Astartes II Trailer Reveals Deathwatch Terminators and Strong Space Hulk Influences

Astartes II has received a new trailer, offering the clearest look yet at the long-awaited continuation of one of Warhammer 40,000's most celebrated animated projects. The footage confirms the arrival of Deathwatch Space Marines and Terminators, while its dim corridors, oppressive atmosphere, and looming sense of close-quarters danger point strongly toward the influence of Space Hulk.

The sequel is planned to arrive in December through Warhammer+, Games Workshop's streaming service. While the exact release date and episode or runtime details have not been announced, one important point has been made clear: Astartes II will be significantly longer than the original Astartes. That is particularly welcome news for viewers who have spent years revisiting the short but enormously influential fan-made animation that began this story.

The original Astartes was created by Syama Pedersen as an independent labor of love. Its precision, visual clarity, sound design, and unusually convincing depiction of Space Marine combat rapidly made it a phenomenon among Warhammer 40,000 fans. Pedersen was later brought into the official fold to work on the sequel, turning an exceptional community project into a major official production for the setting.

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Deathwatch and Terminators take center stage

The new trailer does not explain every detail of Astartes II's plot, but it gives fans plenty to inspect. Most notably, it showcases Deathwatch warriors in Terminator armour. The iconic silhouette is immediately recognizable: enormous armoured forms advancing with storm bolters ready, alongside the crackle and threat of a power fist. The scene presents the Terminators as an implacable force, their weapons and armour carrying as much weight as their movement through the darkness.

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Deathwatch Space Marines are a natural fit for a story that appears focused on a highly specialized kill team. Drawn from different Space Marine Chapters and placed under the Inquisition's authority, the Deathwatch are commonly deployed against alien threats that require exceptional expertise, ruthless adaptability, and overwhelming force. Their mixed Chapter heritage also gives Astartes II an opportunity to place several distinct Space Marine identities within a single squad.

The trailer appears to support that idea. At least three different characters and Chapters can be identified in the material shown, and the shoulder markings connect the team to the figures glimpsed in earlier promotional footage. The known Chapter symbols include the Retributors, Mortifactors, Scythes of the Emperor, Sons of Medusa, and Angels Vermilion. That combination should give the squad a visual variety beyond the shared silver arm of the Deathwatch, while also inviting speculation about the personalities, specialties, and pasts of each veteran.

One warrior stands apart immediately: an unhelmeted Space Marine veteran with a visibly weathered, hardened appearance. In a universe packed with faceless ceramite helms, exposing a character's face is a meaningful decision. It signals an individual who may have a more direct role in the narrative, and it reinforces the impression that this story will be concerned with a group of experienced specialists rather than anonymous troops.

Why the Space Hulk comparison matters

The strongest mood in the new footage comes from its setting. Space Marines move through a blacked-out and claustrophobic interior where limited pools of light barely push back the shadows. One first-person view down a spotlight-lit corridor is especially evocative of Space Hulk, the enduring tabletop game built around Terminators exploring the derelict labyrinths of massive spacecraft.

Space Hulks are among the most evocative environments in Warhammer 40,000. They are colossal drifting wreckages, formed from fused ships, debris, and ancient structures dragged through the warp. Their corridors can conceal hostile life, forgotten technology, warp-tainted horrors, or alien infestations. They are places where even heavily armed Space Marines can be forced into brutal, narrow engagements with almost no room to maneuver.

That formula has long made Terminator armour essential to the Space Hulk fantasy. These suits are slow, bulky, and extraordinarily resilient, designed to let an elite warrior carry devastating firepower into locations where ordinary forces would be overwhelmed. A line of Terminators filling a passageway, storm bolters trained into the dark, is one of the most recognizable images in the entire Warhammer 40,000 setting. Astartes II appears poised to use that imagery for maximum tension.

The trailer does not identify the creatures or threats waiting beyond the visible corridors. Still, the framing makes the intended feeling unmistakable: something terrible is nearby, the Marines know it, and their armour does not make the situation comfortable. The best Space Hulk stories turn confined spaces into pressure cookers, where the danger lies not just in what attacks, but in the certainty that it can strike from any doorway, vent, or unlit chamber.

A sequel with more room to tell its story

The promise of a significantly longer animation may be Astartes II's most important confirmation. The original project was necessarily concise because it was made as a one-person fan production. Its brief chapters still delivered memorable action and mysterious imagery, but the format limited how much character work, world-building, and narrative escalation could fit around the combat.

With an expanded production and official backing, the sequel has the chance to retain the original's economical style while giving its events more room to breathe. A longer runtime could support a fuller mission structure: deployment, investigation, mounting tension, an encounter with the unknown, and the consequences for the team. It could also give greater importance to the Deathwatch's mixed Chapter composition, allowing veterans from different backgrounds to feel like characters rather than simply distinctive armour markings.

That possibility is especially interesting because the earlier promotional teaser deliberately created a broader impression than the finished animation will apparently contain. It showed Space Marines fighting across multiple environments, with melee clashes, gunfire, vehicles, spacecraft, and enemies including Tyranids, Orks, and T'au. However, that footage was not made from scenes in Astartes II itself.

Instead, the teaser was presented as a compilation representing the characters' lives before the events of the show. Its purpose was to provide context and hints about the people who will appear in the actual story, rather than to preview a campaign that will unfold exactly as shown. The ending of that teaser was also designed to offer a broad clue about the eventual direction of the narrative, leaving viewers to assemble the implications themselves.

That clarification makes the new trailer more valuable. Whereas the earlier material was intentionally expansive and suggestive, the latest footage appears much closer to the specific tone and location of Astartes II. Rather than promising a tour through every major battlefield fantasy of the 41st Millennium, it points to a more focused operation: elite Deathwatch Terminators entering a hostile, enclosed environment where firepower may not be enough to control what is waiting inside.

The legacy of the original Astartes

Astartes carries unusually high expectations because the first animation has become a benchmark for how many fans want Warhammer 40,000 to look and feel on screen. It presented Space Marines as immense, disciplined, and frighteningly efficient without reducing them to slow-moving statues. Bolter fire had impact. Armour had weight. The warriors communicated with restrained gestures and body language. Environments felt enormous, ancient, and hostile.

Its influence has extended beyond animation fandom. The visual language of Space Marines as towering, forceful figures has become a reference point in discussions surrounding major Warhammer 40,000 adaptations and games. The acclaimed depiction of the Adeptus Astartes in Space Marine 2, in particular, has often been compared with the tone and physicality that Astartes helped popularize.

That legacy is why every new glimpse of Astartes II receives intense scrutiny. Fans are not only hoping for larger action scenes; they are looking for the particular discipline that made the original work. The new trailer suggests that the sequel understands this. It does not rely on constant spectacle. It lets the sound of armour, the shape of a corridor, the outline of weapons, and the silence around the squad establish dread before the full nature of the threat is revealed.

What remains unknown before December

There is still considerable mystery surrounding Astartes II. The trailer confirms Deathwatch Terminators and reveals a Space Hulk-like atmosphere, but it does not provide a firm account of the mission, the antagonists, or the exact relationship between every character. It also remains unclear how much of the story will take place outside the dark interior shown in the latest footage.

Those unanswered questions are likely intentional. Warhammer 40,000 works especially well when it gives viewers the sense that they have entered the middle of an ancient, incomprehensibly vast conflict. Astartes II's promotional campaign has so far embraced that approach, supplying significant visual clues without laying out the full mission briefing.

For now, the important facts are straightforward. Astartes II is coming to Warhammer+ in December, it will be longer than the original animation, and its Deathwatch Terminators are heading into a setting that looks primed for a brutal Space Hulk-style descent into darkness. For Warhammer 40,000 fans, that is more than enough to make the wait feel very long indeed.