When Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 launched back in 2023, it felt like everyone and their mum were bisecting Tyranids in the Emperor's name. Saber Interactive's third-person shooter had crossover appeal like no Warhammer adaptation before it – you could jump in and have a blast, whether you'd never heard of 40K or your wallet was already slavishly beholden to pricey miniature paints.
That low barrier to entry was reflected in sales – 4.5 million and counting, read 'em and weep – and now, confirmation that Warhammer 40:000 Space Marine 3 is already in development. There's no telling when we'll actually see Space Marine 3, but we do know that it will come with "an immersive campaign, a multiplayer mode, and innovations that will redefine the standards of third-person action games," according to John Bert, CEO of publisher Focus Entertainment.
While neither the campaign and multiplayer come as a surprise, I am interested in seeing how Space Marine 3 will "redefine" its field. After all, Space Marine 2 was simplistic by design. It thrived on horde physics, larger-than-life levels, and the straightforward thrill of chopping an alien in half because you're Really Big. It's hard to picture any grand reinventions that are in line with that – but if Saber wants to make Space Marine a household name, it can do more with less by iterating on what's already there.
Doing your duty
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Space Marine 2 suffers from its own success. Tyranids, the scythe-armed bugs you spend the majority of the game blasting by the thousands, lend themselves exceptionally well to Saber Interactive's horde technology. Chaos cultists, introduced much later in the campaign, don't fit quite as well. Where Tyranids are for the most part all about strength in numbers, Chaos fields a lot more individual threats. Emptying a clip of boltgun ammo into a single gnarly space marine isn't as fun as firing the same amount of ammo into 100 swarming Tyranids – even if you're in just as much danger, it doesn't feel like it.
It's an issue I raised with game director Dmitriy Grigorenko, who surprised me by agreeing with the criticism. "I have exactly the same thoughts," he said, before pointing to 2011's Space Marine suffering from the same problem when it moved from fighting orcs to Chaos. "We kind of fell in the same trap," he shared. "Even though we knew this was going to happen, we fell into this trap."
By the time the team realized it was repeating history, it was too late to change anything. But it's something that Grigorenko plans to carry into future projects. "While we tried to do our best, I don't think we did a good job in the end," admitted Grigorenko. "But maybe next time."
Space Marine 3 is an opportunity to act on that. While it's hard to predict what the third entry will throw at us, I've got a few theories. Necrons (for the uninitiated: ancient skeletal robot warriors) were teased pretty heavily in Space Marine 2's closing levels, due to the plot twist that we were fighting on one of the many Tomb Worlds they hibernate on. They'd make for a fantastic enemy, as a lot of their technology eclipses even the Imperium's, but would come with the same issue as Tzeentch's worshippers: they are not, by nature, a horde faction like Tyranids or orcs.
That alone doesn't rule out their appearance (nor should it – Necrons are rad), but it does raise the question of where horde combat fits in. Saber running it back with orcs is an option – after all, I'd wager there are a huge chunk of fans who haven't played the first game – but I'd love to see it tackle the plague-worshipping forces of Nurgle, who can turn entire planets into zombies. But if we pair a horde faction with one that's stronger individually, we're back at square one.
It's a tricky situation – but if Saber is serious about innovation, it's exactly the sort of thing I'd hope to see Space Marine 3 tackle. Given Saber CEO Matthew Katch has said the studio will take "all our learnings and apply them to an even bigger and more spectacular game," I'd hope the developer has a few more ideas than my sole suggestion of… er, zombies.
I still don't know whether that's enough to "redefine" the third-person action genre, and I don't entirely know what that would even mean in practice. But it would take very little (I say, having to do none of the work) for Space Marine 3 to carry its predecessor's horde-based freneticism into all-timer territory. In 40K's Imperium, innovation is forbidden and treated as heresy – but for the sake of improving one of the decade's best shooters, I'm sure the Emperor wouldn't mind.
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