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With 40k celebrating 30+ years in action, with a huge range of miniatures, factions and lore. AOS being fleshed out and Middle Earth being renewed for another decade at least. Do you think that GW will ever create a new gaming world outside 40k, AoS and LotR? I've been playing the utterly fantastic Red Dead Redemption 2 over the last few days and would love to see GW create a Warhammer Western. I appreciate that GW cares deeply about it's IP and therefore such a generic or historical setting would be unlikely, unless they 'GW-ified' it somehow. Skaven Gunsligers? Yes please.

What do you fine folk think? Do you think this will ever happen?

 Hollow wrote:
With 40k celebrating 30+ years in action, with a huge range of miniatures, factions and lore. AOS being fleshed out and Middle Earth being renewed for another decade at least. Do you think that GW will ever create a new gaming world outside 40k, AoS and LotR? I've been playing the utterly fantastic Red Dead Redemption 2 over the last few days and would love to see GW create a Warhammer Western. I appreciate that GW cares deeply about it's IP and therefore such a generic or historical setting would be unlikely, unless they 'GW-ified' it somehow. Skaven Gunsligers? Yes please.

What do you fine folk think? Do you think this will ever happen?

The designer's note in the back of Inquisitor talks about how it was influenced by the Western games they played. So in that sense, it already exists. The gunslinger archetypes in that game are pretty much directly copied over, and a lot of Inquisition fiction is just Western fiction with a search and replace for the word "Sheriff".

In terms of new universes, I don't expect them any time soon. GW's production and release capacity are already strained, and I not sure that it would generate new sales as much as eat up sales from other products.

GW is currently supporting Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar, Middle-Earth, Kill Team, Warhammer Quest, Adeptus Titanicus, Necromunda, Warhammer Underworlds, Horus Heresy and Blood Bowl with ongoing releases as well as doing various one-off games like Speed Freaks. That's a pretty full plate.

The only time GW ever stepped out of its two core IP is Middle Earth (at least in a big way there might have been some other smaller games or some stuff way backin the very early days). Even that was a big gamble and tied to the films and bit GW hard when the films ended (I also think it contributed to GW marketing shifting to focusing on Middle Earth and ignoring Warhammer more so which contributed to its eventual downfall).

Even AoS is an adaptation and continuation of Warhammer Fantasy (and uses the very same models).



GW just doesn't need to branch out to a new IP when its got hold of 2 of its own that are fantastic sellers and 1 that is a major international name. GW is also a big fish in the Wargame market which means it wants to have big market interest for anything it develops (because GW has to produce huge amounts of stock even or specialist and limited sale products). Why risk all that on a totally new untested IP when they can adapt their own core settings to do whatever they want.

5mm or 15mm scale games - got and done them
ship/fleet battles - done them on the high seas and space
skrimish games - done them (Mordheim, Kill team, Necromunda)
RPG - done
Card game - done (shadspire)

heck they've even done a major best selling football game - BloodBowl.


If GW wanted to make something else they can adapt it - they've done MadMax through GorkaMorka etc...

Will they create a new universe?

Possibly.

But I don’t see them entering the Historical market again. Put simply, it’s already well served, and wouldn’t be their own IP.

Oh, oh, I have idea!
What if they make a medieval fantasy version of our world! There could be fantasy French knights, Fantasy Holy Roman Empire, Aztec Lizards, and skeletal Egyptians!

What would be neat is if the geographical layout of this world was like ours, except a little bit squished together, so that the Fantasy HRE would be in a spot that's comparable to where Germany is today, and the Fantasy French Knights were right next to them.

Dark Future was pretty much a cyberpunk Western with a splash of Lovecraft like gribblys

I'd argue that they have created new IP's at the expense of the old ones.
The old world was exploded and AoS bears little resemblence to it. Even 40k in its 8th fluff is a radical departure from the setting we have known and loved for 30 years. Both of these were tied into a major change in the rulesets.
The only thing that ties them to the old settings is the continued use of the old model lines, to fill in while new stuff is released.

A cracking game, that. As it should be, being based on Lord of the Rings.

There are a huge variety of "worlds" in AOS so I think there its less likely unless they went for another big lience like say Marvel superheroes.

If they can't copyright it and protect the IP in entirety, then it's not going to happen.

So nothing that looks enough like something from another world (or history) to allow anyone to use something that they didn't build.

Herzlos wrote:
If they can't copyright it and protect the IP in entirety, then it's not going to happen.

So nothing that looks enough like something from another world (or history) to allow anyone to use something that they didn't build.

Too bad(with sarcasm) all they have done hasn't prevented 3rd parties from making equilavents

tneva82 wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
If they can't copyright it and protect the IP in entirety, then it's not going to happen.

So nothing that looks enough like something from another world (or history) to allow anyone to use something that they didn't build.

Too bad(with sarcasm) all they have done hasn't prevented 3rd parties from making equilavents

I never said it was a good plan

Some sort of swords and sorcery gaming would be good

What makes AOS and 40k so vibrant is they can be open to all these sorts of influences. You an have cosmic horror, western showdowns, roman gladiator style showdowns, etc.

GW could go completely mental with producing new IP in wonderful, weird worlds throughout fantasy and sci-fi tropes.

It absolutely wouldn't have happened under Fortress Kirby - but I would say these days its odds even.

Wait until they have finished going through the back-catalogue, then see where that takes them - if they've got a bunch of young guys now producing new material, they might want to try and go out and flex their own imaginations, rather than building or re-working what has come before.

At the moment, they’ve ended up with two open ended properties.

If you want a Western, look to Necromunda.

You want a medieval siege game? Spin it out from AoS.

The settings are incredibly loose in terms of focus. Especially when we compare to say, Warmahordes and that. Whilst I’m not knocking the game or it’s setting, it’s very, well, set. In terms of Tech, it’s Steampunk or Big Gribblies.

GW, by accident or design, don’t have those constraints. Their existing properties can be adapted and focussed on a great many different things.

Not sure if you want western or ship to ship combat?

Try GorkaMorka and have both!