Online I have seen lots of chatter recently about how the game might be ‘discontinued’, largely fueled by the ‘lack of recent releases’ and a single spurious 4Chan post. I generally try not to feed this type of fire by giving it oxygen, but the frequency I have been seeing it pop up online has increased to the point I want to step in and offer some counterweight. While I don’t have any insider information or more insight than your average grot, I personally have reason to believe we have little reason to worry. I love all our fa/tg/uys, ca/tg/irls, and eloquen/tg/entlemen as much as the next person, but I lived through a long enough period of “Dead Thread, Dead Game, Age of Smegmar BTFO” to know not to pay much mind to their predictions.

It is possible that there will be some big change to Underworlds, some ‘new edition’, or who knows what else, but I have serious doubts that the game will be dropped altogether. We will be able to continue playing this game we know and love for the foreseeable future. I’ll break this into three components: Why Underworlds is not ending, counterpoints to the rumors, and what I expect to happen in the ‘worst case’ scenario.

Reasons to be Optimistic

• October’s Metawatch video included loads of positive information from John Bracken. At one point he explicitly stated that the number of warbands was not going down anytime soon – and that he expected more and more big things coming with a lot planned he could not yet reveal. The fact they even bothered to run a Metawatch much less make promises about the longevity of the game would be silly if the plan was to dumpster it within a year.
• Tournament numbers are going up again and in most places are more highly attended than at any time we have seen since the pandemic. There are more tournaments being held as well, including multiple officially run by Games Workshop. While I admit it doesn’t guarantee anything is specific, it’s a sign of community engagement and growth out of the competitive hobbyists who tend to spend the most money – that’s something GW likes.
• The World Championships of Warhammer, which is definitely a marketing point, only holds this event for four of its games. Warhammer Underworlds is one of these four games – implying it’s in the top 4 competitive games it is supporting. Considering there have also been an increase in number of worlds tickets given out both per event and for total number of events, this would suggest the game is being MORE supported, not less, and will have MORE growth, not discontinuation.
• Just this past week we had an Errata/FaQ that showed a few dozen changes, nearly all of which were what the community was hoping to see, and all reasonable balance updates. GW would likely not waste time and resources on something like this for a game that’s getting the axe in a month.

Reasons Not to Panic

• “But 4Chan said…” – yeah, and pretty much everything else in that post has been disproven since. I won’t retread that ground since the whole thing appears to be bunk – why would this Underworlds part be the one exception?
• “But it’s been radio silence” – Entirely reasonable for a content lull after 9 items came out within a month to make space for AoS’ new season. Production of any given product line related to how much plastic they can make at a time, and presumably their injection moulds have been running full steam on Speaqrhead boxes, Skaventide sets, etc. Also, it hasn’t been silence, we got an Errata/FaQ just a week ago.
• “LVO cancelled their WHU Grand Clash” – No, they actually didn’t. They had an issue with their T.O. availability. A Replacement TO has been found, and tickets will be posted soon. EVEN IF this was true, and it’s not, GW has no say over what events Frontline Gaming does or doesn’t host, and FLG deciding to cancel a given event doesn’t tell us what GW is planning.
• “You can’t field WHU warbands in AoS anymore” – sure, but that could easily be related to balance issues in AoS and streamlining rather than ‘let’s scrap this game entirely, but only one bit at a time for the lulz’. Does anybody think Warcry is getting canned because their fancy stuff isn’t in there? Do people think Kill Team is being turfed because their bespoke teams don’t have 40K rules?
• “I know a guy who knows a guy who…” Yeah, me too buddy. Plus we have “Nighthaunt Noob” on the AoS forums sharing all kinds of positive rumors about what to expect soon, the GW social media account sharing hints about ‘let me look in my crystal ball’ and so on – so it’s not like the rumors are all doomers.

What to Do if We’re Wrong

There is of course, the possibility that despite my infinite genius, the game is being cancelled. Maybe not today, but it could eventually wither in ten years or something. Nobody can know the future, and GW is to my cold socialist heart’s dismay a publicly traded company with the only real goal of increasing quarterly stock prices. As such, the real answer to any of the questions about any of their products is ‘will this continue to make us money, at an increasing rate from last period’, and ‘would discontinuing this product line lose us more revenue than it would save in costs’. They would stop printing anything – even Space Marines – if they believed the answer to those questions was “no”. Nothing beats the sacred shareholder dollar.

So let’s say the sky does indeed fall and Underworlds becomes a forgotten line of products, never again to be seen on a GW preorder email. A game doesn’t die when new stuff comes out, it dies when people stop playing it. There is evidence that discontinuation of a GW game does not always equate to ‘death’. Necromunda is officially supported now, but for many long years it was maintained by a passionate community after it was ditched by GW. Blood Bowl was carried by independent player groups for decades before being picked back up by the company and never truly ‘died’. GorkaMorka had a similar story (though it’s arguable that it’s not really supported even now). Battlefleet Gothic and Mordheim are still enjoyed by passionate player bases despite no indication either will ever be supported again by the company at large. All this to say, should they never release another Underworlds product, the community can persist and keep playing without it, and has the involvement of passionate players to the extent that further rules refinements and a community guidance document will almost certainly happen. Pickup games will be much harder, and official tournaments will become much rarer, but it won’t necessarily die in your area unless you move on yourself.

So long as the people around me are willing, I’m going to keep playing the game with them twice a week. As long as I can find people online to play with through Vassal, TTS, or elsewhere, I’ll do that as well. You can do the same, and even if the end of the world does come to pass, hang with me and we’ll find a way to hold high the torch.

Thanks for being my game buddies, and keep spending that glory

Other Mike/ Dr. Fish
Delusional Optimist