What's up, gamers from Hive Gaming, how are you all doing? I hope you're doing great, because today I decided to try out another game mode before going back to finish up the PvE missions. This one also belongs to the PvE side of things, and it's called SIEGE. This is a horde-style mode with objectives, where we have to secure a Fortress that's going to be under constant attack. Let's get into it.
The different Siege difficulties
Each difficulty here is actually a different map, which is something I didn't expect going in. I haven't been able to play anything other than Normal yet, since the level requirements for the classes I'm currently playing don't let me access the higher difficulties just yet. Still, I can tell you that surviving my first 10 waves on Normal difficulty was honestly pretty tough. Between covering the objectives and surviving enemies that keep getting stronger and more numerous wave after wave, even on what's supposedly the easy difficulty, it gets genuinely steep really fast.
What surprised me the most is how quickly the pacing escalates. The first couple of waves feel manageable, you're dealing with regular Tyranids or heretics depending on what's attacking that round, and you've got enough breathing room to reposition, loot a bit, and plan your next move. But by wave 5 or 6, that breathing room starts disappearing fast. Enemies come from multiple directions at once, some waves throw in tougher variants you have to prioritize immediately, and if you're not constantly aware of your ammo and your positioning, things spiral out of control embarrassingly quickly.
By the time I hit wave 10, my squad and I were basically running on fumes, out of grenades, low on ammo, and just trying to hold a tiny chunk of the fortress with whatever we had left. And that's apparently still considered an early milestone in this mode, which tells you a lot about how much harder this is clearly designed to get the further you push.
New mechanics you learn along the way
Siege has a mechanic called "blessings." These blessings are pieces of equipment or boosts that you can gradually acquire as you collect tokens, which you then spend during the breaks between waves. So you really have to learn to manage your tokens carefully and think hard about what you're buying, because surviving effectively isn't just about the horde that's coming next, it's about the one after that too. You buy these blessings at small altars called Requisition Terminals scattered around the fortress.
This system adds a surprising layer of strategy to what could've easily just been a straightforward "shoot everything that moves" mode. Every time a wave ends and you get that short window to breathe, you're not just resting, you're making real decisions. Do I spend my tokens now on a damage boost that'll help me survive the next wave, or do I save up for something bigger a couple of waves down the line, knowing full well I might not survive long enough to use it if I don't upgrade now? That tension between immediate survival and long-term planning is honestly one of the smartest things I've seen this mode do.
I also noticed that the Requisition Terminals aren't always conveniently placed either. Sometimes you have to make a quick decision about whether it's worth running across part of the map, potentially exposing yourself to incoming enemies, just to grab a blessing before the next wave kicks off. It's a small detail, but it adds this extra bit of risk versus reward that keeps you engaged even during the supposedly "calm" moments between hordes.
Action all the way to the top
This mode is absolutely packed with action from start to finish, constantly, across a map that, while it doesn't change drastically since it's technically just one "sector," still manages to feel so loaded with action that it feels like you're fighting a thousand battles in that one space. I really think this is a case where, when they said they were going to build a shooter, they committed to it completely, because the battles here are genuinely spectacular.
What really gets me is how the game manages to keep a single, relatively contained space feeling fresh wave after wave. You'd think fighting in the same fortress sector repeatedly would start to feel repetitive, but it really doesn't, mostly because the way enemies spawn, flank, and pressure different parts of the map changes constantly. One wave might come pouring in from the main gate, forcing you to hold a choke point, while the next one comes from multiple flanks at once, forcing your whole squad to split up and cover different angles. It keeps you reading the battlefield instead of just falling into a repetitive shooting gallery routine.
The sheer scale of enemies on screen during the later waves is something else too. You start seeing enemies stacking up in numbers that genuinely make you question whether you have enough ammo to deal with all of them, and that's exactly the kind of tension a good horde mode needs. Combine that with this game's already excellent gunplay and melee combat, which I've talked about plenty in my previous posts, and you get encounters that feel chaotic in the best possible way, loud, bloody, and absolutely relentless.
Visually, it holds up just as well as everything else in this game too. Even with this many enemies thrown at you simultaneously, I didn't notice any slowdown or stutter, everything stayed smooth and sharp, with explosions, muzzle flashes, and dismemberment effects flying everywhere without the game ever feeling like it was struggling to keep up. For a mode built entirely around throwing as many enemies at you as possible, that kind of technical stability says a lot about how well this game is optimized.
There are still modes and missions left to try
Well, gamers, there's still a long road ahead and plenty of juice left to squeeze out of this game. There are still modes left to try and missions left to complete, plus a whole year of updates coming that look absolutely packed with content. Between Siege, the remaining Operations missions, Stratagems, which I still haven't touched, and whatever the roadmap has planned to go forward, it's clear this game has no intention of running out of things to offer anytime soon.
So, that's it for today's post. See you in a future article with more adventures from Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2. There's clearly a lot more ground to cover, and I'm more than happy to keep bringing you along for the ride.
