Sure, the armor customizations and lore accuracy in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is great, but nothing beats the power fantasy of slicing and smashing through a Tyranid horde. Saber Interactive not only nailed action, but the technical feat of having so many enemies on the screen is absolutely staggering.
But, when there are arguably more interesting enemies, like Orcs and Necrons, why did the developers choose to go with the Tyranids? Besides the fact that mowing through them feels fun, Saber Interactive CCO Tim Willits says that it's because the studio already had an engine capable of showcasing the Tyranid swarm in a brilliant way.
The engine in question is Saber's proprietary Swarm Engine, which was used in World War Z before Space Marine 2. As the name suggests, its standout feature was that it was great at directing swarms of AI NPCs in a controlled manner. This made the choice of enemy pretty obvious for the devs, and boy did it work out well.
"Given the success of World War Z, when the team started to work on Space Marine 2, it was just a natural kind of marriage,” said Willits in an interview for the latest issue...
