Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2has been out for about six months now, keeping a loyal niche happy and playing all throughout. This might be a sign thatSpace Marine 2is, in fact, pretty good, and that you don’t need live service trickery to maintain a healthy player base.
But that’s not the kind of insight we care about today.
You’re here because you want moreWarhammer. WeirderWarhammer, if such a thing exists. Troublingly unbalanced, entirely untestedWarhammer. Too many enemies, a dozen friendlies, multiplayer bots in single players, stuff that will make your game crash — the works. If that’s you, here are a fewSpace Marine 2mods to get you started.
Project Rubicon
Project Rubiconis a small, unique mod that completely changes the combat ofSpace Marine 2by making kills restore a fraction of your health. ThinkDOOM Eternal, but a lot jankier and without glory kills. The specific rules are a little different (kills restore armor, finisher moves restore health) but the objective is the same.
Together with the damage increase for both enemies and players packaged in the same month,Project RubiconturnsSpace Marine 2into a much swingier game in which there’s no safety behind your massive armor. Relentless aggression is the only viable strategy.
Disable Intros
A staple of every game mod list,Disable Introsdoes exactly what it says on the cover. There isn’t much to add, it’s just a mod thatremoves the unskippable logosthat play every time you turn on the game.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to keep this mod installed when participating in online games, even ifSpace Marine 2doesn’t allow mods in public matchesanymore. If the game won’t let you join a public lobby with this mod on you’re able to just disable the mod. Please don’t risk getting banned to skip 10 seconds of logos. You can get a mod that lets you use mods in online public matches, sure, but is it really worth it?
Deluge
Deluge – Larger Squads and Enemy Spawnsis a long name for a mod, but at least it makes itself clear. IfSpace Marine 2left your craving for tyranids and chaos unanswered, or if you wish every mission would inundate you and your squad with just too many enemies, this is the mod for you. However, a deluge of practice targets requires an adequate number of manned guns, and for this, too, you can trustDeluge.
Your squad can have as many as ten members, though that depends on the kind of squad you pick. The Nexus Mods page mentions thatDelugeis not balanced, nor is it meant to be. Let’s be honest, if you’re eyeing a mod like this your first thought is probably not “Does this provide a fair and balanced challenge?”
Better Feeling Weapons
Despite its name,Better Feeling Weaponsis as much about game feel as it is about rebalancing difficulty by adjusting the weapons’ damage, mostly in the player’s favor. Needless to say, this is another not-quite-balanced mod. But then again, so are they all.Better Feeling Weaponschanges the behavior of most weapons in the games in a few key areas, with the damage increase being the least interesting.
Staggering was changed significantly, with some weapons now able to interrupt the tankiest units in the game in a few hits, making those massive guns feel more like their size. Weapon spreading, which normally increases the longer you hold the trigger, now regenerates at different rates depending on the weapon. Finally, the weapon kick has been somewhat tweaked.
Enhanced Melee
Unlike other combat overhaul mods,Enhanced Meleeisn’t unbalanced. In the words of the creator, “This mod istechnically overpowered”, an important distinction that I’m grateful was made clear. The bonuses granted to close-quarters fighting in this mod are frankly absurd, and hand-to-hand fighting is completely broken.
Common weapons get a damage bump of 60%, faster combos, and easier parrying that triggers early and stays active for longer. Better melee weapons get even better bonuses, with Relics being 240% stronger and a parry time that is seemingly five times longer than before.
Astartes Overhaul
Warhammer Workshop’sAstartes Overhaulis probably the biggest mod forSpace Marine 2, with new weapons, reworked existing equipment, three new classes, and more customization. But while this is the flashiest part of the mod, much more has been changed than has been added. This includes rebalanced player health and damage, longer enemy waves, and better companion AI (though it’s hard to tell exactly how it has been made better).
Astartes Overhaulis a great mod if you want a slightly harder, probablyless balanced experiencethat trades immediacy for depth and accuracy to theWarhammer 40K lore.
Active AI
Unlike some elaborate AI overhaul mods,Active AIis a simple modification that reduces the downtime between actions taken by enemy and friendly NPCs. In vanillaSpace Marine 2, it’s not rare to see enemies form a crowd around you without doing anything, waiting politely until you’re done killing their friend. The same can happen to your bot companions, which is even weirder since theytake turns shooting their ranged weapons.
WhatActive AIdoes in practice is to remove the countdown between simple actions like attacking and dodging for every NPC, friendly or foe. It also makes it more likely that your companion will change their target when necessary and makes their ultimate ability charge up faster. Like many other mods,Active AIassumes you’ve installed theAstartes Overhaulmod, though it should be possible to run it alone.
Noclip
Noclipsounds like a very straightforward mod, something that lots of games come packaged with as a cheat or console command, but that’s not entirely accurate. Noclipping, in this case, doesn’t refer to the ability to phase through walls and go out of bounds by removing collisions between your character and the game world. Instead, in this case, the limitation on theflight distance of Camera Modeis what’s lifted.
For some reason,Space Marine 2’s otherwise solid Camera Mode kept a tight leash on the player, forcing them inside a tight range around the main character. This made taking panoramic shots impossible, as well as forcing the not especially appealing protagonist into every picture.Noclipis the long-awaited solution to an extremely minor problem, as every good mod should be.
