Space Marine 2 pulls its visual inspiration straight from the tabletop
In the fiction of Warhammer 40,000, Space Marines are the ideal bio-engineered soldier, transhuman demigods that are armed to the teeth with bolter guns, power fists, and heavily engineered armor. They’re the poster boys of the setting, and the original Space Marine video game in 2011 was one of the best manifestations of that ultimate power fantasy. As we get closer to the launch of Space Marine 2 in September, developer Saber Interactive has revealed more about how the game borrows heavily from the tabletop game and its visuals to help bring Titus and his squad to life.
“[Our visual inspiration] is 99% tabletop models and almost nothing else. Believe it or not, production of every character in our game started with building the miniature,” Dmitriy Grigorenko, lead game designer, told Polygon in a recent email interview. “It’s easier to understand how the model works and how it is supposed to be animated if you can rotate it with your own hands. Of course some adjustments had to be made so the ending character doesn’t look like a toy that was scaled up, but it’s all starting with miniatures. In the end, even people who weren’t Warhammer fans have a massive collection of miniatures at their desks.”
In the campaign, Titus will be significantly more dour and reserved than his original depiction. “Titus was taken away by the Inquisition, and that took its toll on him. That happened because he was very open, and it cost him dearly,” said Grigorenko. “Now he is back in the very same company he was leading in the past and almost nobody knows him.”
Titus has to battle his way through two planets; the first is a Death World, a place that is barely suitable for human habitation. “The entire surface of the planet is covered with deadly and completely inhospitable jungles,” shared Grigorenko. “It was never a nice place to live to begin with, but now with a Tyranid infestation, it is even worse.”
The second planet is a Hive World, similar to the setting of Warhammer 40,000:
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