Warhammer is now one of MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus’ absolute favorite universes. Behind the brutal (and somewhat absurd) world is Games Workshop, a company from Great Britain that actually started out quite differently.
I love Warhammer. And even though many people will probably want to contradict me now and think that there are much better universes: In a perfect world we would all be playing World of Warhammer today and I’ll stick with that.
No other fantasy setting combines the dirty, brutal reality of a world marked by war and hatred with the diversity of peoples and cultures that fantastic ideas bring with them.
The world fascinates me and millions of others, including notable people like acting legend Henry Cavill. Not only does he play Warhammer himself (and not Warcraft!), but he will soon be able to fulfill his dream and play the main role in a Warhammer series.
Today we owe it all to Games Workshop, a now listed company based in Nottingham – and with an amazing history. The company’s history sounds pretty much like every nerd’s dream.
This is how Warhammer became big: Characters:
Warhammer: The old World shows how gameplay goes back to its roots
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To success through Dungeons & Dragons
Games Workshop (often just “GW”) was founded in London in 1975 by three friends John Peake, Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson. At that time the plan was to sell classic wooden board games, such as backgammon, mill (“Nine Men’s Morris”) and Go.
The idea behind the name: The board games should be handmade, i.e. something special. There was a separate advertising newsletter, the “Owl and Weasel,” later taken over by the legendary “White Dwarf.”
That same year, Wizards of the Coast’s predecessor, TSR, offered that Games Workshop should exclusively distribute Dungeons & Dragons in Europe. This kickstart would later become an entire area for role-playing games, including Lord of the Rings and Call of Cthulhu.
The first Games Workshop store opened in 1978, and shortly thereafter came the partnership with Citadel Miniatures, whose colors can still be found in GW stores worldwide today. The reason for this was the miniatures for war games that were already on offer at the time – and which laid the foundation for the future of Games Workshop.
Back then games made of wood, today supermen in space
Today, Games Workshop is known primarily or almost exclusively for Warhammer. Warhammer is a world in which war is constant and severe. The universe roughly exists in three versions:
Warhammer first appeared in the form of Fantasy Battles in 1983. In 1986, Blood Bowl was a kind of… sports game? Definitely football with blood and violence. So more than usual. Warhammer 40k was released for the first time in 1987.
Warhammer was originally a “wargame”: you build your own army from miniatures and play against other players on a battlefield. Instead of cannons and swords, people fight with tape measures and dice.
Warhammer is still a popular, if expensive, hobby today. There are tournaments or friendly games against each other almost everywhere and the community is huge.
Today, Warhammer is much more than just a game with very expensive toy soldiers for adults with too much money. Games Workshop is responsible for dozens of video games with their idea.
From board game maker to video game patron
There are now Warhammer video games in probably every known format:
In the meantime, Rogue Trader, a CRPG in the style of Baldur’s Gate 3, has even been released and is actually really good – apart from the bugs that still plague the game. I played it and it’s the first RPG that I actually play through completely several times:
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Even the “good” ending in the new Warhammer RPG is terrible, but somehow just right
by Benedict Grothaus
However, the sheer volume of games isn’t necessarily a blessing, especially for fans like me. Games Workshop has a reputation for squandering the Warhammer license and simply giving it to anyone who submits an idea that sounds halfway logical. In the past, this resulted in tons of bad Warhammer games from which you had to somehow pick out the good ones.
By the way, only two of the founders had the idea of making video games early on. The third, John Peake, was a fan of traditional board games. He left Games Workshop in 1976, just a year after it was founded.
It’s hard to say exactly whether the separation was worth it for Peake or not. However, he is not the only founder who at some point broke away from his own project. Someone else did the same – but in such a way that he no longer has any financial worries: A single man created the most successful game in the world – What actually happened to Minecraft maker Notch?