Is Warhammer 40k: Astartes 2 still coming out? Joyfully, the answer is yes! Back in 2021, Games Workshop hired expert animator Syama Pedersen, the creator of the original 2018 animated YouTube mini-series Astartes, to create a follow-up season for Warhammer Plus – and now, finally, that sequel is visible on the horizon. This guide tracks all the latest info, trailers, and the official release window for the animated mini-epic.
One of the joys of Astartes – and by extension Astartes II – is that the dialogue free, high energy animated drama speaks for itself, and you don’t need to know 40k lore to enjoy it. That said, you can get a deeper understanding by reading our complete guide to all the Warhammer 40k factions, and our detailed breakdown of the Space Marine chapters.
What is Warhammer 40k: Astartes 2?
Astartes II is the long awaited second season of a computer animated miniseries set in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 sci-fi universe, which has been wildly popular among 40k fans ever since the original, five episode run went up on YouTube in 2018.
It’s the creation of New Zealand based 3D artist Syama Pedersen, who made the original Astartes mini-series – a set of five animated shorts with a 13 minute total runtime – as an independent solo creator; you can find a brief plot synopsis down below.
The follow-up series will be a different beast, though, because Warhammer 40k owner Games Workshop hired Pedersen in 2021 to make the second series as an official GW production – which means it’s fair to suspect he had access to a bigger budget and some measure of support from the Warhammer publisher itself to help juice up season two.
Details about the second season’s plot are still shrouded in mystery (though we can pull quite a lot of hints from the series’ first teaser trailer – more on that below). But one thing is certain: Astartes 2 will star the Space Marines – seven foot tall, genetically enhanced, power armored super soldiers – as they fight the enemies of the Imperium of Man.
Astartes 2 release window
Games Workshop has confirmed that Astartes 2 is coming some time in 2026. Its debut teaser trailer, published in January 2025, ends with a title card reading “Suffer Not The Alien To Live – 2026”, but as yet there is no specific release date.
Beyond that, we don’t have much to go on. The timetable for new animated series being added to GW’s Warhammer Plus streaming service has been pretty sporadic since the platform launched in 2021, so we can’t confidently point to any likely points in the schedule when Astartes 2 can be expected to drop.
Rest assured, though, we’ll keep this guide updated with the latest info on when the second season will launch on Warhammer Plus.
Astartes 2 trailer
So far, there’s only one official Astartes II trailer to watch. Games Workshop revealed the Astartes II Official Teaser Trailer on Wednesday, Januay 29, 2025, and it’s fair to say the online 40k fan community collectively went bananas. Watch it below:
We see an awful lot of things in this trailer that never got near the screen in the original Astartes videos – in fact, our own Tim Linward has written a separate article on all the Astartes 2 trailer easter eggs.
Pedersen also runs his own 3D animation studio called Digital Bones, and released a stunning sizzler reel of its non-Astartes projects, at the same time the Astartes teaser trailer above dropped. 40k it ain’t, but Pedersen seems to be making some amazing stuff that Astartes fans (like us) will probably dig too – watch it here:
It’s possible we won’t see many new trailers for Astartes 2 between now and its projected release in 2026 – as (presumably) an animated short series, there are only so many clips GW can share in trailer form without spoiling the party.
But as and when any new teasers or other video commentaries drop to give us more info and insights on the new season, you can be sure we’ll add them to this guide.
Astartes Season 1 synopsis
While we’re waiting for Astartes 2 to come along in 2026, let’s recap what happened in the original 2018 mini-series. It might only be 13 minutes of video in total, with not a single word spoken – but Astartes packs a lot of detail and story into that tiny narrative space.
Spoilers ahead for Astartes Season 1! If you’ve not seen it yet, you can catch it on Warhammer Plus.
Astartes Season 1 follows a raiding party of firstborn Space Marines – a.k.a. Adeptus Astartes – from the grey-armored Retributors chapter, an original lore invention of Syama Pedersen. Using a Caestus Assault Ram (a kind of landing craft that smashes through spaceship hulls to insert troops) the squad boards a ship crewed by Planetary Defense Force (PDF) soldiers who have apparently rebelled against the Emperor of Mankind.
The Space Marine boarders fight their way through the ship’s decks against resistance from traitor PDF troopers armed with autoguns, heavy weapon emplacements, and other Astra Militarum weaponry, while the rebel leaders – two mysterious, cloaked psykers with intricately patterned, metallic looking faces – marshal the defenses.
Eventually coming face to face with the two metal-faced psykers outside a huge circular vault door, a Space Marine squad fights a desperate battle with them, and – despite the cloaked men’s formidable psychic strength – the Retributors’ superior firepower and numbers allow them to surround and kill the vault door’s guardians.
On entering the vault, one Retributors squad encounters a lone, masked figure, wearing a cloak bearing the symbol of the 40k Inquisition. The adept is kneeling in apparent prayer in front of a large, copper-colored sphere suspended with huge metal chains and other glowing apparatus.
Meanwhile, a second squad marches deeper into the vault to find another big, patterned, coppery sphere, floating above a pedestal. As they approach, it glows and fires waves of psychic energy, briefly forcing the marines back. But the combat squad’s five marines successfully surround the sphere and stab it with mysterious, knife-like devices which seem to dampen its psychic energy, dimming the shimmering lights on its surface.
Back at the first, chained sphere, the strange, masked adept suddenly has a series of violent visions, seeing the shimmering sphere as a planet in space, and apparently hearing its voice murmuring to them. The sphere’s restraints fail in a sparking explosion, and the adept convulses, seeing more flashing visions: a row of silhouetted figures; a squad of Space Marines standing on the open hand of a vast stone statue; a marine’s face being vaporized. As the adept breaks into a scream, one Retributor crushes their head with one hand, and another shoots them dead with his boltgun.
The second squad then see the floating sphere light up and ripple again – briefly forming the shape of a demonic-looking figure, possibly a Chaos Daemon – before it suddenly sucks them in, their armor clinging to the sphere’s surface like a magnet. The sphere becomes semi-liquid and begins to swallow the marines like quicksand – one attempts to fire his Plasma Pistol into it, but only succeeds in blowing his hand off – and within seconds the whole squad has vanished inside the sphere.
We briefly see some kind of tentacled entity in space, before a single, now one handed marine is teleported onto a patch of dusty orange ground for the haunting final scene of Astartes season 1. As the lone marine wrenches off his helmet, retches blood, and gets to his feet, we see he’s been transported to a kind of valley formed between two impossibly tall walls, made from thousands of identical, sandblasted statues of skeletal, cloaked figures.
What the hell is going on, and where can he possibly go from here? We have no idea – but we can only hope to get a better idea from Astartes Season 2 when it comes out in 2026.
In the meantime, there’s more than enough other kick-ass grimdark entertainment to occupy you – check out our recommendations for the best Warhammer 40k games for PC and console, or the best Warhammer 40k books to read, if you need some ideas.
Not lore-nerdy enough for you? Try our detailed compendium of every single one of the Warhammer 40k Primarchs instead.
Source: Wargamer
