The bone temple

What is it that makes the Warhammer universe such a beloved and durable backdrop for videogames?

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Now ten years old, the very name ‘Warhammer Skulls’ evokes a favoured motif in Games Workshop's tabletop games: the bleached bone that appears in virtually every corner of the Warhammer universe. And yet the annual event itself, a showcase for Warhammer videogames, rarely feels repetitive. In recent years, Skulls has highlighted Black Isle Studios-style roleplaying games, boomer shooters, ork racers, card games, riffs on Diablo, and even murderous takes on American football.

"Warhammer works for perhaps any genre there is," says Oliver Hollis-Leick, creative director at Space Marine 2 developer Saber Interactive. "You can tell a deep narrative singleplayer experience, if you want to. You could make an RPG. As with us, you can make an action-packed, high-octane thirdperson shooter. You can make a very in-depth, tactical experience. It's perfect for so many genres that it's been used in all of them, and I think that's why it's so successful."

Hollis-Leick comes from a narrative background, and considers Warhammer to be among the most nuanced and fleshed-out universes in fiction - "up there with Tolkien," he says. "Its vast history and story is just such a rich playground for any fantasy or quest, or whatever kind of journey you want to take someone on."

Warhammer was born in 1980s Britain as an amalgam of punk, D&D and the anti-authority sentiments tindered by Thatcherite policies. The orks in its high-fantasy edition were hooligan-like, and its far-future 40,000 setting depicted a fascistic human empire in conflict on all fronts. Much like 2000AD, the comic that gave us Judge Dredd, Warhammer often cast discomforting figures in heroic roles, trusting its audience to recognise irony and satire in its ultraviolence.