Warhammer occupies an odd niche in the gaming world. The franchise is absolutely adored by its rabid fanbase, with a range of board games, video games, and, of course, tens of thousands of customizable figurines. Yet at the same time, the sheer wealth of content and history makes the series relatively impenetrable to potential new fans. To break out into mass appeal, the franchise needs a game that captures the hearts of gamers at large.
That game may just be Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 (hereafter Space Marine 2). Developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment, Space Marine 2 takes place in the grimdark sci-fi world of the Warhammer 40K series. As a sequel to 2011’s Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, the third-person action-shooter has improved upon the original title’s core concept of squad-based gunplay against swarms of enemies.
In this article, we’re looking at the popularity of Space Marine 2 on live-streaming platforms, including how this particular entry in the Warhammer series managed to find success beyond its core fanbase.
Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 Pulls in Big Numbers and Big Names During SUBtember
The official release date for Space Marine 2 was the 9th of September. But, like many other AAA titles this year such as Star Wars Outlaws, this game offered a Gold Edition Early Access pass that allowed players to jump into the game early. As a result, first-week viewership for Space Marine 2 is measured from the 4th of September.
The initial response to Space Marine 2 upon release was incredible. In its first week, Space Marine 2 generated 14.1M hours watched with a peak viewership of 281K. The relatively low airtime of 236K hours needed to generate this viewership can be attributed to Steam’s ability to support new releases via streaming: 3.6M hours watched (25.6%) came from the official Streamforge channel on Steam. This outstanding performance matches up to the swelling player base for the game, with Space Marine 2 opening to 2M players on launch day.
Some of this success can be attributed to Warhammer IP, but such overwhelming performance comes down to strong gameplay and word-of-mouth. Space Marine 2 has been critically praised for its straightforward, spectacle-driven gameplay and the bonkers main campaign that echoes game franchises like Doom and Gears of War. It almost feels like a throwback title, with no open world and no grand ambitions to reinvent storytelling in gaming (instead leveraging the deep world-building of Warhammer 40K). As a result, Space Marine 2 has been getting massive coverage with over 1600 articles written about the game – the second-highest coverage during release week behind only Astro Bot.
Of course, live-streaming coverage itself was a major contributing factor to the game’s success with high-profile streamers covering the game. Chief among them was PirateSoftware who single-handedly generated 984K hours watched for Space Marine 2 in its first week – that’s 7% of total viewership. This success was fueled by the hype behind his channel from SUBtember, with his subathon collaborator ironmouse also bringing in 236K hours watched.
A Twitch Drops campaign marking the game’s release also helped to boost viewership, with participating streamers like CohhCarnage and AlphaCast appearing in the top 10 streamers with 397K and 190K hours watched, respectively. Space Marine 2’s incentives were well-strategized, with one reward simply requiring an hour of viewership (an easy goal for casual fans), and some requiring gifting two subs to the participating streamer (for more hardcore fans). This is a great example of a well-executed Twitch Drops campaign that respects all facets of its community.
Space Marine 2 is By Far the Most Popular Warhammer Game on Live Streaming
Warhammer has desperately deserved this mainstream recognition. Looking at the next most popular Warhammer titles, they don’t even come close: Space Marine 2 has 315% of the viewership of the next most popular game Warhammer 40K: Darktide with 4.5M hours watched. What’s weird is that these games are incredibly similar: Same universe, same co-op capability, same spectacle-driven gameplay. It seems as though Space Marine 2 just happened to arrive at the right time in the gaming zeitgeist, and perhaps had a wave of hype from Darktide’s critical success. The switch from first to third person may have also helped to show off the game’s environments.
Though not shown here, the Total War spin-off titles set in the Warhammer universe are also quite popular on live streaming. The latest installment, Total War: Warhammer III, generated 2.9M hours watched in its debut week, making it the third most popular Warhammer title overall. The strategic angle of Total War is most likely a welcome change of pace for Warhammer video game fans.
Space Marine 2 Increases its Longevity with Well-Reviewed PvP Mode Eternal War
One issue facing many campaign-driven shooter games is how to extend playtime and viewership past the initial surge in demand for the game’s story. Space Marine 2 looks to address this in two ways: Firstly, with a PvE mode called “Operations” which offers longer missions for squads to take on. Secondly, with a PvP mode called “Eternal War” that pits squads against one another.
Using popular Twitch tags and titles mentioning “PvP” or “Eternal War” in their title, we can approximate the amount of viewership coming solely from PvP content. Roughly 5.7% of all Space Marine 2 first-week viewership by hours watched came from PvP content. This outweighs the amount of airtime being dedicated to PvP content at just 3.7%, suggesting that the demand for PvP content is higher than the supply. We can expect this PvP ratio to rise even higher as streamers exhaust the main campaign’s content.
This focus on co-op gameplay is a fantastic strategy for increasing the long-tail impact of a game release. With co-op game viewership rising, Space Marine 2 is capitalizing on an emerging trend in the live streaming industry. The core gameplay loop is also solid enough to support future DLC which, given the game’s immense popularity, we can expect in the months to come. Stream Hatchet will watch to see if Space Marine 2 will act as a gateway into future Warhammer title popularity among viewers.
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