Introduction: The sequel to the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine had a sizable following among the gaming audience long before its release. But, when the game finally came out in September 2024, it turned into a huge success almost immediately. There are a range of reasons that cemented its standing at the top of PC and console charts, but its achievements also underline just how much potential lies in the Warhammer 40k fictional universe, including things like live-action TV shows and movies.
Article: Saber Interactive had a very busy and turbulent period in late 2023 and early 2024. The gaming conglomerate rode the difficulties with its owner, the Embracer Group, as it slowly slashed projects and fired entire teams in its portfolio. However, Saber was adamant that for them and studios around the company, there had to be a different path forward. That is why it bought itself out of the Embracer Group and took a substantial number of smaller studios with it. Throughout this restructuring, the company continued to work on a very important sequel. This was the second installment of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The first game came out back in 2011 and was developed by Relic Entertainment. The title, which was third-person shooter and slasher, found a lot of success and slowly built a strong following.
That was especially true for all the fans of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, better known as WH40k, where a constant state of war exists throughout the known universe. Here, the human empire fights space orks, aliens, and even dark gods of chaos that exist below the physical reality. That is why the development of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is closely followed by many, even more so as the game slowly approaches its release date. Then, on September 9, 2024, the game came out and immediately generated a massive level of success. Due to that, Saber could start working on follow-up content and think about expanding the same franchise further. Besides that, the game showed once more that Warhammer is a sorely underused fictional universe. The potential to create not just video games but other types of entertainment remains huge, which is great news for people like Henry Cavill, a UK actor, and producer working on a Wahammer TV series.
Space Marine 2 Sale Figures
One of the foundations of the success of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 was its intensive campaign to sell pre-order copies. Saber placed a big emphasis on this process and was clearly ready to allocate a big chunk of its marketing budget toward getting as many of those sales as possible. The same game copies were then unlocked a few days before the initial release, allowing for a further ratcheting up of organic interest in the wider gaming audience. Because of that, the early access copies allowed the game to generate a peak of 100,000 players on Steam before the full game even came out. On its launch day, that figure rose to 225,000 peak concurrent players on Steam. Quickly, the game became the number one top seller on Steam. On consoles, it found success as well. On PS5, the game was the second best-selling title, right behind NBA 2K25, while Xbox players jumped at the opportunity to devastate the orks and other enemies of humankind in Space Marine 2. It did not take long for Saber to announce that the game sold two million copies on Steam alone. In the coming months, the game is going to see a holiday season boost as well, so the end of the year could mark Space Marine 2 as one of the most successful games of 2024.
Successful Formula
The critical consensus around Space Marine 2 has been steady as well. While few see the game as a masterpiece, it still uses a very clear formula – focusing on the mayhem of combat, while also doing justice to a rich, in-depth narrative set in place for all Warhammer fiction fans. This means that players can enjoy the title if they are complete novices to the WH40k world, but also if they have been lifelong fans of the same violent universe. When it comes to the action itself, the game tries to capture the sense of being an Astartes or a Space Marine. In the world of Warhammer 40k, that means being a combination of a super-human that is armed and shielded basically like a walking tank. This includes fighting endless hordes of aliens with ranged and melee weapons, where players end up completely engulfed in the chaos and insanity of WH40k warfare. All in all, the combination of these factors proved to be very appealing to the global audience on all platforms. Because of that, the game got a score of 83 on Metacritic, which is beyond solid for a big production video game.
Expansion of the Warhammer 40k Universe
Creators of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 are already working on new features for the game. Its single-player experience will be supplemented by growing PvP and PvE multiplayer experiences for its player base. Of course, the long-term success of the game is an open question, just like with a big AAA project. However, for its initial exposure to the global gaming audience, no one can argue that Saber did not hit the winning formula head-on. In the wider entertainment industry, this is also a big positive signal for further ambitious projects set in the WH40k franchise. So far, while there are many games and even TV shows in this universe, most of them have been lacking in the budgetary departments.
Video games like Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus and Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War are both excellent titles, but cannot be considered big projects. That is why neither found a huge player audience and instead remained in the domain of Warhammer fandom. But, Space Marine 2 shows that this audience can be greatly expanded. For the superstar Henry Cavill and the production around him, which is working on a Warhammer big-budget live-action TV show, this will be an appreciated boost. Other similar projects, with more ambitious targets in terms of audience reach and output quality, will likely follow as well. All of this is great news for the Warhammer and WH40k fans, who can now be assured that many great things will be coming their way in the next couple of years.
Author: Ivica Milaric, game designer and assistant professor of game design at the Novi Sada Academy of Arts, Republic of Serbia