Astartes 2 lands in December — Games Workshop finally confirms release window

After years of silence and fan speculation, Games Workshop has confirmed that Astartes 2 is coming this December. The announcement came via the Warhammer Community site, alongside a new promo video featuring two brief glimpses of the animation in progress.

Details are still thin — episode count, runtime, and format are all unconfirmed. What GW did clarify is that last year's teaser trailer, which showed melee combat, vehicle battles, spaceship sequences, and multiple enemy factions including Tyranids, Orks, and Tau, contains no actual footage from the finished animation. According to the Warhammer Community post, the teaser was "a compilation of shots that represent the former lives of the characters that will appear in the show," with a hint at the end about the story's direction. The Deathwatch Terminator squad seen in earlier teasers is confirmed to return — the same five chapters as before: Retributors, Mortifactors, Scythes of The Emperor, Sons of Medusa, and Angels Vermilion. Astartes 2 will stream exclusively on Warhammer TV, Games Workshop's own streaming service.

The original Astartes was a fan project by Syama Pedersen, widely regarded as the best Warhammer 40,000 animation ever made — official or otherwise. It was so influential that Saber Interactive cited it as a direct reference for the look and feel of Space Marines in Space Marine 2. GW eventually brought Pedersen in-house to produce the official sequel. The only real competition for Astartes in quality terms has been Amazon's Space Marine 2 short for the Secret Level anthology. GW first acknowledged Astartes 2 was still alive in January last year with a teaser and a vague 2026 window — December is the first hard target.

Fans had grown genuinely worried the project had been quietly shelved, so the December confirmation is a relief for the community. The clarification that the teaser wasn't real footage is a notable caveat — expectations will need recalibrating — but the new promo at least confirms production is moving. More details on format and episode structure are presumably coming before the December release.