Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 Q&A with Tim Willits – ‘We Have a Game That Will Exceed Expectations’

At Gamescom 2024, I had the amazing opportunity to speak with veteran developer Tim Willits about Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, Saber Interactive, and the industry as a whole. Willits worked at id Software for 24 years, eventually becoming Studio Director. He left the Texan developer in July 2019 and became Chief Creative Officer at Saber Interactive only about a month later.

Of course, the main focus of our chat was the impending launch of Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 (due on September 9, with a full year of post-launch roadmap already revealed), but we also discussed ongoing issues within the industry and how Saber is tackling those challenges. Keep scrolling to read a very interesting conversation.

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With Space Marine 2, you are taking a beloved game and finally making a sequel around a decade later. Are you feeling the pressure of the fans?

Yes. The Warhammer 40K franchise has been around for 45 years now, and millions of people love the franchise in itself. The first game was very popular. But I also want to say that if you, as a fan or as an action gamer, have never played the first game, don't worry about that. You can start with Space Marine 2 and it's a complete game. It's actually difficult to play the first game now because it's only on Steam.

There is an expectation from Warhammer 40K fans that we treat the universe with respect and that we get things correct. Then there's an expectation from fans of the first game, as well as just fans of Saber and action games. So yes, the expectations are very high, but I believe that we have a game that will exceed those expectations. We have a very dense game with a campaign mode that you can play by yourself or with two friends. We have our PvE missions where the story kind of runs parallel to the campaign, and then we have a full 6v6 PvP mode with three game modes, so it's a lot to offer. It's all