PC Gamer Ranked are our ridiculously complete lists of one of the best, worst, and the whole lot in-between from each nook of PC gaming.
For a short interval between 1983 and 1985, Video games Workshop revealed their very own videogames, together with one referred to as Chaos: The Battle of Wizards (created by a younger developer referred to as Julian Gollop who’d later make a reputation for himself with X-COM). However none of GW’s videogames have been set in their very own Warhammer Fantasy universe.
On the time the setting was a barely shaped factor. 1984’s second version of Warhammer Fantasy Battle targeted on a battle between alien frogs and Amazons with laserguns on the continent of Lustria. Solely after GW received out of the videogame racket would the Previous World refocus on the gritty fantasy model of Renaissance Europe that turn into Warhammer’s heart stage.
In 1991 Gremlin Interactive tailored the board recreation HeroQuest, and Warhammer lastly got here to computer systems. Although it was a model of Warhammer focused at ages 9 and up, it nonetheless included distinctive parts just like the fimir and the specter of Chaos. There weren’t many Warhammer video games over the following 20 years, simply a few fondly remembered technique video games and a tragically doomed MMO, and it wasn’t till the 2010s that the Previous World was explored extra totally. A lot extra totally.
In 2015 alone there have been 4 Warhammer Fantasy video games launched on PC and 4 extra Warhammer 40,000 video games. We went from a drought to a flood, from nothing to greater than anyone particular person may sustain with… except they devoted months of their life to enjoying each single Warhammer videogame.
Effectively, I’ve accomplished simply that. I’ve performed all of them. This listing will enable you to navigate the flood.
The Standards
Variety of entries: 26. New and altered entries within the newest replace are marked 💀.
What’s included: Each Warhammer recreation on PC set within the Previous World, the parody-football universe of Blood Bowl, and the Warhammer sequel setting Age of Sigmar.
What’s not included: Video games Workshop video games in different fantasy settings—like HeroQuest 2: Legacy of Sorasil, which ditched the Previous World for a brand new setting referred to as the Lands of Rhia, and the Talisman video games which have developed their very own “world of Talisman.” It is fairly full, is what I am saying.
Here’s a separate list ranking every Warhammer 40,000 game. And now: Each Warhammer recreation, ranked from worst to greatest.
26. Chaos & Conquest (2019)
Hunted Cow Studios/Tilting Level
Steam
Bear in mind Evony? “Play now, my Lord!” Bear in mind the licenced cash-ins that filtered the whole lot from Ultima to Sport of Thrones by means of the identical precise system of settlement development and armed forces constructing, with free-to-play power mechanics and a number of currencies designed to confuse gamers out of money? Chaos & Conquest is that, however as an alternative of a woman in tavern-wench cosplay exhorting you to construct one other granary it is a champion in spiky armor suggesting you improve your Chaos Maintain. It sucks and I hate it.
25. Blood Bowl (1995)
Future Software program Productions/MicroLeague
Video games Workshop’s fantasy soccer recreation has been tailored a number of instances, starting with this forgotten model revealed by MicroLeague in 1995. It is trustworthy to the board recreation however to name it barebones can be an insult to skeletons. There’s just one participant icon per group, so there is no strategy to inform a thrower from a catcher at a look, not to mention a puny skaven from a beefcake rat ogre, which is fairly essential. It’s a must to laboriously click on by means of each participant to be reminded which is which. Folks discuss quite a lot of smack concerning the more moderen Blood Bowl video games by Cyanide, however that is as a result of they do not know how unhealthy we used to have it.
24. Dungeonbowl (2012)
Cyanide Studio/Nacon
Though that is nonetheless fairly unhealthy. The tabletop model of Dungeonbowl was an growth for the miniatures recreation, transferring it underground and including a parody of dungeon-crawling RPGs to its parody of American soccer. The videogame is a standalone tackle the identical concept, the place the ball’s hidden in a random treasure chest in a dungeon stuffed with teleporters that bounce gamers from room to room. If you happen to thought Blood Bowl was too dicey earlier than, Dungeonbowl will probably be torture. Even in the event you like Blood Bowl, taking its guidelines for maneuvering round open fields and squeezing them into corridors would not really work. In any respect.
💀 23. Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall (2021)
Carbon Studio
Steam
A VR motion recreation the place you are a lord-arcanum of the Stormcast Eternals, principally a lightning wizard in heavy armor. You summon weapons—sword, axe, and employees—by gripping your fists, forged spells by squeezing a set off whereas waving, sweeping, and pointing them, after which go to city on the undead of the Nighthaunt.
These weapons lack heft although, making fight really feel such as you’re waving a Wiimote moderately than a magic axe. It is a bit janky throughout, with doorways getting caught midway and the bits the place you squeeze by means of a decent passage or climb down a rope often glitching you off into area. Get previous them and you will find batches of samey skeletons and ghosts showing in designated fight arenas, that are separated by designated exploration zones with glowing collectibles, and NPCs stiffly waving their arms whereas droning exposition. Bugs and floaty controls could also be fixable, however how boring Tempestfall is? Most likely not.
22. Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower (2021)
Perchang
Steam | Microsoft Store
The Warhammer Quest video games bounce to the Age of Sigmar, however extra worryingly turn into free-to-play. Whereas the primary within the collection had exploration between battles and story between dungeons, right here every time you end preventing on a recycled map you get shunted again to the menu within the hope you will spend cash within the store. What can you purchase? Lootboxes and random heroes. It is a gacha recreation, yeah.
A lot of the ranges are straightforward, even after they ultimately open up and cease being literal corridors, and the closest factor to a problem is ensuring you do not lose sufficient well being to attain lower than three stars—sorry, scrolls—on the occasional tougher one. Even rudimentary options of the earlier video games, like heroes having a number of attention-grabbing skills to handle and a rotatable digital camera, have been binned.
21. Arcane Magic (2016)
Turbo Tape Video games
Usually I would not be harsh on one thing simply because it is a PC port of a cell recreation, however the whole lot about Arcane Magic feels restricted by its origin, from the tiny battle maps, to the way in which scrolls are bought in “plunder packs,” to the twin currencies. Luckily the microtransactions have been disabled for the PC model, however the pacing continues to be designed round their presence and the whole lot feels barely off due to it.
The sport itself? Fundamental turn-based ways the place your wizards forged spells from a hand of playing cards whereas they discover the Previous World gathering lumps of magic rock. It will be boring even with out its different issues.
20. Warhammer Quest 2: The Finish Instances (2019)
Perchang
Steam
A turn-based dungeon crawler that makes use of the apocalyptic ending of the Warhammer world to justify heroic knights preventing alongside skeletons and a darkish elf in fetishwear.
Whereas the sport it is a sequel to had issue choices together with permadeath, Warhammer Quest 2 has none. As an alternative you need to play a recreation that is arduous sufficient you might want to grind sidequests to maintain up with the curve, without having permadeath to make failure thrilling. As an alternative when heroes fall they take accidents that weaken them till their subsequent level-up, which suggests extra grinding protected sidequests. I may let you know the fussy line-of-sight guidelines and the dearth of the primary recreation’s textual content adventures additionally let it down, however the horse is already lifeless and there is no have to flog it.
19. HeroQuest (1991)
Gremlin Interactive
A potent double-dose of nostalgia, each for 1991 when it was launched and for 1989 once I had the board recreation and performed it alone after boring each grownup who would sit down with me. HeroQuest was one of many traditional dungeon crawl board video games that acted as a gateway drug to RPGs, like Descent or Gloomhaven do right now. The videogame is a direct adaptation all the way down to the quests and intro textual content, although it is solely capable of show a slice of the board at a time and the heroes waddle about like toddlers with full diapers.
If you wish to play HeroQuest on a pc with pals Tabletop Simulator has you lined, however if you would like a half-bright AI for the monsters such as you’d wished for as a lonely youngster in 1989, that is the drug for you. (Although observe an app launched similtaneously the deluxe rerelease of the HeroQuest board game can management the monsters and enable you to play solo.)
18. Mark of Chaos (2006)
Black Gap Leisure/Namco Bandai
GOG
Two real-time Warhammer wargames preceded Mark of Chaos, and whereas it has one of the best UI of the three, with easy controls like mousewheel zooming, and one of the best graphics, with troopers that appear to be the official miniatures of evening goblins and Imperial halberdiers and so forth, it nonetheless manages to be the worst of them. The animations aren’t so nice, all herky-jerky bent-arm swings, and heroes ship abnormal troops flying a ridiculous distance with each blow. However the actual downside is that Mark of Chaos is shallower than its predecessors, with too many battles that will not allow you to discipline your full military, and ways extra like a drag-and-drop RTS.
It would not have the sooner video games’ persona, both, which made up for his or her clumsier controls.
17. Chaosbane (2019)
Eko Software program/Bigben Interactive
Steam | GOG
This action-RPG begins properly. It is a competent Diablo-like with loads of darkish ambiance and Nurglings who climb one another like circus acrobats so you possibly can bash them aside. Sadly its boss fights drag on because of their a number of well being bars, and too lots of the enemies in later acts are simply reskins of these from the primary.
The place different action-RPGs conceal the enjoyable within the endgame, Chaosbane frontloads it, and so will get much less pleasing the longer you keep it up. The primary act is fairly good, although.
16. Warhammer Underworlds On-line (2020)
Metal Sky Productions
Steam
A one-to-one adaptation of a tabletop recreation, Underworlds takes the much more heavy metallic excessive fantasy of Age of Sigmar and presents it at small scale, with squads of three or extra preventing over aims that appear to be leftover props from a D&D recreation.
Matches are solely three turns lengthy, which is usually not sufficient time to wipe out an enemy—as an alternative you win by finishing aims dealt from a deck of playing cards you assemble, which prioritizes considerate play and maneuvering over pure offense. There’s lots to be taught, and quite a lot of probably attention-grabbing ways primarily based round establishing a warband and selecting playing cards for each aims and powers that swimsuit them.
Factor is, your entire singleplayer part is bot matches and the multiplayer is simply populated on the prime finish. There’s hardly anyone in that candy spot between “completed the tutorials, searching for an off-the-cuff match-up” and “that is my without end recreation, over which I’ve achieved full mastery” so that you can be taught towards.
15. Mordheim: Warband Skirmish (2017)
Legendary Video games
Microsoft Store
In 1999 Video games Workshop launched a skirmish-scale tabletop recreation set within the ruins of the comet-smashed metropolis of Mordheim, the place warbands squabble over shards of magic “wyrdstone.” There have been a few digital variations, like this one which was initially launched for cell. Its cell origins present, however in ways in which really add to it.
The Conflict of Clans-style fashions look agreeably like plastic collectible figurines and the quick period of battles provides it the snacky high quality that makes Into the Breach and XCOM: Chimera Squad straightforward to choose up and play. With its conventional top-down view, it is also extra prone to set off any nostalgia you’ll have for the tabletop recreation than Rogue Issue’s extra bold model, just a few spots down the listing.
Lastly, although I hesitate to say it in a rating of PC video games, this straightforward between-meals technique recreation is on the market on Change. I go away you to do with this data as you’ll.
14. Man o’ Battle: Corsair (2016)
You get to be captain of your personal ship. What’s to not like? Effectively, AI so unhealthy at crusing that escort missions are a write-off, flying enemies that screech consistently and are arduous to focus on, and janky dueling animations. So a good quantity, really.
And but, as a result of Man o’ War provides you a lot freedom in the way you play, most of that does not matter. You possibly can consider commerce, shopping for from ports that produce items in amount then promoting the place they’re in demand. Or hold the wind at your again whereas discovering firing options for the proper broadsides. Both turn into a monster hunter, or simply flip sea monsters off utterly within the menu. It helps you to consider the simple enjoyable elements of being a Warhammer pirate and provides a large berth to the remaining.
In case you have fond reminiscences of Bethesda’s almost-forgotten Pirates of the Caribbean recreation, Man o’ Battle is kind of related. If you happen to thought Sid Meier’s Pirates! can be higher with orcs, that is that.
13. Age of Sigmar: Champions (2018)
PlayFusion
Steam
Age of Sigmar: Champions is uncommon among the many digital diversifications of Video games Workshop’s bodily video games in that it is a direct adjunct to a collectible card recreation, permitting gamers to scan of their bodily playing cards with a webcam or cellphone app after which use them within the videogame model. As a standalone free-to-play videogame it is respectable, with good card artwork and a few uncommon mechanics, like the way in which unit playing cards rotate every flip, with totally different results on every rotation.
It actually comes into its personal if in case you have a deck of the no-longer-printed precise playing cards, nonetheless, or choose some up second-hand and deal with this as a companion that can allow you to take your video games on-line or apply within the singleplayer campaigns.
12. Age of Sigmar: Storm Floor (2021)
Gasket Video games/Focus Residence Interactive
Steam | Microsoft Store
The Stormcast Eternals are holy lightning warriors who (often) come again after loss of life. Every reforging steals a few of their reminiscences and persona, nonetheless, leaving them metallic shells of their former selves. They’re best protagonists for a roguelike—think about Hades with hammers. As an alternative, Storm Floor takes roguelike development and provides it to turn-based ways.
The opposite playable factions are well-chosen, the undead Nighthaunt and daemonic Maggotkin each simply as prone to return from loss of life. The Maggotkin specifically are enjoyable to play, vomiting corruption throughout the map that heals them and hurts others, and from which extra of their models can spawn. The undead have executioners who carry combat-gallows, and the Stormcast specialise in knockback assaults that may arrange chains of damaging collision.
Whenever you familiarize yourself with it, Storm Floor is totally respectable. It is arduous to get to that time sadly, as a result of it is decided to be opaque. No tooltips, no guidelines reference or handbook, and quite a lot of issues should be realized by trial and error. The “+1 squad summon” ability simply straight-up provides you a free copy of no matter unit you equip with it, and different abilities can work in stunning methods. The identical is true of models: you count on banshees to have a scream means, however the reality they explode on loss of life, damaging and pushing again anybody round them, is a little bit of a shock. In roguelikes trial and error is punishing, but it surely’s value studying to play Storm Floor regardless of itself.
11. Blood Bowl (2009)
Cyanide Studios/Focus Residence Interactive
Steam
Cyanide’s first take at Blood Bowl was really their second, as they’d beforehand made a recreation referred to as Chaos League that was so near it that Video games Workshop’s attorneys got here round for a quiet phrase. One out-of-court settlement later and Cyanide by some means managed to attain the rights to develop an precise Blood Bowl recreation, which they did a reliable job of. Then they launched two extra variations of the identical recreation—the Legendary and Chaos editions—every barely increasing on the final.
Whereas their eventual 2015 sequel has a greater UI and nicer seems to be, one factor I missed from this model was the really demented number of bizarre cheerleaders, particularly the skeletons with pom-poms.
10. Shadow of the Horned Rat (1995)
Mindscape
GOG
This primary try at a real-time Warhammer wargame provides you command of a mercenary firm referred to as the Grudgebringers. From this preliminary command of two models, one Imperial cavalry and one infantry, you department out unit-by-unit to ultimately discipline the whole lot from wooden elf archers to dwarf gyrocopters, preventing towards greenskins and skaven.
These models are represented by fundamental sprites in a battle view restricted to a nook of the display, however what Shadow of the Horned Rat lacks in finesse it makes up for in persona, with a forged stuffed with Monty Python-esque accents delivering mission briefings, cutscenes, and battle cries. You will should tweak compatibility settings to get it working right now (Home windows XP Service Pack 2 mode works for me), but it surely’s value it.
9. Warhammer On-line: Age of Reckoning (2008)
Mythic Leisure/Digital Arts
Pour one out for Warhammer Age of Reckoning, aka WAR, one more MMO too stunning to dwell. What’s that? You can play it today on community-run servers, and although there are some bugs and participant numbers aren’t all the time what they could possibly be you possibly can nonetheless have time? Hell, put that drink again within the bottle and go test it out.
WAR could have squeezed itself right into a World of Warcraft-shaped mildew to its detriment, but it surely additionally did nice stuff with realm-versus-realm fight, public quests, and a set of lessons that have been all cool in numerous methods. Like Metropolis of Heroes, it deserves this second likelihood as a community-run MMO.
8. Mordheim: Metropolis of Damned (2015)
Rogue Issue/Focus Residence Interactive
Steam | GOG
It takes a minute to wrap your head across the mixture of over-the-shoulder digital camera and turn-based ways in Mordheim: Metropolis of the Damned (it’s kind of like Valkyria Chronicles solely with overwatch moderately than enemies simply consistently firing infinite bullets on everybody’s flip). By “it takes a minute”, what I actually imply is “it takes your complete first marketing campaign, which you’ll lose.”
Mordheim is not simply XCOM from a distinct angle, it is XCOM the place the Lengthy Battle on Iron Man mode is the one strategy to play. Your bosses demand funds on tight deadlines, story missions are brutal, and warriors lose limbs about as typically as I misplace my cellphone. Mordheim will get away with this harshness as a result of the playstyle it encourages—cautious, being attentive to the enemy’s skills, studying the 3D maps in a approach your ground-level view facilitates—turns into gripping when you’re fastidiously shepherding a band of warriors with lacking arms and concussion by means of its ruined metropolis.
7. The Finish Instances: Vermintide (2015)
Fatshark
Steam
As soon as Valve stopped releasing Left 4 Lifeless video games it fell to others to present us what we wanted—that sense of being outnumbered however unwilling to fall, backed by our closest pals who could or will not be web strangers. Vermintide did that properly, with heroes who’ve enjoyably outsized personas up towards skaven with no sense of self-preservation. Although its melee weapons did not have fairly the punchiness of these within the sequel, the unique Vermintide relied much less on leveling up and opening containers of barely higher gear. If that sluggish gear accrual turns you off Vermintide 2, this primary recreation stays a blast right now.
6. Warhammer Quest (2015)
Rodeo Video games/Chilled Mouse
Steam
Midway between the roll-and-move simplicity of HeroQuest and the this-box-actually-contains-a-universe complexity of Gloomhaven is Warhammer Quest, a dungeon crawler with simply the correct amount of downtime friction between dungeons.
Bins of textual content current easy selections, like “do you loot the tapestries or save the villagers’ donkey from being eaten.” Cities assemble themselves up out of the map like within the Sport of Thrones credit so you possibly can buy groceries or go to the temple for a blessing. It is fundamental in presentation, good for an previous laptop computer, and since it began as a cell recreation and (horror of horrors) has DLC, it has been underrated. Ignore that Steam consumer rating of “blended,” Warhammer Quest is definitely fairly good certainly.
The High 5
5. Blood Bowl 2 (2015)
Cyanide Studios/Focus Residence Interactive
Steam
On the one hand Blood Bowl 2 is a recreation that does a horrible job educating you the best way to play it. The singleplayer marketing campaign tries to be a tutorial, however introduces core concepts too slowly and solely helps you to play as one group. In the meantime, the AI is so rudimentary I’ve performed for over 70 hours and infrequently seen it throw a cross. And but, I’ve performed it for over 70 hours, as a result of Blood Bowl 2 is robust the place it really must be.
It takes the great board recreation about skeletons failing to choose up footballs and places it on PC extra slickly than ever, with multiplayer and an limitless league mode, provides some daffy animations and calls it a day. If you happen to do not love the board recreation you will by no means perceive this, however in the event you’ve spent nice evenings on the desk studying the best way to manage your turns so to get as a lot accomplished as attainable earlier than Johnny Bones fumbles the ball and causes a turnover, that is wonderful.
4. Darkish Omen (1998)
Mindscape/Digital Arts
The sequel to Shadow of the Horned Rat saved the real-time ways battles and the construction of a mercenary firm slowly constructing a various roster over the course of a marketing campaign, and improved virtually each different component. As an alternative of the motion happening in a nook window it is 3D and fills the display. The UI will get out of the way in which and the faces of troopers pop as much as shout as they cost or flee such as you’re in a videoconference with a complete battlefield.
If it had extra enemies than simply undead and greenskins, it is likely to be good. As it’s, in the event you just like the battles from Whole Battle however don’t desire the technique stuff getting in the way in which, right here you go. You will want some assist from PC Gaming Wiki to get it working right now (downloading EngRel’s “3D Repair & Excessive Digital camera zoom & Overhead Map” did the trick for me), but it surely’s value it. There is a modding neighborhood too.
3. Whole Battle: Warhammer (2016)
Inventive Meeting/Sega
Steam
The Warhammer mods for Rome and Medieval 2 proved there was an viewers for a Total War: Warhammer, but it surely nonetheless felt like a miracle each that it lastly occurred, and that it was accomplished so properly. The factions really feel distinct and make you need to really play the marketing campaign greater than as soon as, and it cleverly ditches among the collection’ extra indulgent parts like lineages and seasons to create a streamlined model of Whole Battle, one which feels suited to fantasy-bashing whether or not you are enjoying honor-driven Brettonian knights or headbutt-hungry orcs.
The sequel is healthier, however in the event you’re notably dedicated to one of many factions within the first recreation I might advocate it, and you are going to need to purchase each ultimately anyway.
2. Vermintide 2 (2018)
Fatshark
Steam
Generally in Vermintide 2 an enemy, whether or not a furry ratman or one of many worm-pale Northmen, will get killed the second earlier than your swing connects. The elf on the again places an arrow in a watch socket, or the witch hunter jabs his rapier by means of whereas working previous. Regardless that your personal assault is wasted, watching it join and sever an already lifeless enemy’s limb is rarely a downer, as a result of that is how good it feels to hit issues in Vermintide 2.
As you juke round its hordes, staggering backwards as you deflect a blow then blurring forwards for a riposte, you are feeling such as you’re in a lethal duel the place on one aspect there’s you and your mates, and on the opposite aspect there is a hundred mutants. It scales up the whole lot concerning the first Vermintide, with extra open ranges, a extra concerned levelling system, and extra enemies, however what actually makes a distinction is the way it makes the primary recreation’s fight really feel weightless by comparability.
To seek out another recreation with first-person melee fight this good you both should sink into the fiddly aggressive world of Mordhau and Chivalry 2, or journey again in time to Darkish Messiah. However you do not have to do both as a result of Vermintide 2’s proper right here, proper now, and you’ll play it with your pals.
1. Whole Battle: Warhammer 2 (2017)
Inventive Meeting/Sega
Steam
“Extra of the identical” generally is a flaw, however not after we’re speaking about Warhammer. This is not a setting that thrives on originality. It is about maximalism, the whole lot you want about trad fantasy baked collectively after which much more layered on prime. That is what Total War: Warhammer 2 delivers, with extra armies, extra distinctive mechanics for these armies, extra landmass, and extra campaigns—one a race to regulate a magic vortex, one other the conquer-everything Mortal Empires. There are even bespoke campaigns within the DLC for factions just like the food-obsessed goblins who want their very own cooking minigame, or the a number of fleets of vampirates.
I used to suppose one of the best Whole Battle video games have been those with smaller maps, just like the Shogun video games, however Warhammer 2 has 4 continents plus change, with the Mortal Empires DLC making it even larger, and all its sprawling decadence ends in an enormous opulent layer cake of the whole lot that is nice about Warhammer. We have by no means had going again for seconds this good.
Do not let the remainder of PC Gamer discover out I mentioned this, but it surely’s not simply one of the best Warhammer recreation, it is one of the best Whole Battle recreation too, and by a major margin.
Warhammer: What to learn subsequent
That is quite a lot of Warhammer. However if you wish to know extra concerning the Previous World and the tales behind its many video games, here is what to learn subsequent.
