Video Games | Warhammer 40,000
Total War: Warhammer 40K — Will the Franchise Go Sci-Fi?
With Total War: Warhammer’s success, many have asked if Creative Assembly could try their hand with Games Workshop’s flagship franchise.
Creative Assembly’s strategy franchise began in June 2000 with Shogun: Total War. The series has fifteen main entries, along with several spinoffs, countless DLCs and FLCs, and has shipped well over 35 million games.
For the uninitiated, Total War games are a hybrid of turn-based strategy, where players upgrade their cities and move their armies across a world map, and real-time strategy battles. While Total War has mainly focused on real-world historical settings, some of the most recent games were set in the fantasy world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy.
The first Warhammer Fantasy game was released in May 2016. It was supported for just over a year with DLC and regular updates before the release of Warhammer 2 in September 2017, which was supported up until 2021. Warhammer 3 was released earlier this year, to similar success, and is expected to be supported for just as long, if not longer than Warhammer 2.
Due to the heavy critical and financial success that the Warhammer Fantasy games brought both Games Workshop and Creative Assembly, many have wondered if the Total War franchise could take a shot at the Warhammer 40K universe.
Warhammer 40K is set in the 41st millennium. Humanity has spread across the galaxy and interacts with various alien factions. There is a large amount of lore, factions and characters within the 40K universe for Creative Assembly to work with. That said, many fans believe that it would be too difficult for them to try.
My own relationship with the world of Warhammer is a bit limited. I played a little when I was younger but haven’t gone back in well over a decade. However, since the release of the Total War: Warhammer trilogy, I have become greatly interested in it, specifically the lore.
Over the last two years, this has moved more to 40K lore. While I am not too interested in jumping back into the tabletop game, or maybe it’s not wanting to spend a small fortune, I would love to explore the world of 40K in new ways.
Here I will try to outline why Creative Assembly should create Total War: 40K, and how they could get around some challenges.
Setting
Creative Assembly needs to have two things decided immediately: wherein the timeline and wherein the galaxy. The 40K franchise covers the entire galaxy, and its stories and games cover over 10,000 years. This gives them plenty of opportunities. The entire game could take place on a single planet, like the original Dawn of War, or in a system covering several planets.
The best option would be to use the entire galaxy, or at least a large part of it, and expand the galaxy map further with future games and DLC. In 40K’s most recent big event, the galaxy was split in half by several warp storms called the Cicatrix Maledictum, also known as The Great Rift. If there were to be multiple games, the first could take place on one half of the Maledictum with a possible sequel expanding out to the other.
As for which timeline to use, there are only two real choices: The Horus Heresy or the modern setting. The Horus Heresy is a civil war that takes place within the Imperium of Man in the 31st Millennium, between the Heretics led by Horus and the loyalists led by the Emperor. While the Horus Heresy is a fan favourite setting, that is also currently getting a new version of the tabletop game and allows the players to play as some of the Imperium’s most iconic characters, like Horus or Sanguinius. It would limit the number of playable races as the Heresy took place between the human factions of the Imperium.
This lack of different races is why the modern setting would be best for a Total War: 40K. Like the Total War: Warhammer trilogy, the game should bring in four different races with two playable factions each, then expand from there.
1. The Imperium: As where perspective from which most of the stories are told, it makes perfect sense to include the Imperium. In the tabletop game the Imperium is divided into multiple factions (which I will address below). In the lore, it is divided into smaller regions and sub-Empires. Creative Assembly would have plenty of sub-factions to choose from.
2. Chaos Space Marines: The Space Marines that betrayed the Imperium during the Horus Heresy. They would be the main “evil” faction. Like the Imperium, there are multiple Chaos Space Marine factions to choose from.
3. Orks: The Orks of 40K are incredibly similar to their fantasy counterparts. They exist only to fight, and love doing it. Gameplay-wise they would function the same and give the player base of the Warhammer trilogy a familiar faction.
4. The Aeldari: Space Elves. Pretty straight forward really. Like the Imperium they are divided into multiple groups in the tabletop game.
These are the most iconic factions in the franchise. They are pretty easy to understand for outsiders and would offer enough variety in gameplay while allowing for further expansions through DLC. After this, the other races like the Tau Empire and the Tyranids can be added in later games.
The setting of Warhammer 40K has one more advantage over any previous Total War game: it’s still advancing. Unlike Warhammer Fantasy, which officially ended several years ago, or the historical games, which are, well, history, 40K is still an advancing timeline with new characters, units, factions and events. This would give Creative Assembly even more inspiration, meaning the franchise could last longer.
Recently Games Workshop reintroduced an old faction: The Squats (space Dwarves), now known as The Leagues of Votann. This would give Creative Assembly even more content to work with.
While the 40K setting offers plenty of options for why Total War 40K would work, it’s the gameplay that raises the most concerns.
Gameplay
Total War games have primarily been focused in historical settings, or at least quasi-historical with the Warhammer trilogy. Many fans do not believe that a modern or sci-fi Total War could work, but I fully believe it can.
One of the biggest points brought up is that guns and tanks would take away what makes Total War what it is. But, despite being a sci-fi setting, 40K still has plenty of melee combat. It would not be completely removed from a possible Total War: 40K.
Total War: Warhammer has already introduced guns, vehicles, and flying units in some way or form. Empire, Skaven and Cathay have already introduced gun-based units, as well as large artillery and tanks like Imperial Steam Tanks and Skaven Warp Rockets. Flyers have also been used within the trilogy and have been further expanded on within Warhammer 3, as have larger units like giants and demons. Also, certain units, like the demons, exist pretty much the same in both Fantasy and 40K
Many fans do bring up that by having more ranged based units and artillery/vehicles, armies would just stand in range of each other and shoot till it’s all over. I think there is a simple solution to this: the map. Many Total War maps are just wide-open areas where armies approach each other and fight. Total War: 40K’s battlefields would be less open, with less line of sight across the map. This could be achieved by putting in more natural barriers, adding a cover mechanic for infantry or by using more urban-based maps, which have been done in previous sci-fi RTS games like Dawn of War or Star Wars: Empire at War. Instead of fighting in a field, fight in the streets of a ruined city.
When it comes to the campaign map part of the gameplay, I don’t think anything needs to change. Planets or solar systems could replace specific settlements and groups of these planets/systems would work as a province. To help break up the map, asteroid fields or Warp Rifts could fill the same role as rivers or mountains. So, for the most part, when it comes to both battle and campaign maps, Creative Assembly don’t need to reinvent the Total War franchise.
However, there is one part of the gameplay I think could present a challenge: how to handle the multiple factions of single races.
As I mentioned above, several races are broken down into factions for the tabletop. The Imperium of Man have the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, The Inquisition and Sisters of Battle, to name a few. Creative Assembly needs to decide whether to have the Imperium as a single race with all of these sub-factions, or make each one its own unique faction. I think making them one large race and breaking it into smaller sub-factions, like what was done with the Empire in Total War: Warhammer, would work best.
The Imperial Guard could be the baseline troops, while the Space Marines would be used as higher tier units. Other groups like the Custodes or Sisters of Battle would require you to hold specific worlds like Terra (Earth). Each Imperial sub-faction would have their own Space Marine chapter. Terra would have the Imperial Fists, the Ultra Marines for Macragge, and so on. In the lore, each Space Marine chapter is better suited for different types of combat. This would also help make each sub-faction more unique other than just a simple paint change.
I have greatly enjoyed falling down the rabbit hole of 40K lore over the past year or so. While I fully acknowledge the difficulty Creative Assembly would face in making a Total War: 40K, there are more than enough ways for them to make it work.
