While always awful for developers, leaks of unreleased games aren’t rare, but usually occur in the days before release. For a big-name, highly anticipated, fully playable game to hit piracy sites two months before it’s due out, however, is astoundingly unusual. That’s what’s happened to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, the Saber-made sequel to Relic’s 2011 hack-n-slash hit, apparently including all 75GB of the nearly finished game, and even server binaries.
Originally reported by Insider Gaming, the sequel—developed by Evil Dead and World War Z studio Saber Interactive—has leaked in a completely playable form. While there are reportedly some placeholder assets and missing bits and pieces, it’s said this unfinished build can be played online with other people. Absolutely horrific news for all involved.
People have been posting in-game footage of the leaked game, although it looks as though publishers Focus are copyright striking it as fast as they can. However, a 47-minute Russian video I found shows the game running extremely smoothly, and looking extremely good. It has, if nothing else, got me hyped for the game’s official release.
Read More: Space Marine 2 Might End Up Being The Best Warhammer Game Ever
The original Space Marine was made by Relic, the studio behind Company of Heroes and Homeworld. In 2013, a sequel was in the works when the company became collateral damage in the miserable collapse of THQ. Almost a decade later, with the rights now in the hands of Focus Entertainment, the project was restarted by Saber in 2021, with footage first seen in 2022. By 2023 we learned of three-player co-op, and earlier this year, Kotaku suggested it could be “the best Warhammer game ever.”
Insider Gaming says it believes the leaked Space Marine 2 build is from February 23 this year. This obviously means it’s going to be months behind what Saber intends to release on September 9.
It’s also worth adding that leaked builds found online are fantastically likely to contain all manner of malware, added by those looking to take advantage of the situation, let alone all those who will mis-label absolutely anything else with the name of the game to lure in the gullible, giving even further reason not to consider downloading the leak.
While this must be devastating for all involved, it’s possible to take solace in the knowledge that historically, major leaks can offer enormous extra promotion for a game (I bet you’d forgotten Space Marine 2 was coming in a couple of months). And when they’re as incredible-looking as what’s appearing in footage, even provide guerrilla advertising. I’m certainly going to be playing the released version come September 9, having glimpsed how good this looks.
Update 7/16/2024 3:06 p.m. ET: Publish Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive released a joint-statement acknowledging the leaked build and asking fans to stay away from it and not spoil the game for others.
“Out teams have poured year of hard work, passion, and dedication into creating a game worthy of your hopes and expectations, and it’s disheartening that many of the surprises we worked to keep secret were spoiled,” the companies wrote. “We’re saddened that this build, which will be almost a year old by the time we launch, is how some of our most eager fans will first experience Space Marine 2.”