Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Space Marine 3 should not competing for assets internally at Saber Interactive, certainly one of its chief builders has insisted.
Space Marine 2 could be the most profitable Warhammer 40,000 online game ever made. It bought over 7 million copies lower than a 12 months after happening sale, and, in line with Saber exec Tim Willits, modified the whole lot for the studio. Even Video games Workshop itself has talked about the cash it’s constructed from Space Marine 2, and protagonist Titus is now main the cost on the subsequent narrative growth of the Warhammer 40,000 setting.
Space Marine 3 was introduced in March, six months after Space Marine 2 got here out. Some Space Marine 2 followers have been left involved about the timing of the announcement, however Games Workshop has said Space Marine 3 “is probably going years away from launch,” and Saber has promised to proceed to help Space Marine 2 for a while to come back.
Talking on the newest episode of Video games Workshop’s (*3*) present, Deep Strike, Saber Interactive inventive director Oliver Hollis-Leick was requested why Space Marine 3 was introduced so early as an alternative of taking place the DLC route (story DLC expansions, for instance) for Space Marine 2.
“Saying a 3rd recreation doesn’t in any approach imply that we’re not going to proceed creating content material for the current recreation,” Hollis-Leick responded.
“The factor is the growth cycles for these initiatives are lengthy. For Space Marine 2 it was one thing like 4 years. And so, for Space Marine 3 it’s going to be the similar.
“We introduced it to in a technique hold folks conscious of the reality we’re going to proceed this, that there’s going to be extra coming. However we’re additionally doing the similar factor with DLC. There’s tons already been created and there’s tons extra to come back. They’re positively not competing for assets.”
That’s a crowdpleasing remark, however what’s the precise scenario in the case of Space Marine 2 help? In August, writer Focus Leisure revealed Space Marine 2’s second 12 months of DLC, confirming patches 10 all the approach as much as 15.
Patch 15 takes gamers as much as the finish of the second quarter of subsequent 12 months (June 2026). Highlights embody the new Techmarine class, now set for launch throughout the first quarter of 2026, a brand new Battle Barge growth throughout the similar interval, and a brand new Siege map coming Q2 2026.
Space Marine 3, nevertheless, looms giant over the horizon. Primarily based on Oliver Hollis-Leick’s feedback, we’re taking a look at a four-year growth cycle, which suggests we could not see the recreation till 2029. That’s an enormous hole!
However what can we count on from Space Marine 3? Will we see new factions? Will Saber broaden co-op past the three-player restrict? Will there be precise significant PvP?
Most followers imagine the Necrons will make an look in Space Marine 3. That’s as a result of one mission in Space Marine 2 sees Titus and co delve deep inside the bowels of an alien planet, which incorporates historical and mysterious wall markings which are a transparent nod to the Necrons. Some gamers even suspected the xenos would make a shock look as a 3rd enemy faction in the Space Marine 2 marketing campaign, given the nature of the mission.
Certainly, it seems that the Space Marine 2 story form of revolves round the Necrons. The Techpriest who goes off the rails in the story is making an attempt to make use of an historical Necron artifact to nullify the affect of Chaos by closing off the warp, the hell dimension from which Chaos spews forth. Not less than that’s what the Techpriest thinks the artifact does (it does not, then it does).
In the episode of Deep Strike, Oliver Hollis-Leick was requested straight up if this nod to the Necrons means they’ll flip up sooner or later. He was coy in his reply.
“Certainly one of the issues about this universe is it’s huge,” he stated. “It’s nearly timeless. And so in case you go digging deep down under the floor of a planet, you would discover every kind of issues. And so discovering what seems to be a Necron tomb, or not less than Necron expertise under the floor of a world, just isn’t an outrageous factor to occur. But in addition in the narrative they’re coping with what appears to be Blackstone-like expertise, though it’s by no means expressly acknowledged. And in order that instantly hyperlinks to the Necrons.
“As as to if we’ll see any extra of them, that I can not say. But it surely definitely was a pleasant factor to see at the finish of the recreation there.”
Oliver Hollis-Leick then went on to elucidate why Saber included all these cool Necron bits and bobs in Space Marine 2 for gamers to find.
“It’s actually vital to point out that the Imperium don’t know the whole lot,” he stated. “They appear extremely superior, extremely effectively geared up, however there is a gigantic quantity about this galaxy and the historical past of the galaxy they merely don’t know, and by no means will know. Even the viewers who learn these books, even they don’t know. It’s not acknowledged. That’s certainly one of the issues I really like a lot about this universe, is that there’s a lot ambiguity. And so I favored together with one thing like that in the recreation, so we get a way of the thriller nonetheless on the market.”
Two characters from Space Marine 2 we cannot see in Space Marine 3 alive and kicking are Sevastus Acheran and Lieutenant Chairon, who have been killed off-camera by way of a lore publish on the Warhammer Neighborhood web site.
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.