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Space Marine 2 is a long-anticipated sequel to Relic Entertainment’s smash hit from 2011. When the sequel was announced at The Game Awards 2021, the fans went nuts. And 13 years later, Saber Interactive released the sequel, where the story continues to follow Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, first as a Deathwatch Marine, and then back again as an Ultramarine, protecting the Imperium from Tyranids. The game was initially successful, with both fans and critics praising the story and gameplay. Things looked pretty well for Saber Interactive and the publishers, Focus Entertainment. But everything changed when the latest patch arrived. Space Marine 2 players claim that the game has drastically changed for the worse, and the review scores are plummeting.
Steam Review Scores for Space Marine 2 Are Going Down
On October 17, Saber released a 4.0 Patch. Initially, everyone was glad that the game has constant updates. But after reading the patch notes and testing out the changes, the players realized something was off. It turns out that many fan-favorite mechanics have been nerfed, as well as a lot of classes. This sounds a lot like the Helldivers 2 situation, where a widely-praised game makes a couple of bad decisions and ruins its reputation.
In the same manner as with Helldivers 2, the players are “review-bombing” Space Marine 2. In the last couple of days, the game had a massive increase in negative reviews on Steam. On October 17 SM2 got 572 new negative reviews, and on October 18, it has 778 negative reviews, and counting. It is not much compared to the overall positive reviews it had from the start, but it is a cause for concern. If the trend continues, the game’s popularity may take a serious blow.
Why the Negative Reviews?
The core of the problem, as previously mentioned, is that the devs nerfed a lot of things in the game that made it fun, especially the dodge/roll, and now the game feels too difficult. “Biggest issue for me with this patch is the awful nerf of dodge/rolling. Sometimes you need to roll to avoid the Zoanthropes 4 shots, while also having 6 [Tyranid] warriors all attack at the same time and a Lictor. Now you roll and it genuinely slows you down and you can’t get away from anything.” said FanPowerful7407, and “That explains why I feel like I’m mistiming my rolls so much today. What a terrible change. I agree. Add the new map and difficulty and if they want to try this new stuff toss it in the new difficulty as a tester. Don’t alter the rest of the game and just fuck things up. Hate to see this for what otherwise has been a elite level game” agrees Neversoft4long.
Players woe that this is not the first time something like this has happened, with SuicideKingsHigh saying: “Why do developers keep tripping over this same coffee table? Give us more ways to have more fun, don’t break our favorite toys.” Girls (and boys) just wanna have fun, so it is always demoralizing when the devs try to take it from them. As mentioned by one player, review bombing seems to be the only efficient way to express your dissatisfaction.
Reviews Are Back to Positive
After a couple of changes and smart moves by the devs, everyone’s Space Marine 2 experience was positively changed. It’s great when the developers quickly respond and fix the “damage”. Now, the reviews are back up to positive.
