Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is coming soon to offer you more ways to customize your Grimdark soldiers

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is set to receive a number of new features, tweaks, and improvements in the future. Publisher Focus Entertainment explained what’s coming and what’s not, based on player feedback, in a recent interview.

For those who like to customize their Space Marines, more options are currently in the works, including the ability to change faces (a great feature for those who prefer not to have their characters wear helmets).

“This isn’t a quick fix, but we are adding an option to change the face of your Marine,” Focus said.

Other pieces of Space Marine armor, including decals, hands and face masks, will also be fully customizable in future patches. More colors from the various subsequent Space Marine chapters are also being added, and Focus said it is still discussing whether players will be able to customize the appearance of their AI teammates.

Despite being requested by many players, Focus said that class-restricted cosmetics like cloaks and tabards won’t be coming to all classes, as they’re part of each class’s identity and help players quickly identify the class in combat. Players also shouldn’t expect to be able to customize their Battlebarge or Thunderhawk, as Focus said it would be “really cool” but not a priority since the art teams are currently focused on creating new maps. When it comes to customizing Chaos Space Marines in the game’s PvP mode, Focus said that there are lore restrictions that prevent some customization options. The team would still like to expand Chaos customization, but “the reality is they’re not going to be as modular as the Loyalist.”

On the gameplay side of things, Focus said there will be adjustments to some of the game’s harder difficulty settings. The Veteran campaign difficulty will be adjusted to be “fairer,” and the campaign’s AI teammates will be made less passive and more participatory in specific objectives in a future patch. For the PvE Operations mode, Focus said it recognizes that enemies on higher difficulties can be “too bullet-sponge,” making certain weapons, like the various Bolt Rifles, feel underpowered.

“That’s the core issue, not the Bolters themselves,” Focus said. “For now, we’re testing some difficulty adjustments to make sure enemies have less health but still maintain an engaging difficulty.”

Improvements to matchmaking connectivity are a top priority for the team, with a larger patch coming soon alongside new content to address the issue. Specific improvements to PvE and PvP matchmaking are also in the works. Focus said it’s working on not matching players who have the same class selected in Operations mode together, but will retain the one-player-per-class limit, at least for matchmaking. The team is instead considering removing class restrictions when playing in private lobbies — another feature the team is currently working on. On the PvP side, the team is “exploring” a feature that would rebalance teams after a match.

Other information revealed in the Q&A includes why Focus won’t be adding a FoV slider or the ability to switch shoulders when firing weapons, and why players won’t be temporarily invulnerable when performing a cinematic gun-strike attack. For more details, check out the full Q&A.

Focus has already outlined a content roadmap for Space Marine 2, with updates planned through 2025. The game’s Season 2 update, scheduled for later this year, will add new PvE missions, as well as a new enemy, weapon, and difficulty mode. Updates for 2025 include more PvP modes and maps, an expansion for the Battlebarge, and, even further out, a horde mode.

Space Marine 2 quickly became the most-played Warhammer game of all time on Steam when it released earlier this month. In GameSpot’s Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 review, we called Saber Interactive’s sequel “a more than worthy successor to the 2011 original,” with “brutally gory action” that “brings the board game to life in all its grim glory.”