Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Shadowdrops Purgation Update, Patch 13 Adds New PvE Mission and a Lot More

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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 shadowdropped its Purgation Update to coincide with the Warhammer Skulls showcase. Patch 13 is launching now across all platforms.

Patch 13 adds a new PvE mission, a major update to Siege Mode, a new weapon (the Bolt Carbine Sidearm), and the Iron Hands Chapter Pack. There’s also a new Practice Arena in the Battle-Barge.

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The Iron Hands Chapter Pack is the last of the First Founding loyalist Chapters to receive a DLC. Available for free to all Season Pass 2 owners, it contains a Techmarine Champion skin, an exclusive Omnissian Axe skin, and four unique, mechanical armour pieces honouring the 10th Legion. The patch notes, courtesy of the Focus Entertainment website, are below.

And here's everything announced at Warhammer Skulls 2026 itself, if you need a catch up.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Purgation Update patch notes:

NEW FEATURES

  • New Operation: Purgation

The Combat Squad Veridian must reclaim a Mechanicus facility in the Kadaku swamps. Communication is lost, and Nozick's Research is still inside the laboratory.

  • New Feature: Battle Simulator

A new customisable battle arena in which you can practice, fighting various enemies and their combinations, as well as trying different weapons, equipment and loadouts.

  • New Feature: New Loadouts & Perk Swapping

Players can now switch perk loadouts alongside weapons during a session. Perks loadouts are tied to your Weapon loadouts, so prepare accordingly.

  • New Feature: Wargear 2.0

​Expanded customisation options allow each class to wear multiple wargear at once, such as capes, iron halos and sensor antennas.

We are going to continue to expand the customization system. With the next update we are also going to add robes and tabards to the shared wargear pool. But as in this update, players will have to earn their wargear. Also, more unique wargear items are coming.

​Known issues that will be fixed in an upcoming hotfix:

  • Iron Halos cannot be customised depending on the equipped Backpack for the Tactical & Bulwark.
  • Storm Shields cannot be customised if the Bulwark has an Iron Halo equipped.
  • Wargears are not available if the player selects an Armour Set Template.
  • New Siege Content: Siege 2.0 Update

A massive update for Siege Mode. New items to buy in the Siege shop, fresh bosses, additional objectives, and a brand-new Blessings and Atonements system. Learn more in the dedicated part below.

  • New Feature: Trials of Resolve

New challenging Ordeals with unique rewards.

  • New Weapon: Bolt Carbine One-Handed

New secondary weapon for Assault and Bulwark.

Something more interesting than another sidearm is actually on the horizon 😜

  • New PvE Equipment: Pyreblaster Canister

A piece of equipment that functions like an incendiary grenade and requires to be shot to explode.

  • New Heroic Items

Added 3 Heroic Weapons to unlock with Accolades:

​Plasma Pistol - Relic Battle-Worn Plasma Pistol

Chainsword - White Scars Chainsword (Block)

Power Axe - Encarmine Axe (Block)

  • New Season Pass Content

Iron Hands Chapter Pack:

  • Techmarine Champion + Signature Omnissian Axe Skin
  • L&R Greaves;
  • L&R Gauntlets;
  • L&R Pauldrons & Decals;
  • 4 Successor Chapters

GAMEPLAY & BALANCING TWEAKS

Firearms in PvE

  • Non headshot damage increased by ~30% for bolter weapons.

As we have discussed before, we want to close the gap between body and headshot damage for ranged weapons. The issue is that headshot damage calculation was very complex, because there were 2 sources of it: enemy damage zone sensitivity and weapon itself. Which results in weird multiplicative stacking that was very hard to manage and track. With this update we are doing massive rework and cleanup where we went through each enemy and adjusted its internal damage region sensitivity.

In short, as a result: headshot TTK (Time To Kill) of all enemies should be the same, while non headshot TTK will be lower by 30%.

  • The global headshot modifier has been removed from Majoris and Extremis enemies and adjusted on Terminus enemies.
  • The headshot bonus now depends directly on the weapon’s stats, rather than on the target’s stats.
  • Weapon headshot bonus was greatly increased for all bolter weapons to compensate for removal of headshot bonus from enemies.
  • Known issue: as a result of the body shot damage rebalance, the gunstrike damage of secondary weapons shifted a lot. In some cases it increased and in some cases it decreased. This is not intentional and will be addressed in a hotfix.

PS. We haven't forgotten about contested health rework. It is still coming. The change is very big, very complicated from the technical side as well and needs to be playtested a lot. Since the Patch 13 didn't have PTS we were not comfortable to release it in the wilds.

Neo Volkite Pistol

  • Heat status effect accumulation is increased by ~16%
  • Contested health recovery increased by 18%

Plasma Pistol

  • Common shot damage increased by ~30%
  • The pistol's versions have been updated:
    • The cooling speed version now also features increased max ammo.
    • Default version is now a damage-focused version.

Plasma Incinerator

  • Common shot damage is increased by ~40%
  • Charged shot damage is increased by 10%

Burning Status Effect

  • Terminus enemies take 20% less burning damage over time on all difficulties

Melee in PvE

Power Axe

  • Fixed an issue with the “Power Wave” perk not working as intended.
  • The maximum number of damaged targets for Power Backstep without perk was increased.
  • Fixed the incorrect cooldown value in the description of the "Restoration" perk: changed from 20 to 15 seconds. The actual gameplay value was correct and has not changed.

Power Sword

  • Attack speed of all weapon versions has been slightly increased.

Heroic Weapons

  • Heroic Combat Knife - Argent Edge: the description of the weapon perk has been clarified.

PvE Perks

With this patch we are not doing much with perk balance. Let me explain our current vision and our next steps:

There aren't many perks left (~15 total across all classes) that have less than 20% relative pick rate in their column on hardest difficulty. Which sounds good in theory, but that doesn't mean that we are happy.

We need to add more "toys" for our sandbox gameplay before we start replacing perks, just like burning status effect or shock effect. They can be used in multiple ways, weapons, perks etc.We are working on many more of these that can help with perk reworks. After that, we can start the rework process, because I feel like changing numbers or conditions on perks isn't going to be effective anymore. We need more interesting stuff, and afterwards we will start big overhauls.

Our first priority is going to be Tactical class. While it's super strong in both ranged and melee combat, I think it lacks more defined "melee" build options.

Second priority is going to be Vanguard class. I think its biggest problem is that his ability is too one dimensional, especially when compared to Assault.

Third priority is going to be the Heavy class. Again, super strong and effective class. Lots of build variety, but it comes solely from his weapon loadout. His perks don't do enough to promote different playstyles.

While we are working on these big changes, you can expect continued minor adjustments and improvements.

Techmarine

  • Added Sanctified Wrath Reliquary equipment to Methodical Destruction perk so it would trigger the perk as well as other equipment;
  • Explosives Adept: Damage is increased from 35 to 50%;
  • Reinforced Position: Increased bonus from 25 to 30% less Damage and deal from 15 to 20% more Damage.

Heavy

  • Coolant Reserve: Damage bonus increase from 15 to 50%.

SIEGE MODE

Added more items to the Requisition Terminal:

  • Tarantula Sentry Gun
  • Tarantula Sentry Gun Upgrade
  • Tech-priest
  • Minefield
  • Disciplined Reinforcements
  • Techmarine
  • Explosive Resupply

Added Blessings and Atonements system:

  • Blessing and Atonements system: every 5 waves, receive a permanent blessing in the new Shrine and endure shifting atonements.

Adjusted difficulty of the Siege mode

  • Added Hive Tyrant and Vortex Beast as bosses. They can spawn on waves 5/10/15 etc…
  • Adjusted enemy spawns to be more intense.
  • Adjusted difficulty curve so enemies grow stronger much quicker and much earlier.

The intention is to make Siege mode sessions quicker and more intense. In addition to that, we are giving players more options for "build crafting" to make each run different. Since Siege mode rules have changed that much, we've reset max completed waves counter in players save files.

Siege timer reworked

  • Instead of an instant game over, the enemies will get much stronger each time the timer is triggered.

Added 2 new random side objectives

Added weekly Accolade rewards:

  • Complete 15 waves on Normal difficulty once per week to earn 50 Accolades
  • Complete 15 waves on Hard difficulty once per week to earn 100 Accolades
  • Stratagem weekly rewards reduced to 125 and 175 for Normal and Hard to compensate

The total number of Accolades that you can get per week (without Dailies) is higher than in Patch 12 and went up from 350 to 450.

Added more Siege mode weapon skins rewards

  • Screamer Pink, Deathworld Forest, Zamesi Desert for all weapons
  • Added missing coloured skins for weapons that were added later (i.e. Power Axe)

LEVELS

  • Lots of minor fixes with level geometry

GAMEPLAY QoL

  • Added a small invulnerability window after a finisher animation.
  • Improved visibility of "enemy incapacitated" VFX when it is also burning.

CUSTOMISATION

  • Added new free armour, lense, cloth, decal colour: Kakophoni Purple
  • Added new free cloth colours: Death Guard Green, Zamesi Desert, Khorne Red, Runefang Steel, Thondia Brown, Kantor Blue, Xereus Purple, Naggaroth Night, Phoenician Purple
  • Added new free lense colours: Ushabti Bone, Death Guard Green, Incubi Darkness, Kantor Blue, Warboss Green, Thunderhawk Blue, Flesh Tearers Red, Baal Red, Bad Moon Yellow, Troll Slayer Orange
  • Added new free greaves patterns: shin, boot
  • Added new free greaves decals: battleline, veteran, close support, fire support, command and one colour knee markings
  • Decal "Atlantean Spears" in the Librarium award was replaced by decal "Emperor's Spears"
  • Macragge Blue was copied into Calgar Blue. Macragge Blue has been modified. It is now closer in hue to the Macragge blue in Story Mode.
  • Improved Tyranid Pauldron and made it individual for all classes
  • Added a Tyranid Hand, unlocked by completing 13 operations on Absolute difficulty
  • Added Salamander and Space Wolves Champion Tabards for Tactical.
  • Added Space Wolves Champion Pauldron to all classes.

More interesting stuff is coming soon :)

Added more customization options for Tech Marine:

  • Left Pauldrons
  • Gauntlets

Added a lot of free decals for missing successor chapters and warbands (some of them have to be unlocked via the new Ordeals).

Lots of minor customisation fixes for both Loyalists and Chaos.

ENEMIES

Scarab Occult Terminator Ranged

  • Headshot damage is increased to compensate for bolter weapons rework.

Neurothrope

  • Headshot damage is slightly increased
  • Non headshot damage is slightly reduced
  • Health reduced by 25% to compensate bolter weapons rework
  • Lots of minor fixes with animations.

GENERAL FIXES

Fixed a bug where the Techmarine’s servo-gun gunstrike range would depend on the equipped secondary weapon.

Fixed a bug where the Plasma Pistol stopped working after the player self-revives using a Guardian Relic.

Fixed a bug where the Thermal Boost Heavy Class perk would deactivate when switching weapons, even if the magazine is half empty.

Fixed: On The Clock battlefield condition timer no longer keeps running during the outro sequence.

Fixed: Butcher's Gift battlefield condition now correctly disables contested health recovery.

Lots of minor fixes for Battlefield Conditions.

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 improvements.

General connectivity improvements.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].

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