During the PC Gaming Show 2022, new insight into the development of Warhammer 40,000 SPace Marine II was given in an interview with Saber Interactive’s Tim Willits and Oliver Hollis-Leick, and Willits, a veteran developer who worked on the original Doom games as well as Hexen and Quake, was quick to point out the similarities between Doomguy and the Space Marines from Warhammer 40K.
The two talked about the main focus of the game being on the Tyranids and how Saber’s Saber Swarm Engine will be used to deliver thousands of Tyranids in swarms much like in Saber’s previous game World War Z. Willits, who worked as the studio director at id during the 2016 version of DOOM, noted that there are similarities between the titles, with both focusing on an aggressive never-stop and never take cover combat. The devs are continuing in that direction with Space Marine II, with the goal being to tear up enemies in front of you or just blow them away from the back of the battlefield.
Hollis-Leick and Willits looked for inspiration for the title from the tabletop game, and part of the research involved visiting Games Workshop’s Warhammer World museum, which has multiple exhibits of professionally painted miniatures. The two also stated that they took inspiration from the fan favourite series Astartes, which began as a fan project before becoming an official work, in terms of how combat should be portrayed and how marines should act.
Hollis-Leick stated:
“You find yourself crouching down and looking into the ranks of space marines that are facing tyranids or orks or whatever, and something Tim and I said at that moment was, ‘We need to make this come alive. I don’t want to look at this, I want to be inside this. I want to be gunning down tyranids by the thousands. And so seeing that actually happen and come alive has been thrilling.”
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 will be coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series sometime soon.