Games Workshop has brought missing-in-action Warhammer 40,000 animation Astartes 2 back from the dead with an incredible teaser trailer that has wowed fans of the hobby. However, there’s a catch: nothing in the teaser will be in the new animation.
Astartes 2 is Games Workshop’s follow-up to the fan-made original Astartes animation, created by Syama Pedersen. It is widely accepted as the greatest Warhammer 40,000 animation ever made, official or unofficial, only perhaps bettered by Amazon’s recently released and excellent Space Marine 2 animation for the Secret Level anthology series.
Indeed, Astartes was so good that it inspired Saber Interactive’s hugely successful Space Marine 2, and Games Workshop eventually brought Syama in-house to work on the sequel.
But fans hadn’t heard a peep out of Games Workshop on Astartes 2 for years, leading some to wonder whether the company had quietly cancelled it. Fast forward to today, January 29, and the surprise reveal of the teaser trailer, which is a feast for Warhammer 40,000 fans.
It’s not even February yet and the Ws for 2025 won’t stop coming! Astartes is back, Brothers! pic.twitter.com/sYhu5LjwiC
— Champions of the Ice (@ChampionsOTIce2) January 29, 2025
The teaser suggests an animation on a scale never-before-seen from Warhammer 40,000 at this quality level, with melee combat, shooting, vehicle combat, and even spaceship battles all showcased. We see a number of different Space Marine chapters in battle across varied environments, and multiple enemy races, including Tyranids, Orks, and Tau.
It certainly hypes up Astartes 2, but it turns out nothing in the teaser will be in the animation itself when it finally launches in 2026 exclusively on Games Workshop’s subscription-only Warhammer+ streamer. According to a post on the Warhammer Community website:
“This teaser trailer is not actually clips from the new animation, instead showing a compilation of shots that represent the former lives of the characters that will appear in the show. There’s a pretty unsubtle hint at the end as to the nature of the final story… We’ll leave you to speculate and start putting the pieces together yourselves.”
So, while the teaser is certainly cool, that’s all it really is for now. We still haven’t seen anything of Astartes 2, and the lack of a disclaimer on the trailer probably won’t do it any favors in the long term. A fan who catches this teaser would reasonably expect what it shows to appear in Astartes 2; most won’t see the Warhammer Community post.
Still, it’s hard not to get excited as a fan and speculate about what it all means. It looks like the characters in the trailer end up in an Inquisition-led Deathwatch Terminator squad, based on the final image. But that’s about all I’ve managed to glean from it so far.
Meanwhile, I’ve already seen Space Marine 2 fans look jealously upon the Astartes 2 teaser and hope for some or all of it to make its way across to the game. Capes are an early shout. Saber is continuing to update the game, so perhaps it’s time for the developers to take some inspiration from Astartes once again.
Image credit: Games Workshop.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
