Warhammer Is Suddenly Getting A Surprising TV Spinoff
General audiences are about to find out just how awful things get by 40,000 A.D.
It seems like nearly all the most beloved and most impactful science fiction properties have at least some degree of levity and whimsy. Star Trek and Star Wars are the biggest examples — despite often dealing with heavy themes, both properties balance that out with a dose of romantic adventurism and wish-fulfillment. Even this year’s Project Hail Mary leaned into the “hopecore” trend to great success, which makes sense. Sci-fi has long been a place to reflect on the human condition, and people want to believe that humanity’s future looks optimistic.
But not all popular sci-fi subscribes to the same rosy storytelling tendencies. Warhammer 40K, the most-played miniature wargame in the world, is a vision of a galactic future ravaged by endless conflict with hostile alien and supernatural forces, and it’s so beloved that it’s been spun off into a wide array of video games, novels, and comic books. Now the franchise is about to make the leap to television, with an unexpected project coming from a pretty expected source.
The franchise’s biggest leap off the tabletop has arguably been the Space Marine game franchise, and 2024’s Space Marine 2 already has a sequel in development.
On August 3, Variety announced that Amazon MGM Studios, Blur Studios, and Games Workshop are teaming up to develop an animated series based on Warhammer, with none other than Henry Cavill (a noted longtime player and the driving force behind an adjacent live-action adaptation) executive producing. It’s a spin-off of the Warhammer 40K episode of Amazon’s earlier video game series Secret Level, an animated anthology show featuring episodes based on popular video game properties; according to Dave Wilson’s (the supervising director of Secret Level and the co-creator and director of the animated Warhammer series) statements to Variety, the show was always intended as “a launchpad for larger stories,” and the success of the Warhammer episode leading to a separate series is proof of that.
Warhammer takes place in the 41st millennium, when humanity has colonized the stars under the guidance of the Imperium of Man, an uber-fascist regime governed by the Emperor of Mankind — an authoritarian ruler who long ago entered a near-deathly slumber sustained with ancient technology and human sacrifice. The Imperium’s elite, genetically enhanced Space Marines defend humanity from extraterrestrial threats like the ravenous reptilian Tyranids, as well as the metaphysical supernatural forces of Chaos, which manifests as demons and evil gods.
It's a sprawling, bleak franchise that's a far cry from the cozy speculative fiction of Star Wars or Star Trek, and now there are two adaptations on the way that will attempt to make sense of the game’s expansive and convoluted lore. Whether the success of the animated show matches the success of the Warhammer Secret Level episode remains to be seen, but Amazon is certainly courting a massive fanbase by bringing sci-fi’s most popular grimdark setting to life.
The Warhammer animated series does not yet have a release date.
