“It was a lot of work” – an inside look at getting the Starfighter 2 lore right

Perhaps no other IP is as rich in detail, worldbuilding and lore as Warhammer. It’s been around for nearly 50 years. 50. Any work done within it has to square with the vast amount of lore that’s been written in books and magazines over the years. As you can imagine, faithfully recreating Warhammer in other mediums is tricky. Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits was keen to talk about this fact at the Space Marine 2 stand at Gamescom.

Starfighter 2 is the hotly anticipated sequel to the Xbox 360-era classic, and it immediately exudes reverence for the original. You don’t even need to play it to see that from its trailers and screenshots. Every piece of armor, every NPC, every building. Seeing it is impressive, and actually playing it is even more impressive. It feels like a labor of love – emphasis on labor.

“It’s been a really big challenge,” says Willetts, tapping his head on the table as he names the Warhammer lore the Sabre team will have to fit into the upcoming action game. “The Warhammer universe is 45 years old now? There’s Space Marines 1, which ends with Titus going off to Deathwatch for 100 years. Most people would say, ‘What the hell is going on? I’ve lost track.’ The Warhammer universe is so big, there are thousands of planets, different Legions, Chaos, the influence of the Warp… So, we have so many tools to fit into this story, and the team is excited to fit them all in.”

“But sometimes I get a little lost! Our game director Dmitry Grigorenko and creative director Oliver Hollis-Leick, these people know this world like the back of their hands, just like the people at Games Workshop. It was them who went to Games Workshop in 2019 and convinced them to give us the license!”

But, come on. How much work goes into a typical game? It’s just a bunch of men in blue with big guns, right? Willetts unveils a completely different reality, one where every detail is considered crucial. “Working with Games Workshop – they’re very strict! The ankle of the brace was the wrong size – the ankle! They said, ‘Uh, the ankle is wrong’, and we said, ‘OK, we’ll fix it’!”

So how much work went into making Space Marines feel right, and making the battles between Space Marines and intergalactic terrorists true to the lore? The answer? A lot of tweaking of a lot of different moving parts. That includes a pretty awesome AI commander, which uses an upgraded version of World War Z’s swarming technology to control various enemies, like the Tyranid hordes, as well as various teams within Saber to round out different aspects of the game.

Willits explains: “The AI ​​director did a really good job because you’re a Primaris Marine! So you’re a beacon of death, but sometimes you’re like, I’m about to be killed, and then you somehow make it through. Beyond that, the team put a lot of effort into everything from the quick melee to the striking to the grabbing. From what I’ve heard, making a shooter is very difficult, but even harder than a shooter is a melee game. People don’t realise that. Iteration, trial and error…”

“That was the first thing the team worked on. Titus was walking around in a grey box and we were like, no, no, no. And then we went to Games Workshop and they were like, no, no, no. It took a lot of work to balance that.”

It’s how the game plays and feels and is fun, but so is the aesthetic of the game. Perhaps more importantly, Willetts recounts the process of designing Space Marines and getting them approved by Games Workshop. “It was a crazy job. Because every single insignia had to be correct. Everything had to be approved. Games Workshop had a system for that where you could upload stuff and they’d check it out with the right people and then they’d check a box and send it back to you. If they didn’t have a system for that, gosh.”

“You know how much 40k fans hate it? If you mess up a badge? The game sucks! Even the way enemies react we had to tweak and fine-tune. We had to make them fun and understandable in the video game, but they had to act like they would in the actual game. There were some things we had to tweak a little bit, like spawning other mobs.”

“There’s a rule that the Thousand Sons can’t summon daemons from the Warp, or anything like that. But this is a video game, so we need to summon them somehow. [Here I interject to say only sorcerers can summon demons, not regular dusty Rubic marines]”Yes, it is! You can’t summon mages from the Warp if there aren’t any on the battlefield, so it’s like mental gymnastics.”

The payoff for all that hard work was clear, even in the short time I spent playing the game on the Gamescom show floor. This is the game that Warhammer fans should be clamoring for. In fact, they’ve been clamoring for it, and fans already know it. As for the team, Willetts says it’s Saber’s best game yet. “The team loves this game. It’s their magnum opus. Most of the main characters made World War Z – something like 25 million people have played – but this is a whole new level for them. They’ve worked really hard, and I hope people understand that.”