Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has been a breakthrough for developer Saber Interactive. Selling over two million copies in two weeks, it is the strongest debut for a Warhammer 40,000 game and has even outpaced every other game Saber’s lead developers have worked on. With the newfound success, Saber Interactive is now expanding its post-launch plans with more free updates for the popular game.
In a post-mortem interview with IGN about Space Marine 2, Saber CEO Tim Willits says that the team is now looking into creating a new class for PvE and PvP modes as well as the possibility of a story expansion.
“Our game director Dmitry Grigorenko has proposed some story ideas that could either be DLC or a sequel,” Willits says. “We're literally just catching our breath. This is two weeks out. We just need to get the dust to settle.”
In the case of the new Astartes class, Saber is using the same model of success they found with their 2021 co-op zombie survival game.
“One of the reasons why we got 25 million people in World War Z is because every time we release a new DLC pack or a free class and we had a sale, people buy it. We literally see a spike,” Willits said. “We put out a video promoting a new character pack, we see a spike in sales. So it just drives attention and drives awareness.”
Willits credited positive word of mouth among players and their friends for why Saber’s previous titles have continued to perform well months and years after release.
“There's always one guy that says, ‘Guys, come on, there's new stuff coming up,’” he said. “So three other people are like, ‘It's only five bucks, let's buy it.’ And so you get this kind of group FOMO thing going on that really helps. And we had so much success with that model. That's what we'll do.”
Space Marine 2 already had a post-launch roadmap but didn’t include plans for new classes or a story expansion. It instead included new weapons, maps, enemies, new PvP and PvE modes, and more.
Space Marine 2 is still in the top 20 most-played games on Steam. More new content that keeps people returning to the third-person shooter throwback. It’s also a great reflection of what sustainable development looks like. Saber promised fans a manageable amount of updates to the game upfront. But only after seeing how engaged its player base is did they greenlight something as ambitious as a potential campaign expansion.
In the best-case scenario, this is how services for games should work. It's much safer to make new content based on the audience's demands, instead of pouring resources and labor into the wants and needs of the audience they hope to get. Creators behind smaller games like Stardew Valley and Balatro only began working on updates and expansions for their games after they became big hits, a much smarter and more efficient use of their efforts.
Space Marine 2 certainly had a better shot at success as a licensed game based on the sci-fi world of Warhammer 40,000. But Saber playing it as safe as smaller indie projects do is a sound development practice that should be a model for other medium-to-large sized teams looking to make an evergreen game.
Space Marine 2 is one of 2024’s finest games. It’s not only a very fun shooter, its varied co-op and competitive multiplayer modes are a fantastic value add that doesn’t demand more money and time of the player.
