extra execution animations to letting you play with six or even nine-man squads. There are a few non-Astartes mods however Health on Executions makes Space Marine 2's grisly finishers even more like Doom's glory-kill system, while Rogue Trader Tyranids reworks the game's insectoid menace to more closely resemble their 1985 models.
While this wraps up Space Marine's second year of updates, Saber Interactive has confirmed that it will continue supporting the game for at least another year. The developer hasn't specified what new stuff will be coming to the sequel in the next twelve months, but a detailed roadmap will be revealed on the game's second anniversary in September.
