Alarms are blaring at Warhammer HQ, as a prisoner has escaped from deep within the Imperial Palace. No, it’s not Luther (again), and it isn’t whatever’s behind that mysterious numbered door either. It’s Syama, the animator behind the hugely popular Astartes animation. They’ve vanished into thin air, but have left a trailer for Astartes 2 behind, which they (alongside a team of other talented animators) will be releasing in 2026.
The trailer, which you can watch below, is a collection of clips showing Space Marines from various chapters doing what they do best: shooting big guns and fighting Xenos. Some of these clips come from the original teaser released by Syama a few years ago, while many of them are entirely new. It makes for a very good watch.
But it also raises some interesting questions. If we check out the official Warhammer blog post for this new reveal, we’re given some interesting additional info. “This teaser trailer is not actually clips from the new animation, instead showing a compilation of shots that represent the former lives of the characters that will appear in the show. There’s a pretty unsubtle hint at the end as to the nature of the final story… we’ll leave you to speculate and start putting the pieces together yourselves.”
So none of the clips in this trailer will actually show up in Astartes 2 next year. Instead, it’s offering a glimpse of the “former lives” of characters we’ll see. A bit of speculation here, but this could mean one of two things. Either Astartes 2 will feature individual episodes with these characters doing seperate things alongside their chapters, be it fighting The Tau or clashing against Chaos, or they’ll all come together in a single Death Watch Squad. The Death Watch, for those not aware, is basically a seperate Space Marine entity where marines from different chapters are sent to fight aliens.
I’m currently leaning towards the Deathwatch idea, just because the blog mentioned a hint towards the final story, and the original Astartes series focused on a single squad doing its thing, but it truly could be anything. It does seem like a lot of work though, animating all these new shots just so none of them make it into the final project.
I don’t know about you, but I’m fiendishly waiting for 2026 to come around, and with it, more Astartes. Let us know below if you feel the same way!
fbq('init', '1749355691872662');
fbq('track', 'PageView'); window.facebookPixelsDone = true;
window.dispatchEvent(new Event('BrockmanFacebookPixelsEnabled')); }
window.addEventListener('BrockmanTargetingCookiesAllowed', appendFacebookPixels);