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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 was one of the blockbuster games of the year on PC, PS5, and Xbox, which is a feat worth celebrating considering it was released around trendy games as Star Wars Outlaws And Silent Hill 2.

What did this Games workshop such a successful inspired shooter? I covered a key ingredient that made the job of destroying alien hordes so fun in my Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 reviewwhich highlighted the incredible levels of authenticity that Saber Interactive has managed to achieve.

But as game director Dmitry Grigorenko told me in this interview, the game could have been even biggermore epic. Development included experimenting with hundreds of thousands of on-screen enemies. – maybe something for one PS5 Pro update? Below, Dmitry looks back at what it took for the game’s artists to bring this success to consoles and PC.

Space Marine 2 started with miniatures

Dmitry Grigorenko begins by explaining the process of creating the game, starting with the source material. “It all starts with an actual miniature,” he tells me, explaining, “Our artists had miniatures for every character in the game.”

He says: “(It) makes it easier to understand how it works when you can actually rotate the model with your own hands. Next, we opted for a 3D prototype model, which is slightly different from a miniature, but still pretty much the same. “.

Dmitry points out that you can’t just implement the original miniature one for one. “You see, you can’t just enlarge a miniature and put it in 3D. It will look bad because the miniatures have hypertrophied proportions so they look better on a tabletop, and there are also some limitations production that prevents them from having finer details and so on,” he says.

The process of integrating the figure into the game began by creating a prototype that the game’s animation team could use as a test case. This is “the most difficult part”, reveals Dmitry, because to animate the character, you need good anatomy.

“Some parts of the model can bend and some can’t,” he shares, explaining that there needs to be enough space for limbs to move so the character can run and perform actions. ” Dmitry adds: “It’s a very nice balance model between miniature and something that can actually work in a video game. »

It’s no surprise that Dmitry thinks the playable Space Marines are his favorite part of the game’s art direction. And his love for these imposing warriors isn’t limited to the models.

his game is about the power fantasy of being a Space Marine; every minor detail helped build this power fantasy

He says: “I’m not just talking about models, which are fantastic in my opinion, it’s a combination of everything: models, textures, animations, visual effects, sounds. The way the fabric moves when you run, the way it moves. “

That’s quite something for a game that pushes the extremes of the Warhammer 40K universe – sci-fi gothic architecture, chaotic warzones, and the sight of whispers of Tyranids swarming the sky and attacking.

Reflecting on this, Dmitry points to the use of Sabre’s proprietary game engine, the Swarm Engine, which was first used to push hundreds of zombies across the screen in the video game World War Z.

Building Space Marine 2’s Epic Environments

Dmitry tells me that being able to support hundreds of enemies had a ripple effect, and it had a significant impact on the level design. He explains: “You have to have huge views showing all these massive battles. Players should be able to see them in the background during combat; this affects the size of arenas, how they are positioned in relation to each other (and more). »

Larger arenas also mean “longer, more boring walks” once you’ve taken on all the enemies, the game director shares. Anyone who has played Space Marine 2 knows that those “boring walks” actually take place at through incredibly beautiful and detailed environments that demand to be observed.

“Our tech team was very passionate about pushing the enemy count to insane numbers. We did some testing with 100,000 simple animated AIs.”

The game’s sense of scale is what keeps you sure-footed in its world. The dramatic scale of the game was also one of the art team’s biggest challenges. Dmitry tells me that it’s “easy to notice that everything is huge in this universe”, after all, the main character is a two and a half meter tall armored gun, “But the players need some kind of recognizable anchor to understand this scale.

He explains: “This is where the observation of the Cajuns comes in: human environments must be on a human scale. This seems obvious, but in practice it is very difficult to find a good balance because gaming arenas must allow for three players 2.5 meters tall. Marines do all sorts of melee combos, and it’s difficult to fill that kind of space with human-sized objects. »

Another challenge was to make the architecture credible. “All those Gothic spiers had to look like something that could be made by human hands. Just like in real life, even the world’s largest buildings are still made from bricks and concrete made and delivered by humans” , explains Dmitry. “Finding this ‘brick’ size in our game was a challenge: you can’t go too far because it would be too small and create all kinds of technical problems, but going too big would result in a false impression of a fantastic miniature to the ladder. up.”

The challenges of building Space Marine 2’s epic environments as well as the ambition to put as many enemies on screen as possible required stepping back, to ensure balance and, well… not kill the artists.

“Our tech team was very passionate about pushing the enemy count to insane numbers. We did some testing with 100,000 simple animated AIs, and they pushed us to bring that into the game.” reveals Dmitry. “Unfortunately we couldn’t do it because the level had to be absolutely crazy in terms of size.”

Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 is now available on all best game consoles and PC.