Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2has just received a new PvE mode calledSiege, now available at no additional cost onPS5, Xbox Series, and PC. This new mode focuses on endless enemy waves.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Siege Mode
Included in Update 8.0,Siegetasks players with defending three zones of the imperial fortress on Kadaku.After every five waves, you move forward while completing side objectives to earn valuable resources.
These can be used to buy gear, summon reinforcements (such as specializedMarines,Cadian Troopers, or even a Dreadnought), or upgrade squad stats via the mode’s shop.
Every fifth wave features powerful bosses, and after wave 15, the challenge becomes an endless survival test with escalating difficulty and shorter breaks between waves. A global timer now replaces the old wave-by-wave countdown for a smoother experience.
Other Highlights of Patch 8.0
This update also adds options like disabling bots in private matches, experimentalRTAO support, and DLSS 4 supersampling for NVIDIA 50xx GPUs.
It introduces seasonal early access content, including a new White Scars champion and cosmetic packs for various factions.
In terms of balance and gameplay, the Bulwark class now gets theThunder Hammerand new moves. Enemies on “Absolute” difficulty have been rebalanced, prestige and class perks have been updated for all specializations, and there are adjustments to weapons (pistols, revolvers, etc.), AI, animations, and collisions. Additional quality-of-life improvements include better spawn logic, expanded PvP options, and overall stability enhancements.
The successful third-person shooter—now with over 7 million copies sold—continues to expand and refine its action-packed experience.
Patch Notes
Siege Mode expands on our PVE operations, emphasizing endless enemy waves that challenge even the strongest teams. When overwhelmed, players may call reinforcements for assistance. Engage in intense battles across three distinctive sectors, each requiring strategic adaptation. Side objectives emerge during combat, providing essential resources used to summon elite Space Marines or a formidable Dreadnought, drastically shifting battlefield dynamics.
The Battlefield
The battle unfolds within a fortified Imperial stronghold on Kadaku, relentlessly attacked by endless waves of Tyranid and Thousand Sons enemies. The fortress has three rotating sectors: Defensive Positions, the Arsenal, and the Control Room. In each sector, you will face five waves of enemies before your squad advances to the next sector, ultimately cycling back to reinforce earlier positions.
Survival Against Waves
Face increasingly challenging enemy waves, with direct assaults from Tyranids and cunning sabotage by Chaos forces. Brief (1 minute) intermissions between waves offer strategic opportunities, clearly indicated through UI notifications.
Side Objectives
Dynamic tasks such as capturing strategic points or retrieving Data-slates from fallen allies deepen tactical gameplay and supply critical resources essential for continued survival.
Shop and Reinforcements
Earn Siege Mode resources through successful combat and Side Objective completion. You can spend these resources at the fortress Shop. You can:
Note about reinforcements changes from the PTS: guardsmen are now cheaper.
- Collectively pool your resources to unleash the devastating power of a Dreadnought.
Boss Encounters
Every fifth wave introduces formidable boss battles, occasionally facing multiple elite foes simultaneously. Triumph in these encounters to progress to new fortress sectors.
Infinite Waves
If your resolve endures through fifteen brutal waves, prepare for endless combat of increasing difficulty, reduced resources, and shorter preparation times. Even the Primarch of the Ultramarines understands that ultimate victory here is unlikely — but your bravery will echo through the halls of eternity.
Note about timer changes from PTS:
The biggest criticism regarding Siege mode from the community was the wave timer limit. It exists only for technical reasons. In this build we’ve made some optimizations so the Siege mode can last longer.
Timer got reworked, instead of having a limited timer per wave that can get to a very short time on higher waves, there is a timer for the entire session and each time you beat a wave the timer increases.
We’ve also adjusted the difficulty curve of infinite waves so enemies will get stronger faster after the 15th wave. These changes will make players die in fair combat rather than due to the timer. Also, with some optimizations coming down later we think we can get rid of the timer entirely.
Perfect if you’re looking for a challenge.
New Season Pass Content
GAMEPLAY AND BALANCING TWEAKS
Extended Weapon arsenal in PvE
We are adding this option only because we think it will be very cool and it’s a shame that only 1 class can use the Thunder Hammer. We are not done with Bulwark, more interesting gameplay things are to come.
New Finishers for Bulwark
Terminus Update for Absolute Difficulty
This change is made according to the community poll that we made a while ago. We think that Absolute difficulty wasn’t that hard to begin with and now with a slight power creep of constant weapons buffs, perk buffs and prestige perks the situation is much worse.
After doing multiple test we have scrapped the idea of having 2 Terminus enemies in Operations mode at the same time (except in Siege mode), because this meant that you would have to encounter them all of the time, otherwise one run with dual terminus spawns would be much harder than a run with 2 Terminus enemies spawning one by one. We are increasing the health of the Terminus enemies on Absolute difficulty because they often can die before even dealing any damage. While this may seem like it goes against poll results, keep in mind that if we had 2 Terminus enemies, that would effectively be +100% hp buff. Also we are nerfing Neurothrope base hp across all difficulty levels so its hp pool won’t become a problem for melee classes.
Instead we’ve tried to make Terminus spawns harder and more intense. We are going to continue to monitor how Absolute Difficulty is, and make necessary tweaks.
Prestige Perks Class Update
Bulwark Prestige Perks Update
Old: “Chapter Banner additionally removes negative Status Effects while active.”
New: “When the Chapter Banner is active, all Squad Members do not lose control upon taking Heavy Hits and cannot be knocked back within its zone.”
Assault Prestige Perks Update
Old: “Collecting an Armour Boost restores Ability Charge by 100%.”
New: “When charging a Ground Pound, you become Invulnerable for 3 seconds.”
Sniper Prestige Perks Update
New: “Equipment Damage radius increases by 15%.”
Heavy Prestige Perks Update
Old: ” Activating Iron Halo removes negative Status Effects.”
New: “Equipped Weapon’s Maximum Spread decreases by 25% when firing without aiming.”
Tactical Prestige Perks Update
Class Perks Updates
Bulwark Perks Update
Perks have been updated to reflect the addition of the Thunder Hammer to the Bulwark’s arsenal.
Old: “After a Shield Bash, Melee Damage increases by 30% for 10 seconds.”
New: “After a Shield Bash or Thunder Hammer Pommel Smash, Melee Damage increases by 30% for 10 seconds”.
Old: “Shield Bash deals 200% more Damage.”
New: “Shield Bash deals 200% more Damage. Thunder Hammer Pommel Smash deals 100% more Damage and deals area-of-effect Damage within a 7-metre radius. Cooldown is 5 seconds.”
Old: “After a Shield Bash, Melee Damage increases by 15%, you do not lose control upon taking Heavy Hits and you cannot be knocked back for 10 seconds”
New: “After a Shield Bash or Thunder Hammer Pommel Smash, Melee Damage increases by 15%, you do not lose control upon taking Heavy Hits, and you cannot be knocked back for 10 seconds”.
“Every 40 seconds, all Squad Members automatically restore 1 Armour Segment “ -> Cooldown decreased from 40 to 30 seconds.
Tactical Perks Update
Old: “After a Finisher, the equipped Ranged Weapon reloads automatically.”
New:“After a Finisher, the equipped Ranged Weapon reloads automatically, and your Primary Weapon deals 20% more Damage for 10 seconds”.
Old: “Recoil is reduced by 25% and Ranged damage against Extremis-level enemies is increased by 10% for all Squad Members.”
New: “Equipment Charge is restored by 1 for all Squad Members. Cooldown is 60 seconds.”
“Weapon Spread and Recoil is reduced by 20% and Ranged Damage against Terminus-level enemies is increased by 10%” -> Ranged Damage bonus increased from 10% to 15%.
Assault Perks Update
“Damage from Melee Attacks executed while sprinting or dashing increases by 40%.” -> Damage increased from 40% to 100%.
“After a Ground Pound, you take 15% less Ranged Damage, do not lose control upon taking Heavy Hits and you cannot be knocked back for 10 seconds” -> Damage reduction increased from 15% to 20%. Knock back immunity duration increased from 10 to 15 seconds.
Vanguard Perks Update
“Each Melee Attack you land reduces the Ranged Damage you take by 2% (up to 20%). If you do not land a Melee Attack for 5 seconds, the effect ends.” -> Consecutive hit multiplier increased from 2% to 5%. Max bonus increased from 20% to 30%.
“After you are grabbed or knocked back, you deal 25% more Melee Damage for 15 seconds.” -> Bonus damage increased from 25% to 30%. Duration increased from 15 to 20 seconds.
Sniper Perks Update
“Weapon Spread is reduced by 25% and Ranged Damage against Extremis-level enemies is increased by 10% for all Squad Members.” -> Ranged Damage against Extremis-level enemies increased from 10 to 15%.
“Bolt Carbines reload 20% faster, and their Weapon Spread and Recoil are reduced by 15%.”
Weapon Perks Update
Inferno Pistol Perk Update
Old: “When your Health is below 10%, Reload Speed increases by 30%”
New: “If your Armour is fully depleted, Reload Speed increases by 20%.”
Neo-Volkite Pistol Perk Update
“After a Gun Strike, heating speed increases by 30% for 6 seconds.” -> Duration increased from 2 to 6 seconds.
Combat QoL
Firearms (PvE Only)
There are not many weapon balance tweaks in this patch because our statistics show that usage and win rate for all weapons is in a good spot right now. With the next big update we are going to focus on weapon versions balance inside each archetype, because this is where we see a big room for improvements.
Bolt Pistol
Inferno Pistol
With the next patch we are going to take a closer look at PvP weapon balance.
Customisation
We are preparing a very big update for customisation, players will be able to reuse chapter champion armour parts on other classes (with lore accuracy, clipping and technical restrictions). While it’s not going to be in this patch, we wanted to mention this in this patch notes to assure you that we are going to continue expanding our customization system.
General Fixes
Intimidating Aura and Battle Focus are probably the most overpowered perks right now, but we think that it should still work independently from selected weapon
