Space Marine 2 developer: “We can just do AAA games smarter”

You have Space Marine 2, which is a huge AAA game. I know how much that game costs, and I know how much other games have cost that have been made by big AAA teams. [music] And we can just do it smarter. Over 30 million people have played World War Z. I heard that. Amazing. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure that the reason that Paramount is looking into making another movie is because of the success of the video game. Every major studio and every [music] major license holder wants to make a video game. It's just the way it is. Everybody, [music] hello and welcome to the game business show. Today we are speaking with Saber Interactive COO Tim Willitz. Now we did this interview during summer gamefest last month which Saber lowkey dominated. They were there with Turok. They had a new stunt man game featuring real movie licenses courtesy of Universal Pictures. That game was called Stuntman Hollywood. They had their big Hellraiser horror game too. Plus they announced they were remastering the classic Hitman games. There was a lot going on. Now, Saber

works on so many games. Alongside those titles I just mentioned, it's working on one of 40,000 Space Man 3, a John Wick game, an Avatar the Last Airbender game, a remake of Star Wars Nights of the Old Republic, a Jurassic Park title called Jurassic Park Survival, and the truck simulator kings. And there are more being worked on behind the scenes, too. It's a big company and a successful one. 2024's Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 really put Saber on the map and showed their capabilities of delivering AAA like experiences on a reasonable budget. This was long before Clay obscure expedition 33 did the same thing. Now in my chat with Willlets, we talk about the scale of its business, how it delivers these big games on a budget, the state of movie licenses, and as an old school Turuk fan, I couldn't help but ask one or two questions about their attempt to revive that franchise. Please enjoy our conversation.
Well, thank you for joining us. Thank you for coming. Welcome to the show.
Yes, thanks for having me.
I have to say, I looked at your slate and it feels absurd. Hellraiser, Hitman,

Jurassic Park, Stunt Man, John Wick, Avatar, Tur Rock, I didn't mention that. Um, how many projects are you working on?
Saber has a lot of projects and you actually missed a lot of the focus projects as well.
Yeah.
Yes, we are. Um, we're big, you know, we have 3,500 employees. I don't know if this is actually true, but I like to say it. I think that we have more licensed products in development than any developer in the world.
Yeah.
And we've worked really hard to establish great relationships with license holders to respect their brand, to respect their uh their property and we've done really well and we can we hopefully will continue that into the future.
I'll come back to license games because that's a really fascinating subject. But how do you manage to work across so many projects but keep start off the costs? So, how do you keep the costs manageable when you've got this amount of [snorts] almost complexity?
So, um what we do at Saber is um we're very good at making sure that we scope our projects to focus on on the fund, to focus on what really needs to happen. Um

like I I play these other games and I can see these virtual dollars flying out of the screen and I can see how much money they spend on the dumbest stuff and I'm like, "Oh god, that's expensive." We also have a culture that um allows all of our employees to work on the titles where they're most needed. There are big development studios where teams get siloed. They're like, I'm team A and I only work on this game. I work on that game. And you have these North American developers with 200 employees working on one game. That's not going to work because everyone knows you don't need all 200 people in the very beginning and very end of that game. So you need to work on other projects, you know, you need to expand. So that's one thing that we're very good at. And then we also um are very smart when it comes to where we do our development. And uh we find super talented people in in places that are honestly a little more affordable, but we have uh we have practice and experience, you know,

grabbing resources where we need them, moving people where they are uh uh most useful. And the employees love it. they, you know, cuz people can work in everything from John Wick to Snowrunner to, you know, Space Marine 3. So, it's really been a culture and a philosophy and a business direction that has made us successful. You preempted my question about how staff must love the ability to move around from budget to budget.
Yes. Obviously, I know everyone looks at Expedition 33 as like the the um the benchmark on the how this how you can do a game quite cheaply or not cheaply is probably the wrong word, but but focus. Yes. Smart. But I actually we were talking about it from Space Marine 2 from like which was before then and it was it was another example of that. Is it possible though to you sounds quite agile but when you're being trying to be agile when you've got 3500 you say um staff. How do you manage that?
Um sometimes I feel like the guy spinning the plates.
Yeah.
You know and I'm spinning up and then I see one starting to want to run over. Um that's kind of how we work. Uh we're a little crazy but we but we but we seem to pull it off. We find the right leads

that have the right vision and passion for a project and then um we give them the time that they need. You know, sometimes we get games done really fast, sometimes the games take a little bit longer, so be it. But we we focus on what's really important. We focus on on the quality experience. Um and we're not afraid to uh take risks. We've had huge success with small games. I mean, look at Mudrunner and Snowrunner. Snowrunner is a hobby game now. And that was literally made by a handful of people and it has made hundreds of millions of dollars. Oh,
really?
And then you have Space Marine 2, which is a huge AAA game. I know how much that game costs, [clears throat] and I know how much other games have cost that have been made by big AAA teams. And we can just do it smarter. Yeah.
So, we are open to any type of game. Even today, we have Stunt Man, which is totally different than Hellraiser, which is totally different than Tur Rock here. Well, I was going to say then, do you think there's any is I was going to say

what makes a saber game?
So, we have that conversation internally all the time. And [clears throat] um there really is not a saber style. We do great with action games. We do great with mature content. Um we do great with IPS. We actually have an award. Bessie, use of a license. But look at games like Snowrunner, uh Roadcraft, Road Kings, which will which will release soon. We also have success there, too. But we do kind of saber them up a little bit. You know, we give like a like a Road Kings game. You can be a hero and and there's some natural disasters and you can drive your truck through it, but it's still a trucking simulator. So, we have a kind of a little DNA flavor, but uh but we don't have just one type of game.
Does your audience skew a bit older? And obviously, I look at look at the same games like, you know, Hellraiser and Turok and IPs like that, even Warhammer. They feel quite old school. Is does that mean you've got a slightly older demographic?
Yeah. Um, we probably have an older demographic at Saber because we're a little older demographic ourselves. You

know, I'm 54. Uh, and uh, you know, our CEO is you're younger than me. No, two weeks younger than me. And you know, sometimes we just like stuff that's maybe a little older, but for games like Tur Rock, um, then we're really trying to bridge the generational gap. For instance, I have 22-year-old triplets. They they've never heard of Tur Rock, but we've created
um modern gameplay. we, you know, modern graphics. So, we're hoping to bring them in, but also make sure we make old folks like you and I happy with that game. That I was going to ask about tour specifically because I am a '90s N64 kid that grew up with to one, two, three, Rage Wars. And um when I first saw this and I thought, oh, it's a cooperative game. It's it's got skill trees and all sorts. Okay, maybe it's not for me. That sort of balance you've got to strike between, hey, this is for those OG fans of which they're not that many. to what was never that big and but trying to bring that into a modern world.
Yes. Yes. So um so one of the things about Turk uh for guys like you is you

can play by yourself so you're not forced to play you can play with one person, two people or no one. There's no bots that will play with you and there is a campaign. Um you know you you talked about skill trees. Uh if you want to dig into it, you can or you can just unlock some weapons and kill some So, I do think for guys like you, you'll be like, "Oh, this is cool." And um we're telling the origins or these truck origins. Yeah. So, it takes place uh before the first game and we have this cool little twist at the end that you'll appreciate.
So, I do think that guys like you will enjoy it and then hopefully, you know, maybe your kids will play with you. I don't know if you have kids, but
I do. They're an age where talk is not for them. More stunt man. Um
Okay. Well, that's stunt man. So hopefully again like I said hopefully we can use this game to kind of bridge that generation. You know even even Hellraiser there are younger adults though adults there are younger gamers that um may have played other survival horror type video games
that have never seen a Hellraiser movie

and have no idea what Clyde Barker is. So we need to win them with the the look and the gameplay and the style. Um so hopefully we can bring those folks in and maybe their parents will say you should play that game. It's a Hellrazer game. I love Hellraiser when I was young.
There's nothing wrong with, you know, there is the industry is not that old. So, when we talk about older gamers, we're still talking about middle-aged people. We're not talking about OAPS here. So, it's a there's definitely a de demographic and an audience there.
Um, licensed games is an interesting one, particularly in the industry at the moment because we've seen really big ones like Star Wars and Avatar and Indiana Jones have been excellent
just but not deliver the numbers that uh perhaps they wanted. The good games of course. So, what makes you comfortable playing in this heavily licensed worlds?
Yeah, it's just something that we uh you know, we've done well. Um we have a good reputation with a licensed game. It does it does help open the door. Yeah. Let's talk about Hellraiser. If we wanted to make a survival horror game and it was our own IP, it would be more of an uphill battle.
Yeah. You'd be fighting against Alien Isolation, Resident Evil, Veronica, you

know, that's just in this campus, isn't it?
Yes. Yes. But people have heard of Hellraiser. Yeah. And then if you get a reputation of doing it well, people heard Space Marine, and Space Marine 2 was a huge success. Uh World War Z,
of course,
you know, a great book, okay movie, super good video game, you know, like we've had over 30 million people have played World War Z.
I've heard that. Amazing.
And I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure that the reason that Paramont is looking into making another movie is because of the success of the video game. They have told us that uh it was one of their most successful licensed properties in the history.
Ah
and so that just go shows you the power of a really good video game and um the IP can open the door but the game has got to be great to get people through it. Obviously the downside you talk about the upsides. It helps with discovery. It helps with you cutting through against big competitors but obviously there are things like licenses and costs and royalties and ultimately you're building someone else's brand right so you're building up someone else's community. Saber becomes more of a recognized name for the quality and

and things like that. Do you foresee a time when you sort of scale back on the licensed stuff and maybe focus more on your own IP and brands?
Yeah, I mean not necessarily. I mean we have some great brands that belong to us. We have, you know, uh Toxic Commando is us. Um Road Kings is us. Um Roadcraft, Snowrunner. So we have a number of our own IPs, but we've done so well with licensed IPs. We have a great relationship with everyone. And I like to say that we're kind of publisher and studio agnostic. You know, we work with Lionsgate, work with Universal, we work with Paramont. That's going to continue. And we have some really cool titles that we will announce from the future that people will be like, "Oh, awesome."
How do you decide what's worth the risk and what isn't? I mean, I think of going back to Turoko, you know, I don't think it's been a particularly strong IP since Turk 2 and I think that was
Yeah.
98. Um, so what makes what makes you decide that, you know, this is worth the risk and this isn't? So, with the Turk specifically, um, we had a kind of an idea for a a a video game and our game

director had a vision and, uh, we have a good relationship with Universal. So, um, we're, you know, maybe maybe we can build a Turok game with this this this kind of idea, you know, and it was the idea of of the DNA and yeah, getting your your power ups and and abilities. So, it was kind of a natural fit. Okay. And uh folks like you were like, "Oh, I played Terac when I was younger."
So, it just kind of like it just kind of worked out well for us. Same with Stunt Man.
Yeah, I was about that. Yeah.
As you know, we were part of Embracer at one point and it was one of the IPs that they owned.
Was that through THQ?
Yeah. Well, was it or I can't remember THQ or Plan?
It was somebody picked that up from someone.
Yes. Yes. It was one of them, you know, which we we we liked them all. So, we had this opportunity. We had some team members that had some experience with with driving games.
Mhm.
And we have Universal. And so we talked to Universal and we're like, "Hey, you know, can we use some of your movies?" And they were like, "We got a thousand movies." And because there were slivers of movies, we were able to secure Fast and Furious, uh, Back to the Future, you

know, Nightrider. I mean, isn't that cool? Yeah.
Um, so, um, it was kind of all the right ingredients fell into place to make a really cool cookie.
Yeah. Well, I think the idea of that game is just cool. Anyway, I think it's just it's quite even though it goes back from, you know, Reflections days and then sort of stuff. So, even though it's an IP that uh is not new, I think the idea of a stunt man game, it's it's fun.
Yeah, it's very approachable. Um anyone can pick it up and play it. Uh my wife likes driving around in the Back to the Future missions cuz they're cool and we and I do believe it'll be have a good nice broad appeal. I know you've had lots of hits and we mentioned Bubble Z and and and obviously the Mudrunner Snowrunner games, but Space Moon 2 was a substantial breakout moment.
It was huge. I think you said at the time it's that it's had a massive influence. Um and but I'm ask that question then. Has that game success had much influence on your creative choices or the projects you sign or has it not changed that part at all?
Yes, it's it literally changed everything. It not only changed the way that the team looks at making games.
Mhm.

It changed how how people look at us.
Mhm. And I've seen this in my career is, you know, when you have a a huge hit, when you go to make the next game, everything has to be like awesome. It's like this this has got to be the most awesome toaster ever. This has to be the most awesome tree ever. And success fuels success. And we've now because we have a reputation of really doing well with license IPs. Everybody, every major studio and every major license holder wants to make a video game. It's just the way it is. Everybody. And because that's where that that's where the successes, that's where where the hits are. So we are in a very fortunate position to turn down more than we can accept. You know, I can't say the name, but I feel like we have, you know, you know, you're successful when you've turned down those guys. And uh uh so it's really nice to be in that position. Well, I think it's I think if there is a Saber game, maybe it's that a Saber concept and it's that maybe your games are quite specialist, whether it's an IP

or it's a type of game. It's very focused on an audience and then [clears throat] if you do a good job of that, as we've seen with Space Marine, we've seen other games as well from software games are famous for it. It sort of can break out to that sort of a wider market and bring things in. I guess that's kind of every you look at your games there's no there's no like this is a big mainstream open world RPG or this is it all feels like this is for that group of people and that group of
you are absolutely correct and that goes back to the scope
to defining what the game is about like World War Z
that was swarms period you know it was four dudes running around killing zombies but the swarms are like that's it and it was bite-size fun and it was easy to play with other folks crossplatform was great, worked great and uh you could get in, you could kill some zombies, everyone had a good time, it was priced well and it was supported. I mean, we just did the Walking Dead tie-in. It was our most successful DLC ever.
All right.
And that was just a few months ago. So,

you make that thing special
and and World War Z led I mean uh Space Marine 2 was built off the lessons from World War Z and then we you know then of course Toxic and so you you focus on that special thing. You do it well. you don't over scope it. Uh and it can spark.
Yeah. In a way, you've got an iterative approach as well there. It if you're turning people down, does that mean you need to get bigger or are you are you or is this now not the time to do that?
Well, so um uh so no, we we we are um still open to growth,
you know, we're still open to acquisitions. We're still open to organic growth. Um we want to be smart, of course.
You know, we have some great partners, but we we don't want to do anything foolish. So, we just need to be measured. We need to take the opportunities where we have them. And again, if if if um if you're the popular one in the room, you'll always be turning people down. So, uh uh it's it's a good position to be in now.
Yeah, it's interesting. Name keeps

coming up. I was I did an interview yesterday of IO and they talked about their relationship with you and how you're having a moment. I had an interview with Hasbro about a month ago, Chris Cox at Hasbro talking about um uh talking about you folks. Oh, what didn't what did he say about us, so I'm curious.
Well, he didn't he didn't reveal anything. Don't worry. It was just like it was just talking about how they're being smart working with great developers and great companies. So, you're having a great moment. Um, but where would you like to see Saber in 5 years, shall we say?
Um, uh, I mean, we just have to, um, we have we have to ship all these great games to a high level of quality. I've said this a lot today. I do believe this is a good time for video games. And I know that it's been difficult for some people, but if you look at the showcase yesterday and you look at some of the announcements, there's really good things. There are really good products and creative people will always find a way to make something amazing. And those games will be found and people will

enjoy them. And um the video game industry has been up and down. I I've been around forever. you've been around forever, you know, uh but um uh but really great entertainment will always win out.
This week is needed. And one of the things I felt sad about when E3 went away and everyone was talking about the ROI never made sense and I agreed with I understood that. But it wasn't just for the people at home. It was for us as an industry to get excited about our own medium and the games coming out. It really used to lift everybody
and um even though Summer Game Fest has been great for for the years, it's not quite done that well. I felt this week maybe it has. I
This is my first [clears throat] one time here. like physically here.
Yeah.
And walking around seeing my friends. I I went to get a food and I stopped like a thousand times.
And you're right, it's making those connections and and talking to the people that you know and we all know each other. And you're right, you know, it lifts everybody and especially for for fans. It's a great time. It really is. Yeah.
Particularly, you know, particularly September. [laughter]
Yes. Because the giant giant is coming.

Yes. But you know, it's not all about day one. Um Tim, that was out all my questions. Thank you so much for joining us.
Yes, pleasure. Thank you.
That's it for today's episode of the Game Business Show. Thank you for Tim for his time. A really fascinating company and one a lot of the industry have been taking notes from. We will be back, of course, with more news, analysis, insight, and interviews in the days and weeks ahead. To make sure you don't miss an episode, head to the gamebus.com, put in your email address, and you'll get an alert every single time we put a new one out. But until next time, thank you for tuning in.