Game Director Attila: You can look forward to four primary factions, and on top of that, every single one of them will feature two playable sub-factions. To give you an idea, Ultramarines, which we already announced, are one of the playable Space Marine sub-factions, with another one joining the ranks. Furthermore, this title marks a franchise first in Total War where you can craft your very own custom warlord and build a custom faction for each of the four core races we mentioned. You will be able to assemble and customise your own forces, whether they are Space Marines, Astra Militarum regiments, successor chapters, or even clans.

Game Director Attila: On the campaign side, it is all about the asymmetrical motivations and victory conditions between factions. For instance, while the Imperium and Orks share an obsession with controlling Armageddon, the Aeldari are chasing entirely different goals. Tactically speaking, we are approaching the entire battlefield in a way previous Total War games never dared to touch. Destruction plays a dynamic role here, allowing you to carve your own path through a constantly shifting map while soaking in the brutal spectacle of the 41st Millennium. Plus, being able to craft a custom faction for the very first time lets you truly define your personal playstyle through customization.

PR Manager Kieran: Because every single faction comes with its own unique asymmetries and playstyles, the strategy you need to deploy shifts drastically depending entirely on who you choose to command.

Tutorial Lead Zoe: While older Total War games were confined to a single map, this time the action spans across multiple planets, demanding brand new planetary and fleet strategies where your fleets tie directly into the combat.

Game Director Attila: A lot of us grew up playing the tabletop game, so it naturally became our primary reference point. Drop pod reserves, deep strike mechanics, unit composition, roles, weaponry, and behaviours are all heavily influenced by the tabletop. As you rightly pointed out, doctrines for all factions, including the Orks, draw heavy inspiration from the tabletop, and you will see even more new additions down the road. Calgar's abilities in combat are similarly rooted in tabletop rules. However, our job is to adapt all of that into the Total War framework. Since the tabletop deals with much smaller unit counts, we had to scale everything up to Total War proportions while making sure all those rules and concepts still fit seamlessly.

Another core inspiration for us was the lore itself—the books and the sprawling stories told within them. We are not just trying to recreate the tabletop experience; we are aiming to bring an entire universe to life. Our ambition from day one was to capture the feel of the grand universe, going far beyond what individual factions, characters, or the tabletop could offer on their own. You can see this inspiration shining through in unique pillars like faction management and the overarching grand strategy inherent to Total War.

Game Director Attila: I have wanted to build this game since I was a kid. The main reason it took this long was that we first had to wrap up the Warhammer fantasy trilogy, which served as a natural stepping stone. Pushing the franchise into the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium meant taking Total War out into the stars, and to pull that off, we literally had to build a brand new engine from scratch because the scale is galactic. It is easily our most ambitious project to date. Reaching this goal required an incredible amount of hard work and dedication from everyone across the team, building on more than a decade of experience dealing with Warhammer Fantasy and our rock-solid relationship with Games Workshop.

Game Director Attila: You will get a much deeper look at the campaign mechanics in our upcoming closed test. When we kicked off this project, our view was that diplomacy in this universe is essentially just war by another name. Of course, within the Imperium, you do have options to interact with local governors. You might have caught a basic version of issuing edicts during the demo, which is essentially about forcing your will upon a local governor and managing how that impacts your influence and relationship with them.

While you got a taste of the Space Marine side of things, the Astra Militarum operates quite differently. Per the harsh laws of the galaxy, Orks and humanity can never be friends; diplomacy simply does not exist between them outside of figuring out how efficiently you can slaughter each other. That said, more nuanced elements do exist with other factions, such as forging an uneasy truce for a limited time. You will see all of this come into play during the upcoming closed test.

Tutorial Lead Zoe: Each faction leans into completely different playstyles and focuses. Certain factions will demand much heavier resource management than others. While you will spot some resources you already know from Total War: Warhammer, plenty of brand-new ones are being introduced as well.

Game Director Attila: I would not necessarily call it a replacement, but the warp magic in this galaxy hits differently. You might have had a chance to try out a Librarian and their psychic power, Vortex of Doom. That spell is phenomenal, though magic in this setting is far more brutal. For instance, when you drop a vortex, it is wildly uncontrollable and utterly unpredictable. It essentially acts as a raging anomaly that sucks enemies in and tears them to shreds, but since you cannot steer where it goes, it can easily turn around and wash right over your own lines. That is the unpredictable nature of the Warp we wanted to capture for this IP. So does it replace magic? No. Magic still retains a very distinct identity here, but it is a far cry from the spells of Warhammer Fantasy.

Game Director Attila: Absolutely. Fleets are fully realised in the game, and as Zoe mentioned, how you position them has a direct impact on your battles. Fleets grant vision across the campaign map and provide orbital bombardment for specific factions, with each race interacting with the fleet mechanic in its own way. If you zoomed out, you probably noticed that an Ork fleet looks suspiciously like a floating pile of rocks strapped to makeshift engines—defying all known laws of physics in a way that remains entirely faithful to how Orks operate. The Aeldari have their own version of a fleet, though they rely on completely different methods of transit. We leaned heavily into faction asymmetry and atmospheric flavour to bring planetary travel to life. When two opposing fleets cross paths and engage each other, we call it a Void Conflict.

You can continuously upgrade your fleets, improving everything from the bridge to the weaponry, which in turn unlocks stronger bombardments and gear. Tools like Planetary Exterminatus will feature in the game, though they are exceptionally rare and require a long journey to acquire. Fleets form a vital link between the map, combat, and the campaign layers. You can even choose to bombard the campaign map itself if you spot enemy forces lurking in a specific region. It comes with an opportunity cost in civilian casualties, but it leaves the enemy significantly weaker than before. Honestly, fleets are practically everywhere.

Tutorial Lead Zoe: Fleets are not just there to shuttle you between planets; they come with dedicated upgrade progression trees and can actively turn the tide in battles. Beefing up your fleet is an absolute must if you want to formulate a winning strategy in the campaign.

Game Director Attila: We are not quite ready to talk about other Space Marine chapters just yet, but rest assured, they exist. I would rather not compare this directly to the Legendary Lord packs from Warhammer Fantasy. While Warhammer Fantasy is heavily character-centric, Total War: Warhammer 40,000 puts its primary focus squarely on the factions themselves. When people talk about the lore, they rarely say, "I play as Calgar"; they almost always say, "I play as the Ultramarines." That is where our focus lies—conveying the distinct feeling of what it actually means to be an Ultramarines player. When you play as different chapters, they will feel distinct with their own playstyles and mechanics, but there is always a delicate balance to strike so that the core fantasy of being a Space Marine remains intact.

We learned from the Warhammer trilogy that asymmetry works wonders. For instance, Space Marines are elite strike forces built for deep infiltration behind enemy lines. They hit hard and pull back fast, striking like a blade at the Hydra's neck. The Astra Militarum is the exact opposite as a slow-building faction playing the long game, establishing an economy to unleash endless waves of bodies. The Aeldari take yet another completely different approach as a dying race trying to stave off Chaos and preserve their galaxy on their own terms, utilizing shadows, gaps in the architecture, and deceit so that you never even see them coming until it is far too late. The Orks are the polar opposite—a roaring green wave that lives purely for war. While individual Space Marine factions will also play differently, we wanted to dive deep into asymmetry right down to the fundamental motivations and campaign objectives of each faction.

Game Director Attila: Let us talk about the Orks first. We work in close collaboration with Games Workshop. Recognizing that Armageddon is a pivotal crucible in the galaxy, we decided to kick off our Total War: Warhammer 40,000 journey right there because it aligns perfectly with established lore. Armageddon is a legendary focal point of the universe with a rich history, serving as the quintessential battlefield for the endless clash between humanity and Orks. That made it the ideal place to focus our initial efforts.

Chaos is obviously a massive pillar of Warhammer, so it will inevitably join the fray at some point down the line, but right now our main focus is on launching this journey with Armageddon at the center.

Game Director Attila: Yes, plenty more are on the way. Initially, we are rolling out presets tied directly to the factions involved in the current events around Armageddon. What we showed off in the demo is just the baseline; future updates will bring granular options allowing you to tweak things down to the shield emblems, capes, and helmet colors. It opens the door for players to engage in whatever roleplay or self-expression they can dream up—whether that means rolling out with pink Space Marines or a rainbow legion.

PR Manager Kieran: The main goal of the customization suite is to empower players to forge their own individualized factions. Even if every single sub-faction is not fully coded into the game yet, giving players the tools to designate colors lets them dive straight into roleplaying. If you want to roleplay as the Salamanders, you can hand out flamers and watch the world burn.

Game Director Attila: That is something we have poured a tremendous amount of passion into solving. When you play as the Space Marines, losing a single unit or a Dreadnought that has fought for hundreds or thousands of years should feel like a devastating blow to the gut. We track the difference between fallen warriors and wounded ones, and replacing even a tiny handful of Space Marines takes a remarkably long time. On the flip side, the Ork player's goal is to grind down the Space Marines with relentless waves of bodies, inflicting injuries they simply cannot recover from quickly. Orks bounce back at a fraction of the time it takes an Astartes. Space Marines require agonizingly long training periods backed by centuries of combat experience, whereas an Ork is considered lucky to survive a few years, so we balance that out through sheer numbers.

Game Director Attila: Spot on. We wanted to capture the essence of Space Marines as hyper-disciplined elite units. They do not turn tail and rout, but that does not mean they just stand idly in place to die either; you can issue tactical retreats where they pull back deliberately. Their morale never shatters, but tactically speaking, they continue to fall back to maximize their firepower and keep enemies at optimal range, living out the ultimate power fantasy of a tiny, elite force holding off overwhelming hordes.

Game Director Attila: Indeed we do. This title has been built from the ground up as a single, unified game where all future expansions integrate directly so everyone gets to experience them simultaneously. As we mentioned regarding how planetary systems interconnect, we are building an ever-expanding galaxy. Every time new content drops, the sandbox you started with grows right along with it. You will not have to wait until a future release splices everything together just to play Immortal Empires—it is a single, continuously evolving game that grows with every update.

Game Director Attila: We start by diving into the original reference materials to pick out the most iconic and recognizable units. For Space Marines, units like Intercessors, Hellblasters, and Terminators were absolute must-haves. When it comes to vehicles, we also weighed practical gameplay needs. We went with the Repulsor because it is versatile enough to allow weapon swaps and fit neatly into various tactical situations. Authenticity to the source material and solid gameplay design are the two core pillars shaping our roster. Furthermore, customization goes beyond just the faction warlord down to individual units, meaning swapping out weapons fundamentally alters how they handle on the battlefield, letting you kit them out with anti-infantry Assault Cannons or anti-vehicle Macro Cannons depending on your needs.

Game Director Attila: We learned a lot of hard lessons during the Warhammer trilogy. Total War: Warhammer 40,000 will stand as a single standalone title, and any post-launch content will feed directly into that exact same game so that the entire community experiences everything together at the same time. While we are not ready to dive into the specifics of paid content yet, the key takeaway is that unlike the past where you had to wait around to experience Immortal Empires, this is one single, continuously expanding game.

Game Director Attila: Thank you so much for having us, and we are genuinely thrilled for the Korean community to get their hands on the game. We are crafting this to serve as a welcoming entry point for anyone completely new to either Total War or Warhammer 40,000, while still packing plenty of depth to keep seasoned veterans hooked.

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 represents a genuine dawn of a brand-new era for everyone working on the project. We are harnessing the power of Warhammer 40,000 to push Total War out into the stars, and we are also bringing the franchise to a brand-new audience on consoles. Because of that, delivering that familiar Total War DNA to series veterans, pure tabletop authenticity to 40K fans, and a warm welcome to all newcomers was of paramount importance to us.

Tutorial Lead Zoe: Given that we are introducing plenty of brand-new systems, we strongly recommend that both series newcomers and veterans dive into the story-driven tutorial. Some very familiar faces from the lore make an appearance in there, so we hope you will keep an eye out for them.

PR Manager Kieran: We are well aware of the incredible passion and top-tier tactical skills Korean strategy gamers possess. This is shaping up to be our most deeply immersive Total War project yet.