When it comes to shooters with co-op elements, Saber Interactive has earned quite the reputation in recent times thanks to games like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando. In an interview with IGN, Saber Interactive’s CCO, Tim Willits, spoke about how the tech advancements made with Toxic Command will end up benefiting the development of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3.
While John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando wasn’t the runaway commercial hit that parent company Pullup would have wanted, Willits has noted that the studio has been quite happy with the co-op shooter, affirming that Saber is continuing to support it with upcoming updates.
“We’re really happy with it. Focus’ opinion: they’re a publicly traded company, so they have to say what they have to say. We’ll leave that to them. But for us, we’re really excited about it. We have some new stuff coming out. We actually have a good player base.
“It brought more people into the Saber universe. When I say Saber universe, it’s people who fall in love with one game who now start to look at us, like Space Marine 2 with our 14 million players. It’s f***ing ridiculous. Just a few! And then World War Z, remember, that’s 30 million people that played that game. It’s nuts. More people played that game than saw the movie or read the book.”
He went on to talk about how the technology that was used for the massive enemy hordes in Toxic Commando will also be seen in Space Marine 3. “You can see the progression with our technology moves. I feel that it was a good brick in that Saber wall.”
“We’re growing the company, we’re growing the project, we’re growing the technology. It was profitable for us. We don’t lose money. We don’t lose money on anything.”
Going deeper on the subject of the tech advances, Willits noted that the technology has been maturing quite well, and even noted how Toxic Commando introduced player-driveable vehicles to Saber’s co-op shooter repertoire.
“You can see the bigger swarms, you can see the bigger areas, you can see the better AI. There’s cars — you didn’t have cars in Space Marine 2. I’m not saying we’re going to have cars in Space Marine 3. I’m just saying the technology is growing and developing, and that’s our technology. So we can focus on technology pillars that will support our future games like Space Marine 3 and Jurassic Park — that uses the same technology.”
When it comes to general development progress on Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3, Willits said that it has been “going great”, and that the success of Space Marine 2 has also been encouraging. “Our DLC’s been super successful. People love the mods. It helps the team with experience, knowing what fans actually want, making sure that we adhere to the true Warhammer 40K universe franchise.”
“The success of Space Marine 2 has really made the team passionate about making sure that Space Marine 3 is even better. They feel that there’s this confidence and passion and vigor, and you can see it. When you talk to the team, they’re just in it. So I’m really excited about that.”
Willits also confirmed earlier this month that Saber Interactive is not using generative AI for the development of licensed games like Space Marine 3.
