10 Reasons Why PC Gamers Love Games Workshop
Over the past 40 years, Games Workshop has developed a fanatically loyal fanbase amongst table top gamers. The company's Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 franchises are dark, gritty, and violent, and reward players' tactical decision making and innovative thinking. While table top games often suffer when ported to the PC, Games Workshop has consistently bucked that trend and released some truly epic games. Here are 10 reasons why PC gamers love Games Workshop.
10.Games Workshop has had a strong interest in computer gaming right from its foundation – in 1975!
Games Workshop's iconic Space Marines.
According to Steve Jackson, one of the founders of Games Workshop, the company was interested in promoting “progressive games” since the beginning, and in 1975 computer games were “progressive games”.
However, it wasn't until the mid 1980s that Games Workshop had the opportunity to start making computer games, and it was only in the early 1990s that they finally started to bring their Warhammer franchise to the PC. Nevertheless, they have been dedicated to computer gaming for the past 40 years, and this can be clearly seen from its games!
9. The Settings
The Imperial Guard, one of many factions in Warhammer 40,000.
Games Workshop has created some amazingly detailed and engaging settings for their top games. In both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, humanity is in a constant struggle for survival against the forces of Chaos, vicious demons who personify the worst of mankind's flaws.
Games Workshop is not content to stick with the standard elves, dwarves, and orcs in their Warhammer Fantasy setting, but has also added the likes of lizard men, anthropomorphic rats, and mutated beastmen to the world.
Likewise, in Warhammer 40,000 the forces of mankind must fight against rapidly-evolving insectoids, ancient skeletal robots, and powerful psychics across an entire galaxy. The sheer depth to Games Workshop's settings means that there are always new stories to tell, which also means that there will always be more games to play!
8. Customization
The army painter of Warhammer 40,000 demonstrates the iconic customization of Games Workshop's games.
The Games Workshop table top games are all about customization: you can customize your armies, customize your units, and customize your paint jobs. In fact, many people find much more satisfaction in creating and painting Warhammer armies than actually playing the game itself. Games Workshop understands its fans' love of customization, and has happily made it a part of many of their most recent games.
Both Dawn of War and Dawn of War 2 come with an army painter, which allows you to customize your army's look to an impressive degree – who hasn't made their Space Marines' armor neon pink just to add that extra intimidation factor? The ability to make your army truly your own is one of the many things that keeps bringing people back to Games Workshop's PC games.
7. Warhammer Online
Warhammer Online had great potential, but ultimately did appeal to a wide enough audience.
While many MMOs take a few patches to really get going, Warhammer Online was a success from the beginning, and sold over a million copies in its first month. Focusing heavily on Realm vs. Realm combat, Warhammer Online had some excellent PvP featuring humans, elves, dwarves, greenskins, and the forces of chaos.
Unfortunately, despite its early successes and glowing reviews, Warhammer Online was unable to maintain a stable online population, and ultimately shut down for good in 2013.
6. Space Hulk
Eat your heart out, Aliens. This is tactical terror at its finest.
Although featuring Space Marines and Tyranids from Warhammer 40,000, Space Hulk is actually based on a stand-alone table top game from 1989. In Space Hulk, you take control of either a squad of elite Space Marine Terminators investigating a derelict space ship or a pack of Tyranid Genestealers set to ambush any intruders.
Easily the smallest scale of any of Games Workshop's PC games, the turn-based Space Hulk lets you take control of every action of your troops. Space Hulk is a true survival horror game, and shows the versatility of Games Workshop's games.
5. Space Marine
There are always more Orks to kill in Space Marine.
Warhammer 40,000 is often at its most entertaining when a small squad of Space Marines faces off against hordes of demons and alien creatures. In Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, there is no squad; it is just you and your power armor against an endless green tide of Orks.
Space Marine gives you the most visceral Warhammer 40,000 experience to date, and puts you right in the middle of Games Workshop's most exciting and gritty settings. Although a departure from the more tactical games that Games Workshop is better known for, Space Marine will no doubt appeal to both action fans and Dawn of War fans alike.
4. Blood Bowl
The upcoming Blood Bowl 2 looks to have everything that made the first Blood Bowl great – and more!
Based on Games Workshop's table top game of the same name, Blood Bowl takes fantasy football to the next level. In Blood Bowl, the constant warfare in Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting takes place on an American football field.
Blood Bowl features the same extensive customization that is familiar to Games Workshop's fans: choose from one of over a dozen races, hire and name your lineup, and even give your team a history if you'd like. In Blood Bowl, punching, fouling, and killing your opponent's team is encouraged just as much as scoring.
Although it features a single player campaign, Blood Bowl shines in multiplayer. There are few things more satisfying than breaking the back of the other team's star player and casually walking the ball into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.
3. Dawn of War
A Space Marine's work is never done.
Certainly the first introduction for most PC gamers into the world of Warhammer 40,000, Dawn of War has been a major success for Games Workshop. Not only was the game an innovation in the RTS genre by prioritizing small skirmishes and the control of strategic points on the map instead of base building and resource gathering, it has proven to be wildly successful even more than ten years later.
The initial game and expansion saw the player guiding both Space Marines and the Imperial Guard against hordes of Chaos and rampaging Orks, while the final two expansions expanded the scope of the game even further and let the player take control of a faction in a free-form strategic campaign.
With nine unique races, each with a distinct playstyle and distinct challenges as an opponent, Dawn of War has a level of depth and replay value rarely seen in other games, which is one of the reasons why it is still beloved today.
2. WAAAGH!
These aren't your grandfathers' orcs!
Most gamers, especially those who grew up on the likes of Dungeons & Dragons, know orcs as low-level cannon fodder who rarely pose anything resembling a major threat. In the world of Warhammer 40,000, however, the warlike, biologically-engineered Orks are one of the most dangerous races in the universe.
Although normally too busy fighting among themselves to pose a serious threat to more civilized races, when an Ork leader unites warring tribes into a WAAAGH! they become an almost unstoppable force that can ravage entire star systems.
As if their potential for destruction wasn't enough to make them one of the most beloved alien races in gaming, they have more personality than you can shoot a bolter at. Ork names are simplicity itself. There's no having to guess the difference between a Devastator Squad or a Terminator Squad: Shoota Boyz have guns; Tankbustaz blow up tanks; Weirdboyz have psychic powers. We all love the Orks, because we all need more dakka!
1. Space Marines
Not to be messed with.
Easily the most iconic of Games Workshop's creations, Space Marines have been the at heart of nearly every Warhammer 40,000 PC game out there. The elite of the elite, Space Marines are genetically-modified superhumans carrying devastating weapons and clad in heavy power armor. They are humanity's best defense against the legions of heretics and aliens who dare threaten the Imperium of Man. Space Marines are some of the best heroes out there, and we have Games Workshop to thank for them.
