How Space Marine 2 stays authentic to the Warhammer 40K fanbase | Tim Willits interview

Tim Willits spent decades at id Software making titles like Doom, Quake and more. Now he’s the chief creative officer at Saber Interactive, a big game developer and publisher that was acquired by Embracer Group and then spun out again on its own after Embracer ran into financial trouble.

But Saber was back at the giant Gamescom expo event in Cologne, Germany, showing off games like Space Marine 2, based on the Warhammer 40K franchise that has been around since 1987. After a very long hiatus, Saber’s Dmitry Grigorenko and others pitched the idea of doing Space Marine 2 as a sequel to Space Marine, a shooter video game which debuted in 2011. Games Workshop, which owns the franchise, gave it a thumbs up. Now, at last, Space Marine 2 is launching into early access today.

The parties signed a deal after Willits joined in 2019 and then began work in 2020. But then the pandemic got in the way.

I met with Willits at Gamescom and he talked about Saber’s newfound independence. It’s working on Space Marine 2, Jurassic Park, A Quiet Place and Toxic Commander. We talked about what it was like for Willits to break out of the mode he was in at id Software and start something new. And we discussed how the game industry can get its mojo back after a couple of years of layoffs.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

Disclosure: Devcom paid my way to Cologne, where I moderated two sessions at the event.

GamesBeat: I once came up with this notion of how Warhammer 40K franchise inspired Gears of War the video game, which inspired Space Marines the video game. Like how Raiders of the Lost Ark inspired the video games Tomb Raider and Uncharted, which inspired Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This kind of comparison got me into trouble years ago for saying who copied whom.

Tim Willits: There’s this crazy cycle of influence. The Warhammer franchise has been an inspiration for many video games for decades. If you’re younger or you don’t understand it, you won’t get it, but I really hope that people understand what an influence it was.

The Warhammer fanbase out there is millions of people, and they are so passionate. Working with Games Workshop, they make sure that everything is correct. We had to change the armor proportions around the ankles because it wasn’t right. Every symbol, every term. The characteristics of the Tyranids and the Chaos marines, everything has to be justified in lore. Games Workshop is amazing to work with, but they understand that the fanbase will not settle for something that isn’t right.

GamesBeat: What was it like to come into a company that was making this?

Willits: It was awesome. They said, “We played Doom 2016, the glory kills were awesome! Let’s do more of that.” But we talked about the original Space Marine at id. It goes to show you that everything is interconnected. There was once a South Park episode where they said, “The Simpsons already did it.” But I’m just excited and blessed to work on such an amazing game.

One thing I do want to say that’s important. It is Space Marine 2. Space Marine was a great game, but it’s hard to play now. It’s only available on PC. There are going to be millions of people that have never played it. I don’t want them to feel intimidated or feel like that’s a requirement. In Space Marine 2, we have a clear story, a solid place to start. You don’t need to know anything about Titus or what happened before. We’ll release videos soon that Clive Standen helped us create. He’s the guy who plays Titus. That will help tell people about what the Warhammer universe is. What is this place? Who’s the Emperor? What happened with Horus? What’s the war about? We’ll have some videos to help. But really, we introduce everything.

GamesBeat: Why has this come so long after the first game?

Willits: The guys at Saber–our game director, Dmitry Grigorenko, he’s the guy that created World War Z. He’s brilliant. He had such a passion for the project. He and our creative director, Oliver, who’s been in some interviews, they went to Games Workshop. They said, “We’d love to do a Space Marine game.” Games Workshop was so impressed by the knowledge and passion and understanding of the universe they had–it’s hard. It’s a thick universe. They were so impressed that the guys knew what they were talking about. They said, “Let’s do it.” Focus has been a great partner for us. We made an amazing game.

GamesBeat: How long has this been in the works?

Willits: Since 2020. We signed the deal when I got to Saber in 2019, but then we had the pandemic.

GamesBeat: Is this one of the reasons you wanted to make that switch?

Willits: What I love about my position at Saber is that I can work on so many games. I loved working at id. We made great stuff. But now I’m working on Space Marine, Jurassic Park. We have Toxic Commando, which we’ll talk about more soon. Next month we release A Quiet Place, which is a heck of a lot of fun. I made the Evil Dead game. We have sports games. To work on so many games in so many genres with these talented teams, it’s a dream come true.

We have some stuff we haven’t announced yet that’s so cool. We announced two games this week: The Knightling, which is just an independent game, a small team. It’s over at the Xbox booth. And then RoadCraft. Everyone is here to see Space Marine as well.

GamesBeat: Is there a way of making this where you’re learning from id, but also learning from a different company and doing things in a different way?

Willits: Oh, definitely. Being in the industry since 1995, it’s experience. You know. You’ve been doing your job forever. You just learn. I can see a problem in a game a mile away. It’s something I tell teams. “I’ve seen this a thousand times. This is going to be a problem.” They say, “No it’s not. We’ll do it right.” Then it ends up not working. But being able to have that experience, and now have this experience across other genres–sim games. You know me. I never played a sim game. Now I understand how SnowRunner plays. It’s a totally different way of thinking.

GamesBeat: It’s always interesting to break out of a mode that you’ve been in.

Willits: It’s hard. Especially the production and business side of things. At Saber we work on a lot of games. We have studios around the world. Being able to understand the scope of a project, understand what the project actually costs to make, and to make smart decisions that make these games profitable–it’s definitely a different way of thinking.

As games become more and more expensive, you’ll see traditional North American developers struggling. A lot of these big companies work on one project at a time. We have no teams that work on one game at a time. Really understanding what scope means. If you work on a game for four months and you decide for some reason to change direction–sometimes you burn millions. We made SnowRunner for not that much money, and it has made a ridiculous return. We focused on the core. A game can have a $5 million, $20 million, or $200 million budget. If you focus on the core and you make that fun, it can be successful for you. That’s one thing I definitely learned coming to Saber. It took a while.

GamesBeat: You’re not at a level to speak to all of this, but looking upward at all the things Embracer is doing, is there anything you’ve learned from being part of that?

Willits: You know we’re no longer with Embracer. I love all those teams. I think we publicly said this, but I think having too much autonomy with all the pillars, and having too many overlapping groups–ultimately that hurt us. The company put together a lot of great talent. I’m still friends with all those people. They’re really smart. What they’re doing now is smart. But someday, when someone writes the book, it will be a fascinating read.

We were lucky. For lack of a better description, we bought ourselves back. Now we’re just doing what we were doing before.

GamesBeat: It’s always good to see the industry moving back to growth after a stretch of hard times.

Willits: We’ve focused on affordable territories in the world. Let me tell you, you can work with a team in any part of the world, and they’re going to do just as great as a team in California. That’s an example. You focus on the strengths of the team. On some of our projects, they don’t need to sell 4 million copies to be profitable. They just need to do well. We’re very clear in our projections. We’re very clear on what we’re burning every month. We’re very clear on our checkpoints. We manage and run a tight ship.

Look at the projects we’re making. It’s ridiculous. They’re all kicking ass. You make smart decisions with teams that are the right size and have the right talent.

GamesBeat: From your outside perspective now, do you have any thoughts on where id is going?

Willits: They’re going to make great stuff forever. I’m not worried about that. I’m excited about the new game. For us, we want to continue to grow, find the appropriate size of teams, and then leverage what we do well. We’ve done great with movie licenses. We’ve done great with our sim titles. We’re hoping that games like Jurassic Park will knock it out of the, ah, park.

GamesBeat: What else is in your area of responsibility?

Willits: My title is chief creative officer. We have a handful of people that actually run the company. For me personally, I do everything. I work on studio strategy. I work on game concepts. I work with the teams on making sure they go in the right direction. Sometimes teams over-scope things. You focus on what buttons to push. Focus on the core gameplay. I worked on buying companies. We had a year of buying companies. I do marketing. I do everything. It’s great.

I work with Matt and Andrey and that’s it. It’s not hard to make a decision when there are only four guys making decisions. There’s just no bullshit. It takes us the snap of your fingers to make decisions. I’m very blessed.

Disclosure: Devcom paid my way to Cologne, where I moderated two sessions at the event.