Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is set for Patch 8 and with it the hotly anticipated Horde Mode, which fans hope will breathe new life into the third-person action game.
In a post on publisher Focus Entertainment’s website, developer Saber Interactive revealed how the Horde mode will work. It’s for up to three players (you can play solo with two bots, like in the PvE Operations mode), and, as you’d expect, you fight increasingly difficult waves of Tyranids and Chaos. Your class and weapon levels are based on your PvE levels.
“Difficulty will increase for each wave defeated, so you’ll have to prepare yourself accordingly to vaporize as many waves as you can,” Focus and Saber said.
The companies also offered a first look, below, at the Horde mode map, which takes place in Kadaku. Kadaku is the Imperial Jungle World Space Marine 2 players will already be familiar with. The Horde Mode release date is yet to be announced, but it sounds like it’s not too far off.
As for what else Patch 8 will bring, Focus and Saber players can expect more free and premium DLC, including a Blood Angels cosmetic pack, a White Scars Champion Pack, and a rebalancing of the Absolute difficulty.
Fans had indicated that they wanted Absolute difficulty to be even tougher in order to differentiate it more from Lethal difficulty, and it sounds like that’s on the cards.
“Last month, we did a community poll on Focus Together to collect your feedback and see what you were interested to see on the Absolute difficulty to differentiate it more from Lethal,” Focus and Saber said. “You will see the changes we made as part of the 8.0 update. Expect an even tougher challenge!”
Expect a lot more from Patch 8, the companies said. PTS players will be able to test Patch 8 before it's released.
Focus and Saber had previously confirmed that Space Marine 2 is getting a new class, but there’s no mention of it in the Patch 8 post. Most assume it will be the Apothecary, as close to a medic class as Space Marines have. But there is hope that it could be the Librarian, which would mean super cool warp-powered space magic. Also confirmed coming are new PvE operations and melee weapons.
There’s a lot happening in the world of Space Marine 2, despite the surprise announcement that development of Space Marine 3 development had begun. Space Marine 2’s year one roadmap remains in place.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
