Today we will have a short peek at some Underworlds history that unfortunately lingers to this day. I’m going to write at some length about the “Warhammer Underworlds Online” game available on Steam and Good Old Games, then make the case that NO, you should NOT play it.

Quite frequently I will run across somebody on Discord, Facebook, Reddit, and elsewhere who says something to the effect of “I’m looking to get some practice/more games in and I am wondering if the Steam game is worth it”. Sometimes I even hear “I bought the Steam game and have some questions”.

I’ll give you the TL;DR here if you are interested in the game as a substitute or a supplement to the current Underworlds board game: Do not buy the Steam game. Do not play the Steam game. It is an outdated and inaccurate representation of a considerably older rule system, does not have and has not had official support for more than 5 years, and does not represent anything about the current live board game.

Situation

The Steam store sells a product titled Warhammer Underworlds – Shadespire Edition (Classic). This product has 7/10 stars across 1.1K reviews. It currently retails for $29.99. All warband DLC and cosmetic stuff is now included in the base game, though previously you had to buy it separately (at honestly insulting prices).

Without any other officially supported online/digital ways to play Underworlds, many people choose this product with the intent of finding a way to learn about the game, practice the mechanics, or expose themselves to their options before getting into the board game in person. Others intend to play it as a standalone game without intent to join the active miniatures community.

In both cases, I am strongly recommending against purchasing and playing this Steam game.

Background

A brief history of the product and its abandonment:

Warhammer Underworlds – Shadespire Edition debuted Apr 21, 2020 and was advertised as “the ultimate PvP dice-and-cards strategy combat game.”. At that time, many people engaged in the Underworlds (or Shadespire as it was known then) community saw it as a great opportunity to play more games with more people as it had a PvP component. TechRaptor said “it’s incredibly fun, and Warhammer Underworlds Online captures all of that in a tight, digital package…”. Screen Rant said “…the title has the potential to be one of the most strategic competitive games on the market…”. PC Gamer said “there’s huge potential for future expansion if the tabletop game is anything to go by.” The hype was real.

It was very short lived. Very, very few people who played the game stayed with it as it was a pale shadow of the actual game experience. It also used a different set of cards than the live game, releasing different warbands in different order, creating a meta that never existed before. The games you could play against the AI were unfulfilling, and the games you played against human opponents had no interaction via voice or text chat, so it was mostly whoever paid more for expansion cards winning anonymously and joylessly. The playerbase peaked and crashed in a matter of weeks and never recovered.

This all happened several years ago, and little if anything ever improved. Some time later, Games Workshop pulled the license agreement and did not renew the game studio to use their IP, so no further updates could come out. The game has remained stagnant, yet still for sale, ever since. People still occasionally buy it in their ignorance of the reality, and while I don’t blame them, it’s tragic to have this continue to impact community recruitment and retention.

Assessment

This is a First edition game which does not reflect current rules. It does not even reflect first edition in its eventual end-state, and so will not prepare you to play with the V1+ community either. It is a moment frozen in time that actually doesn’t reflect a card pool and rule set that ever existed in the real game, so it serves to teach you about nothing save for its own meta.

The online game is played by approximately zero people anymore, so your opportunity for practice and networking is minimal. You fortunately have the “AI” for solo play but it’s awful and not informative about what strategies you might expect a real opponent to use.

The price point for the game is bad on its face, but you will also have to buy ‘expansions’ for warbands and cards if you want anything more than the barest handful of options. These are ridiculously sold at effectively the same cost as retail for a physical card pack or physical models. Which is ludicrous. Do not support this behavior.

The game has not had updates in a significant amount of time after the license agreement was terminated. Even if the developers wanted to, they can no longer develop new rules updates, add more cards and warbands, and so the game is no longer living. As the actual Underworlds miniatures game has undergone new product releases every 2-3 months, seasonal updates every 6-12 months, and even a complete edition overhaul in the time since, the Steam product is woefully outdated compared to the current rules. Anyone playing it to ‘learn how the game works’ will have only a skeletal framework they can carry over, and will have to unlearn a huge portion of the mechanics the Steam game taught them.

Don’t just take my word for it, however. Below I will include some choice quotes from player reviews on Steam that reference the product as it is in comparison to what exists elsewhere, rather than glowing praise of Underworlds in general (and submitted at the time the Steam Game went live). In the years since abandoment, the average review has become much more negative. Following that, I’ll drop a few reddit comments.

“The game is fun but that is because Warhammer underworlds is fun. It needs more work. A lot more work. Which it doesn’t look like it will ever get. Even with the slightly bemused pacing and sluggish UI I would play the ♥♥♥♥ out of this… if it was up to date WHU and had recent warbands. But its outdated rules by a long while. Which is unfortunate. As I’d love to play this with updated rules and warbands to theory craft and test warbands without having to organise an in-person game.” LeamHEAVY. May 25, 2023

“1080p locked dogwater. Dead game. I paid 2.99 for it.. nI refunded it 20 minutes later. I refunded 2.99. Thats how awful this is.” nazgull2k1, February 1 2026

“Interesting concept. But. After I passed the learning stages and started searching for a ranked game – the search failed. I tried to search for a game twice and in both attempts the game showed me the Timeout error and asked me to try again, which means that there were no players online.” ☠ VadeR ☠, September 2, 2023

“Yet another Warhammer “Beta” being pushed out as a full game, even at the discounted price it is yet another one to avoid. Hopefully they will stop selling out their franchise to underfunded and time stressed developers and realise that this is doing nothing but damage to their fanbase. Just make one or two good games every few years instead of lots of ♥♥♥♥ ones…..” BeanyMash, Sep 4, 2020

“It’s unfortunate but the multiplayer scene is dead, and while the core system taken from the boardgame is great, everything about the digital implementation is clunky. Great concept, poor execution.” Grendel, Jan 5, 2021

“the lack of in game chat and being mostly Shadespire warbands and cards makes it a tough sell.” SeaworthinessOk1344, May 2, 2023

“The numbers always were low anyway, it still has bugs years after the official release. They shouldn’t have gone all graphics imo. I don’t think the team was particularly good, or they had enough people working on this to make what they wanted. Releasing 10 cards every few months was the best they could do, that’s kind of sad when the cards already exist and all they need to do is port the effects in the game without breaking it… ” Mandarga, July 10, 2023

“One of the big problems is that most people who are ‘serious’ about Underworlds and want to play it online use things like Vassal or Tabletop Simulator. From my perspective I think the biggest problem is it’s very awkward and clunky, and I find I often don’t understand why something happened (or didn’t happen)” FamousWerewolf, September 13th, 2021

There are many, many more, but the summary highlights are these:

• Nobody plays
• The AI is bad
• The User Interface is terrible
• The in-game competitive balance is very poor
• not intuitive to play and the tutorial is buggy
• dice results and card plays are only on the screen for a very short time so you can’t really register them or learn
• The only people who appear to enjoy it at all are people who already know Underworlds from the tabletop game and it does not serve as a new player recruitment or learning tool

Recommendation

My best advice is to simply play in person – you’ll learn more that way and will also make friends which is more than half the point. If you don’t know of any players local to you, take a look at this directory of local groups to get connected and play some more games. If you want to get started and learn about the game, you can always check my beginners guide which will be far more informative than the Steam game. A great rules overview that will get you far more familiar with the current game can be seen at Agents of Sigmar youtube (at least as of May 2026, rules may change again in the future though this is still almost a decade more up to date than the Steam game)

If you must play online, there exists a mod for Tabletop Simulator (TTS) as well as a Vassal module, and both games have relatively large and active online communities, are regularly updated, and host real people with real experience in the game. There are even ways to finagle these to play solo against yourself, so the only thing you’re lacking is an “A.I. Opponent” – but considering how braindead the steam game’s AI is, you’re better off without that anyway.

Wrap

I don’t mean to be a Debbie-Downer. I really do wish the Steam game was good, or that something new like it cropped up. I strongly believe a well-supported and smooth, officially licensed way to play online would be a great thing for the growth of the game and would not only sell copies of that digital game but would also lead to more sales of plastic minis, card packs, and convention tickets in the real world.

That’s why this article is titled The Tragedy; it’s a dang shame that this game not only fails to meet the mark for what I would like to see, it also still is available for purchase and people continue to fall into the trap, become disillusioned with the game of Warhammer Underworlds, and move along. What it could have been is marvelous, and what we have instead is a shambling corpse of a game that died long ago but refuses to fade away and is actively harming the growth of the WHU community at large.

I respect and empathize with the desire for purchasing and playing the Steam game, I really do. But what you get is absolutely not what you think you’re signing up for. Don’t waste your time and tell your friends not to either. There are other, better online options, and Papa James willing we might even get a new one down the road.

Until next time, I hope you enjoy spending glory on a physical tabletop, or on some other digital hex board.