Astartes 2 Gets a December 2026 Release Window

The Wait Is Almost Over

Warhammer 40,000 fans have been sitting on their hands for a very long time. Games Workshop has finally put an end to the speculation, confirming through a post on the Warhammer Community website that Astartes 2, the follow-up to what is widely considered the greatest Warhammer 40,000 animation ever made, will release this December on Warhammer TV.

Alongside the announcement, a new promo video offered two fresh images from the production. As reported by IGN’s Wesley Yin-Poole, those images do not give away a great deal about the story or scope of the finished product. Big questions remain unanswered, including how many episodes the series will contain, how long each episode runs, and whether it will be structured as episodic content at all.

Where This All Started

For anyone coming in fresh: the original Astartes was not a Games Workshop production. It was made by a single passionate fan named Syama Pedersen, whose work was so technically and artistically accomplished that it caught the attention of the company itself. Games Workshop eventually brought Pedersen in-house to produce the official sequel, which is an origin story that honestly reads like a fan fiction premise that somehow became real.

The original series earned its reputation. According to the IGN report, Astartes is considered the best Warhammer 40,000 animation in existence, with only Amazon’s Space Marine 2 short from the Secret Level anthology even approaching it in quality. The influence extended beyond the screen. Saber Interactive’s hugely successful Space Marine 2 video game drew on Astartes for the look and feel of the Space Marines themselves.

Given that pedigree, the silence around Astartes 2 over the past several years became increasingly uncomfortable for the community. Some fans openly wondered whether Games Workshop had quietly shelved the project. That changed in January of last year, when GW released a teaser trailer and confirmed a broad 2026 release window. Now that window has sharpened into a specific month.

What the Teaser Was Actually Telling You

Here is where things get interesting. That teaser from last year, which showcased melee combat, vehicle battles, spaceship engagements, Tyranids, Orks, Tau, and multiple Space Marine chapters fighting across varied environments, turns out to contain none of the actual animation from Astartes 2.

Games Workshop clarified the situation directly on the Warhammer Community website, stating that the teaser “is not actually clips from the new animation, instead showing a compilation of shots that represent the former lives of the characters that will appear in the show.” The studio added that there is “a pretty unsubtle hint at the end as to the nature of the final story” and invited fans to start putting the pieces together.

What we do know from earlier footage is that the story centers on an Inquisition-led Deathwatch Terminator squad. Chapter symbols on their pauldrons identify the squad’s members as drawn from the Retributors, Mortifactors, Scythes of The Emperor, Sons of Medusa, and Angels Vermilion, and they appear alongside an unnamed human soldier.

December on Warhammer TV

Astartes 2 will be available exclusively through Games Workshop’s streaming platform, Warhammer TV. Beyond the December window and those two new promo images, confirmed details are sparse. The format question alone, episodic or otherwise, will significantly shape how audiences experience whatever Pedersen and Games Workshop have been quietly building for years. December is not far away.