Specialist RPG studio’s unannounced Warhammer game revealed following layoffs

An unannounced “PvE Action RPG” set in one of Games Workshop’s fantasy properties was apparently in development until being cancelled late last year, according to a new report from mp1st.

News of the project was pieced together by mp1st from several LinkedIn profiles belonging to former employees of studio Thought Pennies. Different sources alternately describe the project as a “multiplatform, social role-playing game” and a “fantasy live-service RPG”, although it’s possible these refer to different projects from the same time period.

The report speculates that the cancellation was due to Games Workshop themselves deciding to “withdraw funding”, although to my knowledge GW don’t fund games so much as rent out their license for residuals. The project’s publisher isn’t named in any of the materials shared, though CCO Daniel Erickson does mention another company’s change of “strategic direction” in a LinkedIn post made last November in the wake of layoffs at the studio:

“Over the last three years at Thought Pennies we built something amazing. We never missed a milestone, our feedback was great, our partnerships strong. We went from two people and a PowerPoint to a team of almost sixty heavily-vetted, incredibly independent, passionate professionals,” wrote Erickon. “Our publisher changed strategic direction, however, and our previous project is now without funding. Last week we had to shrink the size of the studio.”

The “three years” Erickson mentions does line up with the resume dates from the report, two of which list 2022 start dates on the project. Here are the relevant bits from the report, which I’ve verified with my own RPS nose and eyes and fingers.

Exactly which of Games Workshop’s universes the Warhammer game took place in is unclear. The ‘fantasy’ setting mentioned in one of the posts could suggest either Age Of Sigmar, or Warhammer Fantasy in either its classic or newer incarnation, The Old World. In a recent money-me-doo, Games Workshop CEO Kevin Rountree made it clear the company is “looking for the next one”, “one” here referring to Space Marine 2. I love business, man. You can just get up in front of a bunch of people and tell them that your strategy is to find another thing that makes you a lot of money. There was a bit more, to be fair. “We recognize that successes like these for Warhammer are not a given in the world of video games,” spoke big daddy plastic. “We remain cautious when forecasting royalty income”.