Space Marine 2 studio says the leaked build is nearly a year old, urges people not to play it: 'It's disheartening that many of the surprises we worked to keep secret were spoiled'

Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment say the leaked build of the upcoming shooter Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is almost a year old and "unfinished," and are urging players to stay away from it.

The leaked build of Space Marine 2 appeared online over the past weekend, nearly two months ahead of the game's scheduled launch. A post on 4chan claimed the build was dated to June 20, 2024, but in today's statement Saber and Focus said it's actually much older and not representative of the final state of the game.

"Our teams have poured years of hard work, passion, and dedication into creating a game worthy of your hopes and expectations, and it's disheartening that many of the surprises we worked to keep secret were spoiled," they wrote in a message posted to Twitter. "We're saddened that this build, which will be almost a year old by the time we launch, is how some of our most eager fans will first experience Space Marine 2."

Space Marine 2 was originally slated to come out near the end of 2023 but developers ultimately decided to impose a lengthy delay, pushing its launch into the second half of 2024. Today's statement alludes to that call, saying the team's commitment to making the best game possible "was the driving force behind our decision to spend more time on development."

The leak has to be particularly frustrating in light of that, but this toothpaste isn't going back into the tube. Focus is taking steps to have videos based on the leaked game taken down, but it's out there, and there's a long stretch yet before Space Marine 2 comes out. So Focus and Saber are taking a pragmatic approach to the problem and asking people not to be dicks about it.

"We're asking everyone to avoid this unfinished build and to not spoil the game for those excited to experience it for the first time at launch. Space Marine 2 will release on September 9, and the best way to support our teams' hard work is to play the game as they've always intended."

What sort of compliance they get with that request is an open question, but the general consensus on the Warhammer subreddit seems to be that the leak sucks for developers—and it absolutely does—and that by and large, the overriding interest isn't in playing an old build ahead of everyone else, but simply in avoiding spoilers.

As we noted when the leak first came to light, the sad irony of the whole thing is that Saber cancelled a planned open beta test for Space Marine 2 in June, saying it wants to stay "entirely focused on optimization, polish and fixing remaining issues ahead of launch." Now it has to put at least some of that focus on cleaning up this mess instead.