Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 players are up in arms over a coveted shield that is locked behind a Twitch paywall.
Space Marine 2’s 15.0 update launched today and with it came a new set of Twitch drops. Nothing particularly special there, except the fact you need to buy one new recurring or gift subscription ($6) to claim the Victrix Guard Shield.
Fans have called on developer Saber to add this shield to Space Marine 2 ever since the game launched two years ago. It appears briefly in the campaign, with an Ultramarine holding it more in the background of the Battle Barge than anything else. It’s not been available for players to wield before.
As you’d expect, the prospect of handing $6 to Twitch just for one shield has caused quite the stink within the Space Marine 2 community. “I’m not gonna pay for a sub I’m not gonna use,” one person complained. “I just paid 39€ for the year 3 pass, which should be more than enough.” Added another: “I don’t know about you all but my ass isn’t paying 6 bucks for a shield.”
“Incredible levels of greed,” another person said. “I don’t even use Twitch except to get these rewards and you’re telling me that after throwing 40 dollars on a season pass I need to give even more money to some random goober on Twitch to get the shield????” another complained. “lmao this shield has been on the campaign since day 1 and the only way you can get it 2 years later is via twitch stream,” another added. “Hilarious honestly.”
Reps for the game have confirmed that the shield will be made available via the Accolades shop in a future update, but there’s no word when that will be. So, for now, we really do have a Space Marine 2 shield locked behind a $6 Twitch paywall.
The Space Marine 2 Discord and subreddit are packed with similar complaints over this. Space Marine 2 generally speaking has a good reputation for its live service monetization, with only the occasional misstep (voice packs!) from publisher Focus and developer Saber. So this situation with the shield is something of an outlier.
“Sometimes they astonish me with the decision they take,” one fan commented. “They’ll be cooking and then do absolute doodoo feces like this. What the f**k?”
Wesley is IGN’s Managing Editor. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
