Will there be a Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 beta?

Saber Interactive’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 looks like it might finally give you a chance to fulfill that fantasy of being a Space Marine on an alien world fighting against a Tyranid invasion. While it would be amazing to get to try the game ahead of its September release date, you shouldn’t count on a beta.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has both cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes that will see players explore the full depth of a small part of this incredible universe. In co-op, players will work together to progress a set of campaign missions that are more brutal than anything they’ll have seen before. Competitive multiplayer pits Space Marines against their sworn enemies, Chaos Space Marines, but it doesn’t look like Saber Interactive will be testing its servers ahead of launch.

Will there be a Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 beta?

No, there won’t be a beta for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Saber Interactive explained in a blog post that setting up a beta would take too much time away from finishing the game ahead of its release on September 9, 2024.

Initially, there was meant to be a beta for the game, and there were even sign-up forms that many of us completed because we were so excited about playing early. Anyone who signed up for the beta before the end of June 28, 2024, will get a code for the exclusive Porphyr Shield Bolt Pistol before the game is released. This code can be claimed in-game and transforms the look of your Bolt Pistol into something incredibly regal and worthy of the Emperor of Mankind himself.

I think that Saber Interactive made the right call here. Putting out a beta of an almost finished game and making that the focus while there’s still polishing and bug fixing to be done on the full release would be stretching the development team too thin.

While betas and demos are nice, especially for multiplayer games that you anticipate spending dozens of hours in, they’re far from essential. If the final product is flawed, it will be far more damaging than if players get to try out a limited but functionally fine beta.

Every trailer for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has made the campaign against swarms of thousands of Tyranids look both inviting and terrifying. Hopefully, this move away from a beta in favor of a more polished end product will pay off when we get our hands on it.