Astartes II Trailer Confirms Deathwatch Terminators and Longer Runtime

Warhammer 40,000’s Astartes II has surfaced again with a trailer that trades broad spectacle for a far more unnerving proposition: heavily armoured Space Marines advancing through a dark interior where the light is scarce, the corridors are tight, and the threat is plainly meant to be nearby.

The crucial confirmations are the appearance of the Deathwatch and Terminators, plus the news that Astartes II will be “significantly longer” than the original Astartes. It is due to arrive on Warhammer+ this December. For a project that began with a compact, independently made animation and is now an official sequel, that expanded running time is as important as any new weapon or armour silhouette in the footage.

The trailer’s strongest visual cue is its Space Hulk atmosphere. Space Hulk is a tabletop game associated here with ominous, enclosed interiors, and the new footage leans hard into that visual language: Space Marines stomp through shadow, a corridor is seen from a first-person perspective, and spotlights provide limited visibility rather than reassurance. The result is less an open battlefield than a controlled descent into a place where the architecture itself is part of the tension.

Deathwatch and Terminators move from implication to confirmation

Previous material had pointed toward a Deathwatch Terminator team, but the new trailer makes the direction much clearer. The Deathwatch are identified as an Inquisition-led squad in the material surrounding the project, while the Terminators are the Marines in the especially imposing armour seen carrying storm bolters and using a power fist.

Those terms matter because they quickly establish the trailer’s mood even for viewers who do not recognize every heraldic marking. A storm bolter is the clustered-barrel firearm emphasized in the footage. A power fist is the large armoured melee weapon whose electrical crackle is singled out in the trailer’s presentation. Together, they communicate a squad built for brutal close-quarter fighting—an especially apt fit for the narrow, obscured spaces suggested here.

The Terminator helmets are deliberately blank and intimidating, but the trailer also includes an unhelmeted Space Marine veteran. That contrast gives the preview a little more personality than an anonymous procession of armour would. It also suggests that the production is making room for distinct individuals within the force, not simply treating the Marines as identical action figures moving through a set.

At least three different Space Marine characters and Chapters may be visible in the trailer. That is an observation rather than a full roster reveal, but the earlier teaser already supplied a useful set of markings for the Deathwatch Terminator unit: Retributors, Mortifactors, Scythes of the Emperor, Sons of Medusa, and Angels Vermilion. The shared Deathwatch assignment is therefore paired with individual Chapter identities.

Why the Space Hulk comparison fits

“Space Hulk vibes” is more than a convenient shorthand for a dim hallway. The apparent influence changes the kind of suspense the animation can pursue. An expansive war scene asks viewers to track armies, vehicles and competing fronts. A corridor lit by isolated spotlights asks a simpler but sharper question: what is beyond the visible distance, and is the squad equipped for what is waiting there?

That framing makes the trailer’s first-person corridor shot particularly effective. First-person imagery does not prove that the show will follow any one character’s point of view for an extended stretch, but it temporarily places the audience at ground level inside the environment. The viewpoint narrows the field of vision, turning darkness into missing information. For a setting defined by enormous armour and massive weapons, reducing what the viewer can actually see is a smart way to restore vulnerability.

The practical implication is that Astartes II may have room to generate tension through pacing and sound as well as combat. The preview draws attention to footsteps, weaponry and the oppressive setting. That does not tell viewers the story or confirm what enemies will appear in these sequences. It does indicate that the production understands the appeal of Space Marines as physical presences: towering figures whose mass, gear and movement can make a confined space feel smaller.

That attention to visual texture is one reason the sequel’s trailer is likely to draw attention from people who follow game presentation as closely as tabletop lore. Recent coverage of how players respond to environmental upgrades, including new lighting in World of Warcraft, is a reminder that atmosphere can become the main topic even before a major release reveals its full story. In Astartes II, the lighting is not merely decorative; the pools of illumination and stretches of blackness are part of the apparent threat design.

A larger official follow-up to an unusually direct fan project

The original Astartes was created by Syama Pedersen as a fan project before Pedersen was brought in to make the official continuation. That history is central to the interest around Astartes II. The sequel is not simply another licensed Warhammer animation; it follows a project that had already established a highly specific picture of how Space Marines could look and move on screen.

The original’s smaller scale had an obvious production explanation: it was made by one person. That context makes the confirmation of a significantly longer sequel meaningful without requiring viewers to assume every aspect of the project has become larger. A longer work can potentially give scenes the breathing room that a short animation cannot—space for an approach through a corridor, a tense pause before contact, or a clearer sense of the people in the squad.

It is also worth separating what the new trailer confirms from what older promotional footage merely evoked. The teaser shown last year included melee fighting, gunfire, vehicle action, spaceship battles, multiple Space Marine Chapters and enemies including Tyranids, Orks and Tau across varied environments. On its face, that looked like a preview of a very wide-ranging story.

But that teaser was not made up of clips from the new animation. Instead, it was described as a compilation representing the former lives of characters who will appear in the show, with a hint toward the eventual story. That clarification remains important now. Viewers should not treat every earlier battlefield, vehicle or alien shown in the teaser as a confirmed location, event or opponent in Astartes II.

What is confirmed, and what remains speculation

Confirmed: Deathwatch and Terminators appear in the new trailer.
Confirmed: The new animation is intended to be significantly longer than the original Astartes.
Confirmed: The release window is this December, on Warhammer+.
Supported by the trailer’s presentation: The setting and equipment carry a strong Space Hulk influence.
Not established by the prior teaser: That its vehicle battles, spaceship battles, Tyranids, Orks or Tau footage will appear directly in the finished animation.

That distinction does not diminish the older teaser’s usefulness. It provides background for the characters and signals a broader Warhammer 40,000 frame around the eventual story. It simply means the new preview should be read on its own terms. Right now, those terms are much tighter: a Deathwatch Terminator presence, multiple Chapter markings, a battle-worn veteran, and an interior where visibility is constrained.

The sequel’s opportunity is focus, not just scale

There is an understandable temptation to judge any sequel primarily by whether it looks bigger than its predecessor. Astartes II has the ingredients for that argument: an official production, a longer runtime, well-known Terminator equipment, and a setting that can support intense close-range confrontations. Yet the more interesting promise in the trailer is focus.

Warhammer 40,000 is capable of presenting enormous conflicts and an overwhelming number of factions. The earlier teaser gestured toward that breadth. The latest footage, by contrast, concentrates its attention on a small number of Marines and the oppressive path ahead. That can be a strength. A precise use of sound, darkness and physical movement may make the Space Marines feel consequential without demanding constant escalation.

For fans, the safest expectation is also the clearest one: Astartes II is a longer official continuation of Pedersen’s fan-made original, and its newest footage puts Deathwatch Terminators into a Space Hulk-shaped nightmare of narrow corridors and limited light. The exact plot, the scale of the final conflict and the role of the factions glimpsed in the earlier compilation remain deliberately unresolved. That leaves December with a suitably grim question mark hanging over it—which, for this corner of Warhammer 40,000, is probably exactly the right lighting choice.