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.
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 wrapped together in our Saber proprietary technology with the Swarm tech and AI director, so we believe we are delivering the true ultimate Space Marine experience.
How long did it take to make this game?
Games always take a long time nowadays. About four years or so in this case, but we’re very proud of where it is now. We’re very happy with our work, and the people who played the preview were happy. Preorders are great. Right now, what we’re focused on is September 9, you know, making sure that the servers are up and running for everyone, making sure that any issues are ironed up, but everything’s looking good; it’s all green lights. The game is fun and solid, so yeah, I’m excited about the launch.
I believe the game was originally meant to come out in late 2023. Can you share what were the reasons behind this nine-month delay and what did you improve during this additional time?
We just needed more time to polish it. You know that old saying a game is only late until it ships, but a bad game is bad forever. We wanted to focus on making sure that every component, the single player campaign and the PvE co-op mode, all those were solid.
There’s a lot to this game and I feel that players will feel good regarding value and content. When you have all those systems, you have progression, and you have multiplayer, sometimes things take longer to get right, but I’m glad that we took the time we needed to make sure that we got it correct because Warhammer 40K fans want it correct. If we screwed something up, they would be mad, you know, and so we really wanted to honor the franchise, we wanted to respect the universe, and we wanted to make the game that people want to play.
You worked closely with Games Workshop, right?
Yes, they were a great partner. Everything had to be approved, from a small insignia to iconography, dialogue, etc. But they were great to work with and helped us every step of the way, so it was a real partnership.
I guess that includes the storyline.
Definitely. Our storyline with Titus – did you play the original?
Not much.
Okay, which is fine because, again, like I said, you don’t have to play the first one.
I know Titus, the protagonist, was demoted at the end of the first game.
Yes, and then he spent 200 years in Deathwatch. This is kind of a fresh start for him, but we tried to add more personality and emotions into his story and his relationship with his squadmates and how they feel about him. He needs to win their trust while also saving the universe, so it is more than just a run-and-gun game. Titus’s story is an important part of the experience.
Especially because nowadays gamers want more. They’re not just fine with shooting, like in the days of the original DOOM.
Yes. It’s important to note that the Warhammer 40K universe has been an inspiration for so many video games throughout the last decades. Just look at the original DOOM space marine; what does he look like? Look at the chain sword in Gears – where did that come from? Look at things like the Power Armor in Fallout. That looks a lot like a Space Marine. This IP has influenced many games, so I hope gamers who may be younger or may not understand the 40K universe can look at this and understand how effective it is.
Speaking of the storyline, something I noticed while playing the preview is that one of Titus’s squadmates is very confrontational with him.
Yes, Gadriel and Chairon. Yes, he gets a little whiny, and I want to punch him, but yes, he’s like, “What is up with you?” There’s an event in the game between Titus and him, but it is interesting to see how that plays out.
Based on your estimates, how long is the campaign going to be?
It took me 12 hours to complete it, but it all depends on how you play it, on the difficulty, whether you are with your human buddies or by yourself, etc.
The PvE co-op Operations mode basically continues the story of the campaign, right?
Yes. When you play through the campaign, there are times when other Space Marine squads go off and do other important missions in the big storyline, so it’s like there’s one mission where you have to send a signal, and the defenses have to be knocked out, and you hear that there’s a squad doing that. Well, when you play PvE Operations, you’re that squad. The battle is so big and there’s so much going on that we’ve engineered these co-op missions to fit into the story and make you feel part of the bigger conflict.
I know you have a class system for the multiplayer modes. Can you talk about that?
Indeed. Are you familiar with World War Z? It’s a little similar. Our game director, Dmitry Grigorenko, was the Game Director on World War Z, and he’s very good at progression, class identities, and attributes. As you play, even in PvE, as you progress, you unlock different classes and you can earn experience. You can use some of that experience to upgrade your characters even in PvP, so it’s like World War Z, where you have things like the Assault class, the Heavy class, and the Support class. We have Warhammer 40K names for them, but you can pick one that you like that fits your style and then you can you can apply your experience to those classes.
Okay. How deep is the progression for each class?
It’s deep. World War Z was deep. I don’t have the numbers off the top of my head, but I feel that players will be happy. Like World War Z, we will have updates where we will expand classes, weapons, and game modes, all for free.
Do you have plans to add new classes to Space Marine 2 post-launch?
Yes, we have plans for it. There will be new stuff for everything.
Is there some sort of randomness attached to the co-op mode to keep things interesting?
Yes. The game knows that you’ve played those missions before, and if you play them again, you can have different enemies, so you may play a mission, and then all of a sudden, Chaos Marines show up. We do add variety to that. It comes back to our AI Director, which is a key component in our Swarm Engine. We have the Swarm Deck, which controls the actions of the Swarms of Tyranids. When the Swarm breaks and each Tyranid starts to come at you, then the AI Director kicks in and it understands the state of the battles.
It can bring in heavies, and it can bring in ranged attack Tyranids. As a Space Marine, you are the ultimate killing machine. You are plowing through these Tyranids, but at some point, you start to feel overwhelmed, and you’re fighting and fighting, and then you just finally make it through with barely enough armor left to survive. But you’ve done it, and that is all due to this very advanced AI director that helps kind of orchestrate those battles.
Are the class skills in multiplayer the same across PvE and PvP, or did you balance them differently?
There are similarities, but there are also differences because, obviously, fighting Chaos Marines is way more difficult than fighting Tyranids. There are behind-the-scenes changes and adjustments that allow for challenging yet approachable gameplay in PvP, as well as having fun with your buddies in PvE.
When you’re in PvE, it’s okay to feel overpowered. In PvP, not so much.
Yes. What’s great about PvP is something I call the Dance of Death, where you can’t just button mash; you gotta move. You have your blocks, you have your grabs, you have your counters, you have your fast melees, you have your long melees, and then you can have weapons. You need to keep moving and then attack, block, attack, so there is this Dance of Death that we’ve created in PvP.
You’re independent again, with Saber CEO Matthew Karch owning parent company Beacon Interactive after the split with Embracer. How does it feel, and what changed?
Nothing really. The great thing about Saber is there’s me, Matthew, Andrey, and Anton. There’s like four of us that make all the decisions. That was always the case before we were purchased by Embracer, even while we worked with Embracer, and now that we’re independent again, it really hasn’t changed much.
I’m focusing on the games. That’s my job, making sure that each of the teams has what they need to make the best game they can. I jump in when I’m free. I’m not in the trenches like Dmitry, but I do have exposure to all the titles and work with the teams, which makes my job awesome, I love my job. But nothing’s really changed. We work with Focus for Space Marine 2 and RoadCraft. We’ve announced some other games we’re working on, like Jurassic Park Survival, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, coming out in October, and Toxic Commando. We’ll be talking about that soon after we launch Space Marine 2. Things are going well for us.
Are you maybe going to self-publish some titles, too?
Yeah. We’re self-publishing Jurassic Park Survival and A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, and we’re also publishing third-party games like The Knightling. We own 3D Realms, so there are a number of titles that we publish.
Recently, the industry was shaken by various events, like studio closures and mass layoffs. Some developers are quite pessimistic about the future. What do you think?
I have seen all the cycles. I started in 1995, and I remember the death of consoles; I remember the death of the PC. I remember that, yes, there’s always cycles, but good games and good teams will always be successful. One of the things that Saber has done well is that we have studios around the world and we focus on the right scopes for our games. We focus on the right deal for our games. Each of our studios has multiple projects, so we don’t have 200 people sitting around waiting for pre-production to finish. We’re very smart with our money, and we focus on the core aspects of the game. We focus on what’s truly fun, whether it’s a $5 million game, $10 million game, or $50 million; it doesn’t matter.
But if that core game loop is not there, it’s not going to be a success, and we’ve done well by managing our teams, having teams and around the world at different cost structures, and finding the most talented people. If you’re a world-class artist, you don’t need to be in California.
I guess, like you said, perhaps the secret is really managing your budget really well. Because some game franchises have had their budgets balloon with certain sequels.
Well, that’s because some teams have, especially in North America, 150-200 people. They pay everyone well. If your burn rate is a couple of million dollars a month and you wanna change an idea three months later, that’s like $6 million wasted. We can make a game for $6 million.
That’s one of the problems, you got these huge teams working on one game. If they want to iterate, that’s expensive. Each studio at Saber has a main team working on something, and it’s a natural ramp, and we have people experimenting with ideas that are starting some really small projects. Maybe five people want to work on an idea, and they can change it, they iterate, they’re not spending millions of dollars. As soon as that idea is solid and we’re happy with it, after going through our evaluations and our gates, then we ship people over to that project.
We also have a culture at Saber where everyone can work on every project. I’ve seen studios in North America where people are like, I’m on the red team; I’m not going to work on the blue team. But here, we’re all Team Saber. For instance, we are ramping people off Space Marine 2 because it’s coming out soon. Now, those people will work on Jurassic Park Survival or Toxic Commando. That’s how we remain lean and make money. We don’t have ridiculously expensive budgets, so we don’t have to sell four million copies to be a success, you know what I’m saying? There are games in North America that, if they don’t sell 4 to 6 million copies, they are a failure. That is dangerous.
Just one last question. Electronic Arts actually came out a few months ago during an investor’s call after canceling a Star Wars game in development at Respawn to say that they would lean less on licensed franchises in the future. Do you think that’s where the industry is headed, partially to offset those growing budgets?
Oh no, no. We’re working on a Jurassic Park game. That’s one of the world’s biggest IPs, and we have other things we are working on that we haven’t announced yet. No, you have to manage how much money you are spending on your team. You have to manage how your teams are working.
If you have the right brand, the right IP, it can really benefit you. Even we have had great success working with other IPs. Look at World War Z. I believe the game has made more money than the movie did—I believe, but I’m not sure about that. But you have to manage your teams and your business, and you have to make the right game with the right budget in the right part of the world. That’s what we do well.
Okay, well, thank you a lot for your time.
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