Saber Interactive is declining to say whether a YouTube comment circulating on social media, which among other things says that modern games are "too complex and too much of an investment" and that there are "overblown attempts at messaging and imposing moral on gamers," is from its CEO, Matthew Karch.
A commenter claiming to be Karch weighed in on a video from YouTuber Asmongold focusing on Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2, where they expounded on what they considered to be the state of the modern games industry. The full comment is below.
Hey man. CEO of Saber here. I love your videos. 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 comprehend many of the current games that we play 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.
The comment quickly got picked up and began making the rounds on various social platforms, with some wondering if the comment was actually from Karch. IGN reached out to the Embracer Group asking for confirmation one way or another, but did not receive a response. The account purporting to belong to Karch has no videos and 197 subscribers.
Saber Interactive is fresh off the release of Space Marine 2, which arrived in early September and quickly amassed around 2 million players. A sequel to a fan-favorite Xbox 360 release, it has drawn comparisons to other shooters from that era.
"Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 may not break the third-person shooter mold, but it looks amazing, makes good use of its Warhammer lore, and has brutal combat that just feels great," we wrote in our review.
Space Marine 2 is available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
