February is bringing a major content injection to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, as developer Saber Interactive and publisher Focus Entertainment have officially rolled out Patch 12.0, also known as the Techmarine Update. Space Marine 2 is available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, and allows players to step into the armor of the Ultramarines from Warhammer 40,000. While the title was initially released in 2024, Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment have never stopped adding to the game.
This Techmarine update is the latest addition after the massive anniversary update for Space Marine 2 in September. That September content brought a new end-game chase in the form of Stratagem Missions and the Accolades currency used for unique Hero weapon variants. On top of that, additions to PvP, new enemies, and a new Operation were plenty to keep players busy.
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With Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 in the works, fans of the franchise have plenty of incentive to jump back into another recent Warhammer game.
Welcome the Techmarine Class, a New Operation, and New Equipment
The headline addition is Space Marine 2‘s formerly leaked Techmarine, a battlefield engineer steeped in the mechanical dogma of the Adeptus Mechanicus. In Space Marine 2, that translates into a marine built for control, support, and punishing counter-pressure. Alongside the new class, a new Operation, Disruption, is available, as well as several new pieces of equipment. Restorative Stims can now be found on battlefields, and the armory of Hero variant weapons has been updated, now featuring an Omnissian Axe, Heavy Bolt Rifle, and Combat Knife.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
Space Marine 2’s Patch 12.0 also expands the game’s personalization options. One of the update’s more immersive additions is the optional Chapter Voice Pack 1. For a fee of $5, it introduces more than a thousand newly recorded voice lines. These draw inspiration from iconic Space Marine Chapters, including the Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Black Templars. And for Season Pass 2 owners, the Raven Guard Champion Pack adds new armor and visual flair inspired by the stealth-focused Chapter, alongside fresh armor pieces themed around the Carcharodons.
Players picking up the Techmarine class will find themselves armed with the brutal Omnissian Axe, and its deliberate swings make a great Space Marine 2 weapon for mincing swarms and controlling the battlefield. Complimenting the weapon, the class’ gadget-focused toolkit allows for the repair of friendly turrets in Operations and other PvE modes. For PvP fans, the update doesn’t leave Eternal War behind either. The Techmarine’s Chaos-aligned counterpart, the Warpsmith of the Red Corsairs, also joins the fray.
Beyond headline features, the February 2026 update includes a slate of balance adjustments, performance improvements, and bug fixes aimed at smoothing out the overall experience. While the Techmarine understandably dominates the conversation, quality-of-life updates continue to be a consistent priority for the development team. Ongoing post-launch support has steadily refined matchmaking stability, class balance, and mission pacing, and Patch 12.0 builds on that foundation rather than simply layering new content on top.
The scale of this update signals that Space Marine 2’s second year of support is far from a maintenance phase. Instead, Saber Interactive appears committed to evolving the game’s tactical ecosystem. By introducing a control-focused class like the Techmarine, the studio adds a new variable that could shift team compositions in both cooperative and competitive modes. Squad synergy may become even more important as players experiment with how the Techmarine complements other Space Marine 2 PvE classes.
In the broader landscape of Warhammer 40,000 adaptations, Space Marine 2 continues to carve out a strong identity by balancing spectacle with mechanical depth. The grimdark setting has always lent itself to bombastic action, but ongoing updates like this demonstrate a willingness to fine-tune systems and expand tactical variety. With Techmarines now deployed, and Space Marine armor customization options broadened, February’s update stands as one of the game’s most substantial yet. Whether players are carving through Tyranids in PvE Operations or clashing with rival Astartes in Eternal War, Patch 12.0 ensures there are new tools — and new identities — to bring to the front lines.
Space Marine 2 Update 12.0 – Patch Notes
NEW FEATURES
New Class: Techmarine
We are introducing a new playable class: the Techmarine! This mighty technician specialises in crowd control and area defense, handling multiple combat tasks simultaneously. This is primarily possible with his Servo-Gun ability. When activated, it locks onto enemies in a line of sight and automatically fires at them while the Techmarine continues fighting in melee or range. Furthermore, the Servo-Gun allows executing Gun Strikes without interrupting other actions.
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Fixed “Furious Gun Strike” prestige perk not activating properly.
- “Revive Surge” prestige perk has been replaced with “Indomitable”: “You become Invulnerable to Damage while activating Tarantula Sentry Gun”
- “Chained Headshots” prestige perk now correctly increases headshot damage.
- “Volatile Sentry” prestige perk damage boost increased from 40% to 1000%.
- “Replenishing Salvo” perk cooldown reduced from 90 to 75.
- Fixed “Lethal Perimeter” perk, it now correctly reduces the energy per shot for all types of Servo-Guns.
- “Arc Cleave” perk damage bonus decreased from 25% to 20%.
- “Explosive Enfilade” perk now works with Sanctified Wrath equipment.
- “Augmented Tarantula” perk’s damage boost increased from 25% to 30%.
- “Augmented Tarantula” perk now correctly increases the turret’s ammo.
- “Methodical Destruction” perk now correctly debuffs enemies.
- “Designated target” perk now correctly debuffs enemies.
- “Omnissian Axe Deflection” perk duration increased from 5 to 10 seconds.
- “Explosives Adept” perk damage increased from 20% to 35%.
- “Lethal Perimeter” perk using 50% less energy per shot instead of 20%.
- Servo-gun damage now correctly scales with difficulty.
- Precision Servo-gun damage reduced by 10%.
- Bolter Servo-gun cooldown reduced by 20%.
Game Director’s note:
We hope you will really like the new class. We’ve tried to make sure that this class plays differently from the rest.
Thank you for your feedback on him from PTS. We’ve tried to address most of it, but there are some big changes that we didn’t have time to implement. There will be more improvements and perks reworks in upcoming patches.
New Weapon: Omnissian Axe
With the Techmarine class, you will also get the chance to try out its signature weapon, the Omnissian Axe! This weapon is capable of dealing massive damage to both a single target with its standard attacks and to surrounding enemies with its finishing heavy attacks. And as a starting heavy attack, you can perform a powerful charge attack that can hit all enemies in its path.
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Improved responsiveness of Omnissian Rush attacks.
- Sweeping Whirl damage increased by 100%.
- The third light attack in the combo now correctly breaks the enemy’s guard.
- “Armour Siphon” perk now activates properly.
- Fixed the amount of HP which taken when using the “Iron Surge” perk.
- “Executioner” perk duration increased to 5 seconds.
- Added an energy explosion effect for “Explosive Strike” perk.
- “Mighty Blast” perk second explosion deals correct damage.
- “Expose” perk is now correctly applied.
- “Cleaving Strike” perk no longer triggers environmental hazards explosions.
New PvE Content: Tarantula Sentry Gun
Techmarines can also locate and activate Sentry Turrets in PvE missions. These Tarantula-type emplacements offer automatic suppressive fire support against nearby enemies. Sentry Turrets have limited ammo and would go into standby mode after running out of it, but a Tech Marine can re-awaken them to restore their supplies.
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Fixed double HP and damage scaling by difficulties.
- Increased spawn rate of turrets by ~50%.
- Added more potential spawn areas for turrets.
- Increased range of turret outline for better visibility.
Game Director’s note:
Rest assured that turrets are still going to be very effective.
Sentries (along with lots of other cool stuff 😉) will be added in Siege in the next big content update.
New PvE Map: Disruption
Space Marine forces have been deployed to the Hive City of Avarax. Their initial mission is to reinforce the overwhelmed Cadian defenses against a massive Tyranid swarm. Subsequently, they will join a Dreadnought to eliminate Thousand Sons forces that have penetrated the city’s lower levels.
New PvE Equipment: Restorative Stimms
The Restorative Stimms, a new PvE healing Equipment, has been added, encouraging aggressive playstyles. Upon use, it restores an initial small amount of health, then a large amount of Contested Health over a period of time.
New Customisation Feature: Shared Heads for PvE / PvP Characters
Added an option to pick any face for PvE and PvP characters in Armour Customisation. Class restrictions no longer apply (i.e you can equip Assault’s head on the Heavy)
New Tech Feature: Siege Host Migration
Supported Host Migration for Siege Mode: If a server crash occurs, the game will continue on a new server from the last saved state.
New Feature: VO Selector
Added an option to pick and customise voices for PvE and PvP characters. You’ll find the Voice Selector in the “Edit Armour” menu of the Armouring Hall.
New Battlefield Conditions
21 new Battlefield Conditions have been added to expand the variety of daily and weekly Stratagems.
Custom Stratagems Mode for PvE
Players can now create private matches with any combination of Battlefield Conditions. This allows players to customize their games, set their own Stratagems or simply enjoy some light-hearted carnage (note that all rewards will be disabled in Custom Stratagems mode).
New Heroic Items
Added 3 Heroic Weapons:
- Argent Edge (Combat Knife – Fencing type)
- Ultima Ratio (Omnissian Axe – Fencing type)
- Deathwatch (Heavy Bolt Rifle with Grenade Launcher)
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Argent Edge riposte damage increased by 50%.
New DLC Content:
Included in Season Pass 2:
- Raven Guard Champion Pack (Assault Champion + Bolt Pistol)
- Carcharodons Chapter Pack (Unlike the other Cosmetic Packs, the Carcharodons Cosmetic Pack does not add a new Heraldry page to unlock the cosmetic items. Instead, the armour pieces will be automatically unlocked and added to your armour sets once you purchase the pack.)
Not included in any Season Pass:
- 3 Custom Heads + VO for PvE Characters. (Space Wolves / Blood Angels / Black Templars)
GAMEPLAY AND BALANCING TWEAKS
PvE Perks
Tactical
Balanced Distribution: Both negative and positive effects are increased from 10% to 15%.
Kraken Penetrator Rounds: All bolter weapons now deal 50% more damage with body shots.
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Kraken Penetrator Rounds now correctly apply to bolter rounds only.
Game Director’s note:
We hear your feedback regarding bolters doing too little body damage.
This behavior is kind of intentional. The reason is that Space Marine 2’s engagement distances and recoil are extremely low, while average enemy size is rather big. It’s very difficult to completely miss your enemies. This is why the only skill element of ranged combat is to aim for the head, and this is why head shots are so important for bolt weapons.
That being said, I agree that we’ve overtuned headshots way too much, especially with how different perks and multipliers stack with each other. We will reduce the gap between body shots and head shots. But it’s not going to be as easy as applying this perk by default to everybody.
We need to adjust base damage of all bolter weapons and then adjust damage sensitivity on all enemies and do it case by case. So, a big overhaul is coming in this area rather soon, but do keep in mind that aiming for the head will remain the proper way of using bolters.
Sniper
Efficient Readiness: Now the effect lasts 5 seconds after deactivation.
Ambush: Now forces stagger to the enemies.
Vantage Point: Added an indication when ready.
Assault
Squad Cohesion: Effect is increased from 10% to 15%.
Hammer of Wrath: Is now a Prestige Perk replacing “Commendation”.
Commendation: Removed.
Strong Strike: New perk, taking the original place of “Hammer of Wrath”: “Hitting an enemy with an attack after a Jump Pack Dash restores Jump Pack Ability Charge by 1. Cooldown 10 seconds.”
Winged Fury: Now works with all stances of Power Sword.
Firearms in PvE
Bolt Rifle
Base damage is increased by 10% for versions:
- Drogos Reclamation – Beta (Artificer)
- Ophelian Liberation – Beta (Relic)
Bolt Carbine (Marksman Version)
Base damage is increased by 11% for versions:
- Drogos Reclamation Marksman (Artificer)
- Ophelian Liberation Marksman (Relic)
Inferno Pistol
Gunstrike damage is increased by 22%.
Volkite Pistol
Gunstrike damage is increased by 9%.
Sanctified Wrath Reliquary
Bonus to Melee Damage is increased from 25% to 35%.
Effect duration is increased from 15 to 20 seconds.
Melee in PvE
Damage of all Artificer and Relic Balanced type melee weapons was increased by about 15% on average.
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Heroic Chainsword and Power Sword damage increased by 10%.
PvP
- Fixed restoring armour by hitting an enemy for Power Axe.
- Fixed issue with 3rd attack in Power Sword combo dealing too much damage.
- Blindness effect from Shock Grenade is decreased from 2 sec to 1,5 sec.
Rewards
- Siege Mode: Rebalanced rewards for waves completion first 5 waves grant less XP, while later waves grant more XP.
- Stratagems: Hard difficulty Stratagems no longer grant XP.
Gameplay QoL
- Contested health no longer fades away during grab animations
- Rebalanced melee attacks that have multiple attacks: Now they restore contested health with each strike instead of just the first one.
- Slightly adjusted hitboxes of a few melee attacks so they would connect more easily against large enemies.
- Fixed an issue where Bolt Sniper Rifle and Las Fusil would miss their targets at extremely long range. Aim Assist at such distances has also been slightly increased.
- Improved properties of bullet magnetism for Chaos enemy NPC: Chaos Spawns , Rubric Marines, Tzaangors, Terminators. Making them slightly easier to headshot at medium and long ranges.
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Jump Pack dash can be used to cancel any player melee animation.
- Improved controls responsiveness after using Jump Pack Dash attacks.
CUSTOMISATION
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Added and updated a few Champion parts to the Custom Armour Set pieces:
- Added Ultramarine Champion Tabard to Tactical
- Added Imperial Fist Champion Tabard to Tactical
- Added robes to Dark Angels Champion Bulwark’s chest
- Added Dark Angels Champion shoulder pads to Heavy
- Updated White Scars Champion chest on Tactical to include belt accessories
- Added Black Templars Champion shoulder pads to Heavy
- Added Blood Angels Champion shoulder pads and backpack to Bulwark
- Added the option to switch and apply Heroic Weapons skins to other weapons (not applicable to special weapons i.e combi-weapon).
- Lots of minor customisation fixes for both Loyalists and Chaos.
🟡 Changes from PTS:
- Added 4 more shared customisation slots.
- Added missing unlock conditions for Power Axe skins in PvP.
LEVELS
- Lots of minor fixes with level geometry.
ENEMIES
Lots of minor fixes with animations.
GENERAL FIXES
- Fixed: The plasma weapon perk “Fast venting” reduced the cooling by ~7.5% instead of 15% as announced in the tooltip.
- Fixed a bug with the Heroic Heavy Bolt Pistol not interrupting enemy reinforcements with body shots.
- Fixed a bug with the Controller Aim Assist strength depending on camera FOV.
- Lots of minor bug fixes.
- Lots of minor localisation bug fixes.
- Lots of minor UI and sound fixes.
TECH
- Crash fixes and general stability improvements.
- Memory optimisations.
- Minor performance improvements.
- Minor loading times optimization.
- General connectivity improvements.
- Released
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September 9, 2024
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
- Publisher(s)
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Focus Entertainment
