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I had an interesting thought.

40k's origins like firmly in the 1980s and are a wonderful blend of all things and all experiences firmly rooted in the 80s, whether you look at the various pop culture references such as sly marbo tyranid/necrons and xenonorphs/terminators, the jokes and satires, the mudic and grime and politics of the age - all the buses were late becomes thousands of ships are lost in thecwarp, endless beurocracry becomes the administratum, ghaskull being an (apprent) drunken anagram of Margaret thatcher and so much of the bleakness that fed into the imagery of the imperium is strongly rooted in the early 80s misery and post-industrial thatcherite wasteland that was a lot of the UK. Its irresistible source material for a bunch of nerds, misfits and punks to draw on.

Now here's the exercise. What would 40k look like now, if it was conceived of, not by nerds, punks and misfits in post industrial thatcherite Britain c mid 1980s, but if it was conceived of by nerds, punks and misfits c 2020, and in the same way they drew on a the grime of the 80s, ww draw on all.the grime of the noughties and later, drawing on the music, pop culture, politics and satire of our age, with things fresh in their minds like our endless wars in the middle East from the last 20 years, extreme polarisation of our modern discourse, the misinformation pandemic, the actual covid pandemic, rather than thatcher, we get things like trump and brexit. Would we have the administratum, or the Emperor? Would we have male and female space marines, with some play on 'war on woke'?

What would a 'dystopian nightmare' setting of 40k look like if drawn from our time, rather than the 80s.

Discuss!

Nurgle would be the absolutely the strongest chaos god...

Scotties nailed it but he has made the "debaters" seem far more eloquent than they actually are

Considering the majority of the stuff that GW based it on , stuff like Dune, Judge Dread etc existed then and now, I don't think it would be that much different. We probably would have female marines, the same way there are female stormcasts. But I don't think that besides that there would be a lot of lore changes made.

I think you can find your answer by looking at the aesthetics, tone, and themes of the sci-fi wargames that have emerged over the last 10 years.

Infinity, Dropzone, gates of antares, etc

It would be largely bland and bloodless.

Karol wrote:
Considering the majority of the stuff that GW based it on , stuff like Dune, Judge Dread etc existed then and now, I don't think it would be that much different. We probably would have female marines, the same way there are female stormcasts. But I don't think that besides that there would be a lot of lore changes made.

Ngl, I never thought I'd find myself saying this, but I totally agree with Karol. There's 30 extra years of pop culture to draw on, but a pretty significant chunk of the stuff that proved influential to 40K is still part of the popular (within a certain niche, at lease) consciousness, and it's not like 40K since its genesis hasn't (perhaps less overtly given the potential ramifications for a bigger corporate entity) continued to be influenced by other stuff out there in the intervening time.

Would Orks remain as they are now? IIRC, their culture was based off British football hooligans of the period. As the degree of hooliganism has cooled down since then, would GW have taken a different approach?

No one would conceive of a game system so bloated and based on FOMO purchasing every week and make it be successful in this day and age.
40k is as popular as it is due to the market penetration and saturation that GW has managed to accomplish over the past 30 odd years.
It would likely fall really flat if conceived of today. The popularity of the franchise is why it’s so popular and the ease of finding opponents as a result of that. If they had to start from zero, it would be a tough go I bet.

Not a lot of folks are into building a community around a game these days. Plus all the programs that were used to push these games are no more, leaving gamers to gather a community themselves.

Don’t forget that capturing lightning in a bottle is almost impossible and that’s exactly what 40k was. I don’t think it would happen a second time.

I don't know if 40k would change all that much, besides more thought given to inclusivity (which is a good thing).

Marbo might look more like John Wick and less like Rambo, and probably named Noj Kwic or something.

It would be absolute trash

I wonder if an 'insurgency army', like the genestealer cults would be a major player from the get go, considering how 'insurents' or dare I say it, 'terrorists' have played such a prominent role in our news cycles over the last 2 decades.

Also, point taken on the politics, I'm not actually here to discuss them by extension, but I think it's fair to make a point that a 40k thought of now would draw on the likes of trump in the same way they drew on thatcher in the 80s.

I can imagine a planet seceding from an organisation triggering a terrible war to be a very obvious lore point as well. Low hanging fruit for sure.

Also there's have to be some parallel on a galactic level with the Internet and viral misinformation. There's your chaos, haha!

No one would conceive of a game system so bloated and based on FOMO purchasing every week and make it be successful in this day and age.

FOMO purchasing is very much a modern tactic. I could actually see it being doubled down on if 40k were new.


I'm just here to say that the space wolves would fit right in w/out much change, but Drukhari would probably be "Sparkly Vampires", and don't even get me started on Greyfax's character ...

A greater understanding of dwindling natural resources and the ticking time bomb of climate change would certainly factor into the backstory a bit more. There's also four times as many Star Wars films to draw inspiration from.

I think in a lot of ways though not much would change- 40k came about during the first wave of cyberpunk and post apocalypse cinema, coincidentally this hypothetical new 40k we're talking about is in the 2nd wave of cyberpunk popularity and perhaps the 3rd wave of post apocalypse entertainment.

Juxtimon wrote:
A greater understanding of dwindling natural resources and the ticking time bomb of climate change would certainly factor into the backstory a bit more. There's also four times as many Star Wars films to draw inspiration from.

I think in a lot of ways though not much would change- 40k came about during the first wave of cyberpunk and post apocalypse cinema, coincidentally this hypothetical new 40k we're talking about is in the 2nd w
ave of cyberpunk popularity and perhaps the 3rd wave of post apocalypse entertainment.

I think the environmental aspect would be incorporated more than just a bit. It would be the main impetus for humanity's expansion into space in the first place. Instead of Death Worlds, we'd have Dead Worlds.

The other major influence missing from the original cocktail mix would be networks. Perhaps to the point of displacing some of the psychic magic stuff like astropaths. Something like the ansible from the Ender's Game series would seem to be in order along with planetary internets.

Satire doesn't really exist any more the way it used to as a major genre / cultural trope.

That's the major difference you'd see, and you can already see it it in 40k itself, as it's become less and less an overt satire and shifted more and more towards tacticool superhero as its inspiring aesthetic.

I feel some of tone setting would change. The Imperium would probably be more fuedal than parody-fascist, but a lot of things would likely stay the same.

You know, beyond female Marines being a thing.

I know one thing for sure, we wouldn't have anything like 2nd ed stormboyz

I think it's be drastically different. The whole setup would be different. The entire Emperor is a dead dude who they sacrifice thousands of innocent psykers to every day would never be a thing. Space Marines wouldn't be indoctrinated, genetically engineered, effectively asexual man-children. One unipolar institution like the Imperium of Man wouldn't exist, there'd be several competing human empires instead. Etc etc.

In general the human side of things would look totally different. Xenos would probably be less impacted.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Satire doesn't really exist any more the way it used to as a major genre / cultural trope.

That's the major difference you'd see, and you can already see it it in 40k itself, as it's become less and less an overt satire and shifted more and more towards tacticool superhero as its inspiring aesthetic.

That's a really good point. I hadn't thought of it, but you're right. Satire like original 40k is probably not really possible today. This would likely push it to a more bland/generic place.

yukishiro1 wrote:
I think it's be drastically different. The whole setup would be different. The entire Emperor is a dead dude who they sacrifice thousands of innocent psykers to every day would never be a thing. Space Marines wouldn't be indoctrinated, genetically engineered, effectively asexual man-children. One unipolar institution like the Imperium of Man wouldn't exist, there'd be several competing human empires instead. Etc etc.

In general the human side of things would look totally different. Xenos would probably be less impacted.

If they could even make the setting at all. go back and look at things considered normal for the times like TV commercials or movies from the 50s into the 90s

Blazing saddles would never be made today (may the emperor bless mel brooks! ) not most of monty pythons iconic classics etc...

I think the grim dark setting would be hard to get past the social gate keepers at this point. look what they did to vampire the masquerade.

Every model would be a blind bag.

I think the grim dark setting would be hard to get past the social gate keepers at this point. look what they did to vampire the masquerade.

they say, discussing a grim dark setting that has gotten past the social gate keepers at this point and actually exists in the modern era.

Tycho wrote:

No one would conceive of a game system so bloated and based on FOMO purchasing every week and make it be successful in this day and age.

FOMO purchasing is very much a modern tactic. I could actually see it being doubled down on if 40k were new.

I don't see any other company touting LE's and 'limited' runs as much as GW does.
There's so much LE stuff from them thee days, I've stopped caring what is or isn't.

While other companies do indeed try and use KS or similar to create FOMO, GW has taken it to a whole new level. Just look at how fast anything new gets snapped up. based on 'it might be an LE!'

Rihgu wrote:

I think the grim dark setting would be hard to get past the social gate keepers at this point. look what they did to vampire the masquerade.

they say, discussing a grim dark setting that has gotten past the social gate keepers at this point and actually exists in the modern era.

"All these SJW Gatekeepers stopping me from playing the game that still exists and I can still buy things for!"

Well, big shoulder pads would be gone…

The marines would probably look more like something out of Gears of War or Call of Duty. Tacticool body armor and very haloish-looking.

Admech would probably be more technobright - white motorcycle suits with neon lines and designs.

The Eldar would be festooned with tattoos and piercings and be helmetless with comb-overs (i.e., a lot more like dark Eldar, but more colorful and cheerful looking).

Orks would be entirely replaced with a different race - probably a faceless cyborg race with an ultra sleek appearance and lots of heavy, built-in weaponry.

Tau would look more like the air caste/lama su from Clone wars. They would have a lot of quad-fan drones but still have battle suits that would be much sleeker-looking (more like the Ghostkeel).

Tyranids would probably look the same.

Rihgu wrote:

I think the grim dark setting would be hard to get past the social gate keepers at this point. look what they did to vampire the masquerade.

they say, discussing a grim dark setting that has gotten past the social gate keepers at this point and actually exists in the modern era.

They say, when all the new models coming out do not look like they belong in the 40K setting


classic dark hard and dirty crumbling 40k





clean and advance 40K

no torture and SoB with aeldari stolen tech....
harumph.

Rihgu wrote:

I think the grim dark setting would be hard to get past the social gate keepers at this point. look what they did to vampire the masquerade.

they say, discussing a grim dark setting that has gotten past the social gate keepers at this point and actually exists in the modern era.

I don't think it's grimdark setting per se that'd be the issue. Cyberpunk 2077 proves you can do that in 2021 with no problems as long as it's grimdark within 21st century sensibilities. But the original 40k's particular kind of grimdark wouldn't survive the transition to 2021 if the game was being released today. It's barely survived even with the 40 years of inertia the IP has. Look at how they dealt with bringing Guilliman back - that is 100% superhero in is aesthetics, complete with the cast of characters of different races and factions all working together to help G-man on his quest, something you very rarely saw in prior 40k.

In general, I think the totalitarian race-based us vs. them stuff would be really toned down. 40k: 2021 edition would be less about race vs race and more about diverse groups of individuals allied less by biology than by ideology or political history. I.e. you'd get something like Infinity. The whole structure of the game would look dramatically different as a result. You wouldn't play "Eldar" or "T'au" or "Space Marines," you'd play "Anarcho-capitalist space traders" or "Cooperative Federalists" or "Authoritarian State Capitalists" or "Technology-centered knowledge-seekers." You could have a grimdark spin on all of these, but it'd be a very different sort of grimdark, more like Blade Runner than Starship Troopers.

 aphyon wrote:

Blazing saddles would never be made today (may the emperor bless mel brooks! ) not most of monty pythons iconic classics etc...

Blazing Saddles could be made today for the same reason it was made in 1974. It is making fun of the racists and racism. Life of Brian could be made today and would actually meet with less pushback than it did when it came out where people were calling for it to be banned for being blasphemous (despite said people never actually watching the film).

Lindsay Ellis did a great video on Mel Brooks.

You've pitted art against models which is just dumb. I've got the 9th ed SM codex in my hands and the inside cover is a horrific wall of screaming faces. It took opening the book to find Grimdark.