Are you finding the campaign of Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 too easy to play with your friends? After the first few missions, my friend and I had reached this point. I was hosting the lobby when I had trouble setting to "Normal", like I do in 90% games.
Normal was perfect for the introductory missions, but when another player joined the game, the Tyranids were unable to fight well. We decided to play Space Marine 2 on the second-highest difficulty level, Veteran, to avoid getting bored. Turns out that Veteran isn't a step above Normal, but rather a massive leap. Not only did we lose three armor pips for just two, but the enemies became more aggressive.
In just a few minutes, the Discord chat went a lot from being mostly silent to a cacophony "Oh crap," "Jeez, he almost got him," and "F*ck, I went down." I was used to ignoring a horde when there were bigger enemies around because they did not deal much chip damage. But on Veteran, Tyranids can bleed you dry in seconds. Veteran difficulty requires me to parry the melee attacks of higher-tier Tyranid Warriors and Heresy Snipers, as just two or three hits can be enough to kill me.
There are four difficulty levels in total for the campaign.
- Easy to Use
- Normal
- Veteran
- Angel of Death
We realized how brutal Space Marine 2's health system is when enemies became strong enough to kill us. To heal, you must either use a medical stim that is extremely rare or kill an enemy within seconds of losing health. One exception: The host player controlling Titus and only this player has the power of gaining health and recharging shields on a lengthy cooldown. Meanwhile, my co-op buddies are stuck with Chairon's and Gadriel’s abilities that I don't remember because they're not as useful.
Shields recharge but it is not uncommon to be anxiously running around the entire mission, glancing at how much health you still have. If you go down three times, the mission fails. Thankfully, you can come back to a checkpoint with your health fully restored.
We haven't tried the hardest difficulty level yet, Angel of Death. I'm not certain we will. Veteran is challenging enough to make you sweat, but our group doesn't die very often. I think this is a sign that we have found the sweet spot. If you try it and it feels off right away, you can easily switch back to the difficulty you prefer in the pause menu. (But only the host is able to do this).
It's worth noting, too, that the difficulty levels for the cooperative Operations mode are different from the campaign parameters. Last night, we played an Operation on the lowest level of difficulty, and it was just as difficult, if not more, than Veteran. Beware and good hunting.
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