The grim darkness of the far future is about to get a lot more strategic.
Creative Assembly has officially announced Total War: Warhammer 40,000, bringing the beloved grand strategy franchise into the 41st Millennium for the first time in its 25-year history.
The announcement dropped at The Game Awards, accompanied by a trailer featuring Emmy-nominated actor and self-described Warhammer 40,000 superfan David Harbour, who will portray a mysterious yet-to-be-revealed character in the game. T
he trailer also offered a fleeting glimpse of pre-alpha gameplay – enough to confirm the scope Creative Assembly is swinging for.
Four Factions, One Galactic Sandbox
Total War: Warhammer 40,000 will launch with four playable factions: Space Marines, Orks, Aeldari, and Astra Militarum.
Each is described as radically distinct, built around lore-inspired gameplay mechanics, unique weaponry, and faction-specific war machines – a design philosophy that should feel familiar to fans of the original Total War: Warhammer trilogy.
Space Marines are the elite few, powerful enough to hold ground against entire armies. Orks are the opposite – vast, chaotic, and relentless.
Aeldari bring psychic precision and speed to a dying empire’s last stand. And the Astra Militarum fields sheer numbers, drowning enemies in disciplined waves of infantry backed by artillery and battle-tanks.
Chaos Space Marines – a faction that fans will immediately notice is absent – are confirmed for post-launch content.
According to Creative Assembly, they’ll “absolutely be part of the plans at some point, along with all the other iconic factions from the setting.”
The campaign itself plays out across a galactic sandbox where players expand empire turn by turn, capturing planets, upgrading fleets, and managing their war economy.
Real-time battles take place across war-torn worlds with distinct biomes and dynamic terrain destruction, with the added option to unleash apocalyptic weaponry capable of erasing entire planets from existence. The ambition is enormous.
A Dream Project – and a Major Platform Shift
Game Director Attila Mohacsi has made no effort to hide how personal this one is. “I can’t tell you how incredible it feels to finally share this with you,” Mohacsi said in the official announcement.
“For so many of us on the team, this isn’t just another project. It’s a dream come true.”
That passion extends to the detail work. Legendary Games Workshop artist Paul Dainton was brought in to create the announcement key art, and the game is being built on a new proprietary engine called Warcore – purpose-built for this project’s scale and ambition.
Notably, Total War: Warhammer 40,000 marks the franchise’s first appearance on consoles, launching on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S alongside PC.
That’s a significant expansion for a series that has been PC-first throughout its entire history, and it speaks to the scale Creative Assembly is targeting with this release.
For Aussie players on PS5, this is a big deal – a proper grand strategy game designed for the platform, not a port afterthought.
The game will also support modding via Steam Workshop from launch, which is a strong commitment given that Total War has always had a passionate modding community on PC.
Official modding tools will follow at a later date due to the transition to the new Warcore engine.
One detail worth celebrating: there will be no blood pack DLC.
Blood and dismemberment are included in the base game as standard, because – as Creative Assembly put it – “the 41st Millennium is a setting of eternal war.” Sensible, really.
What Comes Next for Total War: Warhammer 40,000
Creative Assembly will release a development team roundtable on December 16th – an early look at how the team is approaching the setting rather than a full gameplay reveal.
After that, the next major update won’t arrive until Spring 2026, when the studio plans to kick things off with in-depth campaign and battle gameplay deep dives.
No release date has been announced, and Creative Assembly says PC specifications haven’t been finalised yet either.
Pre-order bonus details will also be revealed in 2026, though the studio has confirmed there will be no pre-order DLC – a welcome bit of consumer-friendly news.
Community reaction has been expectedly enormous, with Warhammer 40,000 fans and Total War veterans alike treating this as one of the most exciting strategy announcements in years.
Given how well Creative Assembly’s partnership with Games Workshop played out across the original Warhammer trilogy, the anticipation is well-founded.
Stay tuned to GamesHub for all updates on Total War: Warhammer 40,000 as more information arrives in 2026.
Which faction are you planning to lead to galactic dominance first – and are you gutted Chaos Space Marines won’t be there at launch? Let us know in the comments.