Warhammer 40K Amazon Series Close to Falling Apart

Television

Another Henry Cavill project looks like it’s about to fall apart, this time one that is particularly near and dear to the man’s heart. Games Workshop, the company that makes tabletop gaming sensation Warhammer 40K, has been developing a TV series based on the game with Amazon, and famous Warhammer enthusiast Henry Cavill was set to executive produce and star in the show. The arrangement also allowed for various other Warhammer productions, such as movies, to be produced by Amazon, which would also involve Cavill. But in a recent financial report (via IGN), Games Workshop revealed that the deal is close to dying, as they cannot come to terms with Amazon. The dispute is over “creative guidelines,” on which the parties cannot agree and which has set development of the show back. If no agreement is reached by December, the Warhammer 40K series will not happen, at least not at Amazon. The report doesn’t mention what the “creative guidelines” in dispute are or who is insisting on them.

I think we can make a few educated guesses, though, especially given some of the more recent changes to Warhammer 40K lore. In April, Games Workshop released a new Codex, which is a sort of reference book for the game, that included female members of the Custodians, which are members of a group called the Adeptus Custodes. Previously, Custodes had exclusively been men, which caused many Warhammer 40K fans to voice their displeasure, which modern companies always greet with respect and understanding. Yeah, sure; everyone was quickly called a racist or whatever, with articles being written about how awful Warhammer 40K fans were, while the Warhammer X account started banning anyone who complained about the female Custodes, and the Warhammer Discord insulted disgruntled fans and told them to leave. But the worst part is that Games Workshop decided to get their Orwell on and began editing Wikipedia entries to make it seem as though female Custodes had always been a part of Warhammer lore, much like that lying professor did to Yasuke when Assassin’s Creed Shadows revealed he would be the main character.

But who’s to blame for the changes in Warhammer lore? The obvious answer would be Games Workshop, but a 4chan poster claimed that it was actually Amazon who wanted the female Custodes, telling Games Workshop that the factions that were already female weren’t enough. The alterations to the game itself weren’t intended to happen, according to this post, but because of a public announcement on social media, Games Workshop had to go along with it. Arch from The Archcast then made a video claiming a source inside Amazon told him that the female Custodes were a compromise because Amazon wanted female Space Marines and used some dirty business practices to force Games Workshop’s hand. If this is true, it indicates that Amazon is the source of the “creative guidelines,” and Games Workshop is tired of having them change the game’s lore, and the clock is now ticking on the deal with no resolution in sight.

I’m not sure I completely buy this, though. If Games Workshop was an innocent party in all of this, I doubt they would have attacked their fans the way they did. And while Amazon does love its woke crap, Games Workshop doesn’t appear to be much different; they’ve got a history of demonizing Warhammer 40K players, once telling them to leave if they didn’t like DEI and that they wouldn’t be missed. And Blackrock and Vanguard, two of the world’s biggest purveyors of the woke ideology, are major shareholders in Games Workshop. Ultimately, it’s hard to tell who’s the roadblock to the Warhammer 40K show going forward, what each party wants, or whether anyone involved even wants to settle the conflict at this point. The one thing I do know is that, no matter how much richer he is than I, if I ever run into Henry Cavill, I’m buying that man a beer. He’s earned a cold one after the last decade of his career.