A comment on a Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 video appearing to be from Saber CEO Matthew Karch has raised eyebrows for stating that games should be about “glory kills” instead of “imposing morals on gamers.”
The comment, from an account named “MatthewKarch” purporting to be the Saber CEO, was made on a video by streamer Asmongold titled “Space Marine 2 is a reminder of what we lost.”
The video is a response to another from YouTuber Legendary Drops who described the recently released Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 as oozing “with so much masculinity that I feel like I’ve been in a desert for the last few years.” Asmongold vehemently agrees in his almost one hour response from him.
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The comment from the “MatthewKarch” account mentions they love Asmongold’s videos, before providing further details on the developer’s intentions with Space Marine 2.
“I love your videos,” the account wrote. “When we signed the deal to make Space Marine 2, all I wanted was a throwback game. We had the chance to work on something which by its nature was ‘old school’. I can’t even understand many of the current games that we played these days. They are too complex and too much of an investment. We worked on Halo back in the day, and that game could be distilled down to the simplest of shooting loops, but it was entirely addicting.
“That is what we wanted to recapture. I hope that games like Space Marine 2 and Wukong are the start of a reversion to a time when games were simply about fun and immersion. I spent some time as Chief Operating Officer at Embracer and I saw games there that made me want to cry with their overblown attempts at messaging or imposing morals on gamers.
“We just want to do some glory kills and get the heart rate up a little. For me that is what games should be about.”
Another account, purporting to be creative director Oliver Hollis-Leick, also commented on Asmongold’s video: “Hearing everything you have to say about the story and characters resonates so strongly with our current approach. It’s great to hear you calling out the exact things that we intentionally focused on. It was four and a half years of intense work and passion and watching videos like this makes it all worth it.”
Eurogamer contacted Saber to verify the legitimacy of these accounts, but a company representative said it was “not commenting on this matter.” Eurogamer also contacted Karch directly, but has not heard a response.
Five days after posting, the comments are still live on the video, with Matthew Karch’s comment receiving 15,000 upvotes and hundreds of replies praising his work. “This is what we, the gamers, the audience, not the non-existent ‘modern audience’ want,” reads one.
Space Marine 2 has certainly received praise since its release last week. Our Eurogamer review applauded the game’s “grisly” combat, but criticized its characterisation. “Saber clearly wants you to think of its characters as more than metal-plated meatheads, and I enjoyed how the campaign hints at the character’s emotions by their very attempts to avoid showing them,” it reads. “Sadly, it never delves much further than this, and the campaign drifts increasingly toward tropes and fan-service as it proceeds. It’s still entertaining, but doesn’t transcend itself in the way it suggests it might in the first half.”
However, Asmongold and Legendary Drops praise the game for its overt masculine themes and for – at last! – targeting a game towards a straight male audience.
Karch’s comments about imposing morals have raised eyebrows, particularly in the wake of criticism surrounding Black Myth: Wukong considering the anti-woke sentiment around that game following reports of misogyny at the studio and a leaked document to streamers requesting not to include “politics” or “feminist propaganda” in their coverage.
Space Marine 2 is the first release from Saber following its split from Embracer, which sold its assets for $247m in a move to withdraw from Russia and “reduce [its] “geopolitical risk”.
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