Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 released to both critical and commercial acclaim last month, as more than 2 million players at launch helped it become the most-played Warhammer game of all time on Steam alone. Speaking on the game’s achievements, Saber Interactive chief creative officer Tim Willits recently explained how the game is expected to be successful without needing to reach lofty sales goals.
“We don’t need to sell 4 million units to make it [Space Marine 2] a success,” Willits said to IGN. “There are many games, sadly, especially out of North American developers, where if you do not sell 5 million copies you are a failure. I mean, what business are we in where you fail if you sell less than 5 million?”
A breath of fresh air when compared to several other high-profile games that posted disappointing sales results–like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Star Wars Outlaws, and Concord–Saber Interactive chief creative officer Tim Willits attributed the game’s success to the studio sticking to the core tenets of its Space Marine 2 plan and avoiding an “over-scope” situation.
“We have a core belief that what you do every second and what happens when you push these buttons and that core gameplay loop is so critical. So we focus on the moment-to-moment interaction in the gameplay and the feeling you have,” Willits explained. “And then we adhere to our core pillars, like be the ultimate Space Marine, melee, ranged, swarms, that’s it. And a lot of teams throughout development will over-scope games. They look at some other game that just came out and say, ‘oh, we got to do that, let’s add this, we got to do this.’ And they lose focus on the core, what actually makes the game fun.”
These comments come shortly after Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney spoke on the issues plaguing AAA games earlier this week. He mentioned the games industry is undergoing a “generational change” where big-budget games aren’t selling as well as they’re expected to. “What we’re seeing is a real trend where players are gravitating toward the really big games where they can play with more of their friends,” Sweeney said (via PC Gamer). There have been several recent exceptions to Sweeney’s comments, like Elden Ring, Black Myth: Wukong, and of course, Space Marine 2. While some of these games do have co-op elements, they’re still single-player games at their core.
In other Space Marine 2 news, more customization options are on the way for the Emperor’s finest and a recent patch introduced some major fixes and new features to the game.