Long-Awaited Warhammer 40,000 Animation Astartes 2 Is Back From the Dead With Incredible Teaser Trailer — but There’s a Catch

ign.com:

Games Workshop has brought missing-in-action Warhammer 40,000 animation Astartes 2 back from the dead with an incredible teaser trailer that has wowed fans of the hobby. However, there’s a catch: nothing in the teaser will be in the new animation.

Astartes 2 is Games Workshop’s follow-up to the fan-made original Astartes animation, created by Syama Pedersen. It is widely accepted as the greatest Warhammer 40,000 animation ever made, official or unofficial, only perhaps bettered by Amazon’s recently released and excellent Space Marine 2 animation for the Secret Level anthology series.

Indeed, Astartes was so good that it inspired Saber Interactive’s hugely successful Space Marine 2, and Games Workshop eventually brought Syama in-house to work on the sequel.

But fans hadn’t heard a peep out of Games Workshop on Astartes 2 for years, leading some to wonder whether the company had quietly cancelled it. Fast forward to today, January 29, and the surprise reveal of the teaser trailer, which is a feast for Warhammer 40,000 fans.

It's not even February yet and the Ws for 2025 won't stop coming! Astartes is back, Brothers! pic.twitter.com/sYhu5LjwiC

The teaser suggests an animation on a scale never-before-seen from Warhammer 40,000 at this quality level, with melee combat, shooting, vehicle combat, and even spaceship battles all showcased. We see a number of different Space Marine chapters in battle across varied environments, and multiple enemy races, including Tyranids, Orks, and Tau.

It certainly hypes up Astartes 2, but it turns out nothing in the teaser will be in the animation itself when it finally launches in 2026 exclusively on Games Workshop's subscription-only Warhammer+ streamer. According to a post on the Warhammer Community website:

“This teaser trailer is not actually clips from the new animation, instead showing a compilation of shots that represent the former lives of the characters that will appear in the show. There’s a pretty unsubtle hint at the end as to the