Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is turning out to be a surprisingly huge hit for developer Saber Interactive, with ideas about a third game already floating around at the studio just weeks after the sequel's launch. Having said that, the second game was a long time coming, but the team says that it always had a strong idea for creating a throwback to the Xbox 360 era with SM2.
Talking to GamesRadar in a recent interview, Saber's Dmitriy Grigorenko mentioned that the original Space Marine 2 pitch was to "make a perfect sequel", a sequel that is effectively "a 360 game with a story campaign, some PvP, and a horde mode to accompany it". We'd say the team was largely successful in that endeavour.
"We wanted to make a perfect sequel [to Space Marine] – that was in the original pitch,
The 'perfect sequel' implies it's the exact same game – a 360 game with a story campaign, some PvP, and a horde mode to accompany it. We wanted to make a classic experience."
Elsewhere in the interview, Saber's creative director Oliver Hollis-Leick reminisced about playing Gears of War at a friend's house back in the day, and how a recent visit led to them playing through Space Marine 2 instead. The Gears games certainly seemed to have influenced this Warhammer subseries quite a lot, and playing through SM2 with that same friend "was just this amazing flashback experience!", the developer said.
Here at Pure Xbox, we loved our time with Space Marine 2. Some of us in the office think this is the best co-op shooter to come around in years, maybe even in a generation - yeah, it's really that good. For our full thoughts on the game, and details of the team's latest Space Marine 2 patch, check out the links down below.