Space Marine 2's huge Obelisk Update adds a long-awaited new mission, reworked melee combat, bonus XP, and goat-bird-wizards hurtling towards you on living flying saucers

GamesThird Person ShooterWarhammer 40000: Space Marine 2Space Marine 2’s huge Obelisk Update adds a long-awaited new mission, reworked melee combat, bonus XP, and goat-bird-wizards hurtling towards you on living flying saucersWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Saber Interactive, Focus Entertainment)

A space marine fighting a tzaangor on a flying disc in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

The headliner is a new Operation, appropriately called Obelisk. Taking place during the final mission of the story campaign, it charges your team with flipping one of those big magical thingies to help Titus save the day. It’s cool to see this one added—it was actually a slightly weird omission before, as the story mission heavily hints at a parallel co-op mission that until now wasn’t there. Now all’s right with the (daemon) world, and more multiplayer content to blast through is always welcome.

There are also major changes being made to the feel of melee combat. Saber Interactive reckons that right now there’s too much focus on parrying and counter-attacking with gun strike, and not enough on old-fashioned beatdowns. The solution? Melee damage is going up across the board, and blocking now grants you a stacking buff to your next attack. At three stacks, it’ll even deal a blast of AoE damage and restore an armour segment.

Beyond just making the lives of every Bulwark player substantially better, this does sound like a clever change. I’ve certainly found it frustrating how parry-focused the action can be—in the story mode, where the focus is always on you anyway and enemy numbers tend to be smaller, it’s not so bad, but in Operations it often felt like I had to cheese the parry system to stay alive.

(Image credit: Saber Interactive, Focus Entertainment)

A group of space marines with a towering magical obelisk in the distance in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

I also get to say every online gamer’s two favourite words: “More XP!” The new Extermination Bonus aims to reward players for fighting their way through waves of enemies rather than trying to skip them or rush ahead. At the end of a mission, you’ll be graded based on how many of the spawned enemies you actually killed, with higher percentages granting a big XP boost.

There’s also a raft of bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements, and the ability to customise the colour of your helmet lenses. And on the paid content side of things, the new season pass offers a Rhino-load of Dark Angels-themed cosmetics, including a stylish robed look for Bulwarks that sports some of the most brilliantly ridiculous helmet-wings I’ve ever seen.

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(Image credit: Saber Interactive, Focus Entertainment)

A Dark Angel space marine of the Bulwark class in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

The Obelisk Update is out now, so you can jump in and try out the new stuff right away. And on the horizon, it looks like in the next patch and the patch after you can expect further balancing of ranged weapons, with weapon perks and the grenade launcher particularly under the microscope.

For the full list of changes, check outthe official blog.

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