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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 was a big hit for both Games Workshop and Saber Interactive, with players proving highly receptive to its old-school, linear third-person action. As such, I’ve been curious as to how the Space Marine 2 team would follow up Titus’ 8-hour tyranid butchery course. Would they roll straight into Space Marine 3, or move on to something else entirely?
Well, it seems the cat is now (partially) out of the bag thanks to an unlikely source, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks. Speaking in an earnings call on Thursday (via Polygon), Cocks said the company was collaborating with Saber’s Space Marine 2 team on a new title based on one of the toy manufacturer’s “tentpole IPs”.
In the call, Cocks said Hasbro currently has “many new digital collaborations in the works”, but that he was “especially excited” to announce the Saber project. “Hasbro and Saber Interactive will be collaborating on an all-new video game partnership developed by the team behind 2024’s megahit, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.”
Cocks provided a surprising amount of detail about the shape of this mystery game, saying it will be a “AAA title, based on one of our tentpole IPs”, which will combine “high-octane single-player and amazing multiplayer with Saber’s Swarm tech.” And just in case there’s any doubt, Cocks reiterated that the Space Marine 2 team specifically will be developing this title, rather than any of Saber’s other studios. While answering questions from investors on the call, Cocks said, “We will use the Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 team to develop the project”.
The one question left unanswered, of course, is which license will Saber be working with? As Cocks mentioned, Hasbro already has several other video game tie-ins in the works, including a new Dungeons and Dragons game from Invoke Games, the creators of D&D: Dark Alliance, as well as a GI Joe game from Atomic Arcade, and an Exodus game from Archetype Studios, founded by BioWare veteran and Knights of the Old Republic lead designer James Ohlen.
The obvious omission from the above is Transformers, which has endured a fallow few years for video game tie-ins. The most recent attempt was Splash Damage’s online action game Transformers: Reactivate, but that project was cancelled in January for reasons that are still unclear. While there’s no evidence to suggest the two are connected, the timing of this announcement coming just a month after that cancellation is intriguing.
But that prediction isn’t especially interesting, so I’m going to gamble and state that this new title is a big-budget adaptation of your dad’s favourite boardgame, Risk. Think about it. Saber has already shown a knack for creating colossal, war-torn environments, and that Swarm tech would sure come in handy for depicting thousands of Napoleonic soldiers bayonetting each other amid cannon fire and cavalry charges, before being swept off the face of the Earth by tumbling dice the size of tower blocks. I’m calling it: Risk: Reloaded is coming to PC in autumn 2029.
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Kurt Indovina
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