Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 writer Focus Leisure and developer Saber Interactive have issued an apology to disgruntled followers over the sport’s controversial $5 Voice Pack DLC, making it free for all and providing refunds to prospects.
The debut Chapter Voice Pack sparked Space Marine 2’s first correct backlash, with some even accusing Focus and Saber of false promoting. It consists of 450 re-recorded voicelines and a novel Space Marine Head beauty for the Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Black Templars chapters, and was solely obtainable as a standalone buy (a lot to the annoyance of some followers). But it surely’s the way in which these new voice traces are included into the sport that brought on an “overwhelmingly unfavourable” Steam person overview ranking for the DLC.
Even with an outfitted DLC voice line, Space Marine 2 reverts to the category’ default voice when interacting with goals, like when looking out a Cadian’s physique for codes in Inferno. This was surprising and, in gameplay, makes for a jarring swap. It means the Ultramarine normal voice traces nonetheless play for all of the dialogue associated to interactive components inside missions, so your Space Marine’s voice will flip flop backwards and forwards, which feels awkward and janky. In the meantime, some stated they felt misled by the 450 re-recorded voice traces quantity on the Steam web page, believing this to embody re-recorded voice traces throughout all languages, not only one.
The backlash to the voice pack soured what might need been a optimistic time for Space Marine 2, given the addition of the Techmarine playable class alongside patch 12.0. As a substitute, Space Marine 2 suffered its first significant group uproar since its record-breaking launch in 2024. Space Marine 2 has been an enormous success for Focus, Saber, and Warhammer proprietor Video games Workshop, and is credited with main a military of latest followers to the interest. It is so profitable that Video games Workshop has made Titus, the sport’s protagonist, the poster boy of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop recreation. Space Marine 3 was introduced as in improvement quickly after Space Marine 2 got here out. So this DLC difficulty got here as one thing of a shock.
Now, Focus and Saber have lastly addressed the scenario, issuing a joint assertion to followers in a post on social media.
“Pricey Space Marine 2 gamers,” the assertion started. “We heard your suggestions relating to the Chapter Voice Pack DLC and needed to handle it. It is apparent this DLC has failed to meet your expectations and we’re sorry about that. Delivering high quality content material – free or not – is a precedence for us.
“Because of this we have determined to supply a refund to all house owners of the DLC, and to make it free any more. We’re at the moment organising the refund with platforms house owners and can come again quickly with extra information. At all times grateful on your dedication to our recreation.”
In a latest interview with IGN, Saber improvement chief Tim Willits denied the suggestion that the precedence is now the event of Space Marine 3, promising extra content material to come.
“No, we really simply launched a giant replace and it is nonetheless going sturdy,” Willits stated, referring to the Techmarine replace. “Have been we at quantity 4 on the highest gross sales? So it is nonetheless doing nice for us. And we simply launched a giant replace. And like World Conflict Z, we’re nonetheless making content material for that, whereas the group clearly works on Space Marine 3.”
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.