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Do you think GW is trying to make the 40k universe a bit less dystopian? It always will be but I feel like they are trying to make it less grim and dark. The tau robots and battle suits have always looked a bit too utopian to me, probably bars on the other places you see this kinds of designs. The new primaris models, whilst being excellent, feel a bit GI joe in the 41st century. Now we’re getting Bandai action figures and all sorts of stuff. Are the slowly re engineering the setting in a attempt to appeal to..... happier people?

I do feel the baseline 40k stuff is becoming a bit less grim, and I am not thrilled with some of the new aesthetics of the marines. But thanks to Necromunda i'd say the dystopia and stuff is still much alive. The lore of the corpse grinder cults is certainly grim. Honestly if it wasn't for specialist games I probably wouldn't be too thrilled with GW as a company at all right now.

Short answer, yes. Longer answer, it doesn't appeal to happier people it just is going more bland and generic after all the time spent to grim dark it up. I don't much appreciate the feels.

It's a process happening slowly but it's there.

I couldn't be less thrilled with space marine action figures or the like of this silly stuff. If they are trying so hard to hook the little ones you can tell the kid friendly re education is on the way for 40k.

Short answer?

No.

Long answer?

No.

Tau have been around for nearly 20 years now, and their Psychic Awakening Book brought them to reality with a bump.

40k remains an absolute hellscape, where untold billions toil their lives away, never seeing the sun, and where planetary invasion can happen at any time.

Yeah, if anything the imperium got an even worse place with 8th edition with half of it being exposed to daemonic incursions and the other half being under constant siege by Chaos and Xenos while lifes are still worthless to the imperial warmachine.
That being said I have the feeling they're pushing back the aspect of the imperium being that terrible dogmatic fascist regime it was before. Guilliman tries to change the Imperium and so far his only problem seems to be that his progress happens really slowly. He can't destroy the "Imperial truth"/ the ecclesiarchy and has to do an arrangement with them. But his Primaris are undefeated and don't fall to Chaos and overall every decisive battle is again won by the Imperium, even if it's through pyrrhic victories (as usual).

No.

Have they added lighter/hopeful elements to the story? Yeah, but hope wasn't locked in the box because it's a good thing...

When it first started, war hammer was a caricature of fantasy (and then science fiction). It was quite obviously lifted from the popular themes in the era, then made more extreme. I will set aside all the attempts by GW suits to appropriate them as trademarks. That was just business, but quite obviously not how it started.

I am not in touch with current science fiction themes (or fantasy) but maybe they have changed too? Could that be the reason?

Model wise? You merely have to look at the Sisters of Battle to see an army that is the complete personification of all thas is imperium and grimdark.

Lore wise? Yes and no. In Imperium Nihilus (dark imperium) things are bad and it is here that people who treasure a grimdark universe reside. On the other side of the rift you got rowboat doing his stuff I don't care about and generally this area feels more like baby's first grimdark.
With GW focusing on narrative and not on setting, things get focused on the characters like rowboat so we get a wash of diet grimdark.

Let's face it, GW want lil Timmys parents money and they can't have things too grimdark or monstrous otherwise little Timmys parents won't like him getting into it. /jadedopinion

I think so, and it's not happening whole sale it's happening slowly. However you can't ignore the much more kiddy nature of recent things, little chibi marines, action figures, etc, etc. You could say its just marketing and part of it is but it also seems a direct press in a certain direction.

I never saw the Tau as not grim dark really, just really good liars and they did awful things before in the fluff PA wasn't some revelation they aren't all good if you paid attention before.

The combat tends to feel more over the top hero movie/action movie in the more current art. The marines straight up feel and are portrayed as heroes as opposed to the bio enhanced psycho killers they are or were I guess at this point.

Just because the imperium is in worse footing at the moment, they also have some very good stuff working for them, marines are getting ever stronger and more amazing, they are making new technological presses forward, doesn't feel that lacking in hope to me.

As well, there is a thing about making your enemies seem amazing and powerful so when you defeat them it makes you look even better. For all this bad the imperium is in, they've also never been safer as all these world teeter on the brink yet most never fall or are outright saved, at least once the primaris arrive.

Much has changed since I started playing but if you've only played for a couple editions you may not notice how it's changing. It's all about time spent to notice the changes from say 3rd ed in my case, till now.

Some of the lore looks strangely like old sci fi, or history books with its gulags in space. But stories that are good, tend to have a similar core, so am not claiming that someone at GW set down and just copied ancient comics and books.

Am not sure about the light or funny stuff. I generaly don't get the funny stuff, and nothing in W40k seems very light. now they seem to be wierd lore changes, made only to have a 100% covarge of marine factions taking primaris, even if it makes no sense. But my mom always says money>ideology. So of course GW would change the lore to maximize the sells. In 2-3 years when almost non who played with classic marines, it won't even matter much if primaris are in the setting and what they do in it.

IMO, it's got a lot to do with switching the focus of their efforts from a primarily U.K. audience to a primarily U.S. audience.

Americans tend to demand things from their stories that British people don't, and vice-versa.

Makes sense US is a much bigger market. Although I do not envy anyone who has to make stuff for people in the US, the social regulations on what you can or can not do seems to be a minefield.

I think it depends on what sources you're looking at. A lot of the new lore does seem a little less grimdark, but there's some stuff that's pretty hard to tone down.

Some of the new stuff may seem to have become a little bit like a superhero comic, but a lot of things can't be cleaned up and made palatable for the masses.

Guilliman may=Captain America to some people, but Night Lords still = Crossed. And mom and dad ain't buying junior that comic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
Makes sense US is a much bigger market. Although I do not envy anyone who has to make stuff for people in the US, the social regulations on what you can or can not do seems to be a minefield.

Right, unlike Poland. See any Gorgoroth concerts lately?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Short answer?

No.

Long answer?

No.

Tau have been around for nearly 20 years now, and their Psychic Awakening Book brought them to reality with a bump.

40k remains an absolute hellscape, where untold billions toil their lives away, never seeing the sun, and where planetary invasion can happen at any time.

This. The fundamental essence of the setting, the "humanity barely getting by, even after doing brutal and horrific things" is very much alive and well.

AngryAngel80 wrote:I think so, and it's not happening whole sale it's happening slowly. However you can't ignore the much more kiddy nature of recent things, little chibi marines, action figures, etc, etc. You could say its just marketing and part of it is but it also seems a direct press in a certain direction.

I think that's very much a marketing and funny gimmick. Quite a few collectors of 40k stuff like having the funny designs. It's just getting the 40k designs out there into other domains.

The combat tends to feel more over the top hero movie/action movie in the more current art. The marines straight up feel and are portrayed as heroes as opposed to the bio enhanced psycho killers they are or were I guess at this point.

In my experience of 40k fluff, Space Marines have always been portrayed as straight up heroes, for well over a decade. In fact, modern fluff actually puts Marines (and the Imperium) in a more introspective light - in older books, the vast majority seem to be just simply "here's a cool action story". Nowadays, I seem to be seeing stories which have a lot more character and personality in them, and actually touch on themes, however lightly.

For me, I don't really remember a time when Space Marines weren't always immediately marketed as "heroes", with the more shady lore just beneath the surface - and I don't think that's changed.

So perhaps at the table top and you store things are less grim but they keep it in the lore for those of us who want to go there?

My example of the tau wasn’t the best, I know, and I forget how long they have been around but I do wonder if the introduction of the tau with their look made GW realise something about marketing and expanding their customer base

Gadzilla666 785726 10723600 wrote:
Right, unlike Poland. See any Gorgoroth concerts lately?

I don't know what a gorgoroth is.

Grimdark is in no way going away, unless you somehow believe the recent Mortifactor/Pentitent Engine kit was happy-joy-joy shiny fun-filled and kid friendly.

They look like regular museum stuff. And you get to see this being at school as soon you go to 3ed class and start having history lessons.

And if your area happens to be more right , then you get martyr parades multiple times per year. Not very grim or dark to be honest.

Karol wrote:

Gadzilla666 785726 10723600 wrote:
Right, unlike Poland. See any Gorgoroth concerts lately?

I don't know what a gorgoroth is.

A heavy metal band who recorded a concert in Poland for a live DVD only to be arrested and have all the footage seized because it was considered by the authorities to be offensive to religion. That wouldn't happen in America.

Back to the point, even if some of the new lore may seem a little more friendly there's plenty of dark stuff going on. Or has the Imperium stopped feeding the Emperor 1,000 psyker's souls daily? A lot of 40k would require a full retcon to be considered "main stream".

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Back to the point, even if some of the new lore may seem a little more friendly there's plenty of dark stuff going on. Or has the Imperium stopped feeding the Emperor 1,000 psyker's souls daily? A lot of 40k would require a full retcon to be considered "main stream".

GW has always been pretty manstream, or at least that's how it developed originally. Of course, mainstream within more nerdy circles.

Original GW stuff was simply an appropriation of the main themes present in fantasy and sci fi at the time, and made even more extreme. It was like this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scary_Movie but to the RPG / role play / wargame community.

If it was dark, it was simply reflection of the darkness of those themes.

Now, how dark / not dark are current sci fi / fantasy novels and culture? IMHO that's where we'd get the answer to whether GW is going less grim dark or not as a conscious strategy.

"That wouldn't happen in America."

Yet.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Karol wrote:

Gadzilla666 785726 10723600 wrote:
Right, unlike Poland. See any Gorgoroth concerts lately?

I don't know what a gorgoroth is.

A heavy metal band who recorded a concert in Poland for a live DVD only to be arrested and have all the footage seized because it was considered by the authorities to be offensive to religion. That wouldn't happen in America.

Ah stuff like that, yeah you get for prison for offending religion here. But you have the exact same thing, just not for catholics.

It - and similar things - has/have in fact happened numerous times in the U.S..

Grey40k wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Back to the point, even if some of the new lore may seem a little more friendly there's plenty of dark stuff going on. Or has the Imperium stopped feeding the Emperor 1,000 psyker's souls daily? A lot of 40k would require a full retcon to be considered "main stream".

GW has always been pretty manstream, or at least that's how it developed originally. Of course, mainstream within more nerdy circles.

Original GW stuff was simply an appropriation of the main themes present in fantasy and sci fi at the time, and made even more extreme. It was like this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scary_Movie but to the RPG / role play / wargame community.

If it was dark, it was simply reflection of the darkness of those themes.

Now, how dark / not dark are current sci fi / fantasy novels and culture? IMHO that's where we'd get the answer to whether GW is going less grim dark or not as a conscious strategy.

Well, one of the most popular shows on TV is about a zombie apocalypse. Another, and the books it's based on, is a fantasy full of brutal murders, entire cities being burnt to the ground etc. We even have a teenie bopper movie series about a dystopian society where children are forced to fight to the death for the survival of their people. So I'd say current scifi/fantasy can be pretty dark at times.

I don't think 40K is any less Grimdark. I just think that GW has placed a shiny heroic veneer on top of the Grimdarkness.

Take Vigilus for example. It can look like a heroic tale of how Marneous Calgar heroically defeated Abbadon and his Black Legion and the forces of Chaos, the Orks, and the Genestealer Cults form capturing this critical planet.

Or you can look below the surface and look at all the carnage that took place to accomplish this small victory. And how long will it be before another Chaos force comes along to capture this depleted world that has been ravaged by forces within and without? Was it even a victory for the Imperium at all given the cost?

I don't think GW is trying to tone down the grimdark, but perhaps make it less obvious at a first glance. The undertones are still there, but they aren't parading them through the streets quite as much. Which is fine because presenting hope only makes the darkness more prominent.

Just ask the Tau and the fact they had to stop naming their hospital ships because they ran out of names.

40K was originally a jab at modernity, at least at modern tropes including thuggish cops, reality through the lens of propaganda, industrial life and alienation, imperialism generally and so on.

All of that is lost in an era today that critical thinking is gone with the learned capacity to hold contradictory ideas in the head for long enough to realize the absurdity of the contemporary situation.

So, sure 40K seems less grim-dark-ish, but this is mostly a result (imo) of the audience being able to appreciate the parody and of the content creators (writers and marketing directors, let's face facts here) to not only appreciate but to conceive of and to articulate such a vision.

Short answer, yes, it is and seems so because it as well as its target market is .... well, maybe too close to the realization that the dystopia is actually here and very real, so to be accepted, 40k has to put a heroic veneer ( to borrow a phrase used above in a preceding post) on things else maybe it is too close to home and not fantasy enough to attract kids away from the facts as they are on the ground.

I edited this post because I changed my mind after thinking through some of the other posts for a minute...

It's only less grimdark if you think anything positive that happens once to the Imperium is bad bad bad.

The grimdarkness is becoming cartoon-12-year-old-edgelord grimdarkness.

No its just closer to the original vision - Dark Comedy.