The world of Warhammer 40,000 is dark and makes no secret of it. There are hardly any happy endings, war is constant, and allies can only be found temporarily at best. One user finds it too grim, but fans argue: it’s not that bad after all.
Warhammer is not kind and doesn’t want to be. If you ever find yourself in the grim future of the 41st millennium, you probably can choose whether you would rather be eaten by alien bugs or massacred by brutal fungi.
Even if you somehow manage to escape the war, the chances for a “nice” life are rather slim. Most of the people in the Imperium live in the slums of the metropolitan worlds and feed poorly on bland Nutripaste and corpse starch. Anyone who wants to resist will quickly find themselves facing the watch or the church.
Still, or perhaps because of this, so many fans are captivated by the world. One user on Reddit cannot understand this at all. He says he knows grim universes like Halo. But Warhammer is just completely over the top.
One of the darkest moments in the history of Warhammer 40,000 is the Horus Heresy:
“I’d rather deal with the Flood than this universe”
The thread creator complains: “In this universe, everyone is evil, there is nothing really positive happening. Whether you are a simple guard following the cult of a guy on a golden throne or a guy who follows the chaos gods.”
He means he would prefer to face the Flood from Halo rather than having to assert himself in the world of Warhammer. The Flood are basically virus-zombies, the classic parasites that infest and contaminate humans. But Halo still has people fighting for order.
In contrast, Warhammer is a world where there is no clear distinction between good and evil. There are several shades of moral gray, but no one here is truly “good.” Even the Emperor, who is generally considered moderate, is not as benevolent as many might think.
Fans jump in to explain that this is exactly the point that makes Warhammer so good. And the world is so exaggerated that one cannot take the whole thing seriously anyway.
“It’s so messed up that it’s cheerful again”
In the top comment, one user states, “As a lover of 40K, I find it so dark, so messed up, that it comes full circle and feels cheerful because it’s so exaggerated.” Other, grimmer universes are much more grounded in reality.
Indeed, Warhammer relies on completely absurd exaggerations. The poster boys, the Space Marines, are literally genetically enhanced superhumans with too many organs, superpowers, and weapons that a normal person couldn’t even lift.
On the other side, there are the chaos gods with their completely exaggerated domains. Slaanesh has warriors who can literally kill with music. Nurgle’s followers are constantly rotting and take pride in collecting as many diseases as possible.
In a way, Warhammer is a parody of fantasy and sci-fi settings that take themselves too seriously. And this is precisely what fans celebrate. If someone tries to bring reason into it, the response is often: “You haven’t understood the setting.”
The motto of Warhammer has a good reason
Warhammer promotes the saying: “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war”, or in the original: “In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.” The universe has significantly shaped the sub-genre “grimdark”.
And despite the comic-like exaggerations, Warhammer can indeed become really, really dark at times. One user refers to a thread that shows an excerpt from a novel. There, a few imperial guards are eaten alive by Tyranids and dissolved in their stomach acid. A small warning here, the text is very detailed.
The fact that Warhammer does not hold back here, but fully embraces this dark, often exaggerated fantasy is exactly what fans appreciate. And in the end, it all comes down to perspective, whether someone is truly “evil” or perhaps shows something good somewhere.
Warhammer has been a popular franchise for ages and even inspired Blizzard 40 years ago. So much so that the makers of Warcraft initially wanted to create a Warhammer game, but ultimately decided against it: In a perfect world, the biggest MMORPG today would be World of Warhammer
