Warhammer 40K fan animation gets an official sequel from Games Workshop

Warhammer 40,000 has garnered a large and passionate fanbase, and many of those fans pitch in themselves, contributing to the setting with their own ideas and inspirations. There are few fan works as well known and beloved as Astartes, a series published to YouTube by Syama Pedersen. In Astartes, a Chapter known as the Retributors storms an enemy ship. The series is nearly entirely dialogue-free, telling its story through the brutality of the Space Marines boarding the ship and the mysterious xenos artifacts they discover.

As it turns out, Astartes was popular enough for Games Workshop to hire Pedersen, and on Wednesday, the publisher revealed a trailer for Astartes 2.

The trailer shows a montage of action shots, with varying Space Marine Chapters represented on the field. The Retributors return from the first Astartes, but we also see Marines from the Blood Angels, the Mortifactors, the Sons of Medusa, and the Scythes of the Emperor. According to the Warhammer Community post on the trailer, these are not snippets of the upcoming show, but rather a little bit of set-up for each Marine and their history. Based off the Deathwatch Terminator near the end, it looks like these Marines are going to come together under the Deathwatch, an organization that accepts Marines from all Chapters in the fight against any and all xenos.

We’ll have to wait until 2026 to see Astartes 2, but it looks like it will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor: little dialogue, lots of action, and an alien threat. Pedersen also assisted on And They Shall Know No Fear, the 40k entry in Amazon’s Secret Level anthology that ties into Space Marine 2. It looks like Astartes 2 will be hosted on Warhammer Plus, the streaming subscription service that hosts animation, tutorials, and other media for 40K and the fantasy setting Age of Sigmar.