Warhammer

As a video game brand, Warhammer draws on the vast tabletop and miniature-wargaming universe created by Games Workshop, and since the mid-2000s it has become the basis for dozens of games across genres and platforms. It is defined by a dark, gothic sci-fi and fantasy aesthetic with an emphasis on brutal combat, distinct factions and deep lore borrowed from the tabletop source material but reshaped in each game's own way – spanning turn-based strategy, real-time strategy and action games told from a single soldier's perspective.

Among the series' milestones are the real-time strategy Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004), which introduced a fast, aggressive RTS style built around fighting for control points on the map; the action title Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (2011), which let players experience the brutality of the battlefield through the eyes of an armored Space Marine; and the large-scale strategy game Total War: Warhammer (2016), which merged Total War's mass battles with fantasy factions. Games also appeared on the PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360 before the series gradually moved onto modern PC platforms. Warhammer thus showed how a single tabletop universe could branch into dozens of different gaming experiences, shaping both the strategy genre and action games set in a dark science-fiction future.