Tabletop players have something to look forward to from Games Workshop after the announcement went live that they are bringing back Warhammer’s Fantasy Battle Age. Now rebranded The Old World, the setting will see a return to form for tabletop players, but as of the announcement nearly nothing has been decided on how to proceed.
In fact the announcement itself is nothing more than a world salad comprised of many descriptors of The Mortal Realms and what lead to their creation rather than anything of substance regarding the announcements. When all the fluff is removed only three significant announcements were made.
1) Execs have determined following the success of the Fantasy Battle Age games to bring back the epoch and rebrand it The Old World.
2) Only the logo has been made, nothing else has been set in stone.
3) They’re not abandoning the Age of Sigmar. There are huge unspecified announcements on their way which is teased to involve giants or potentially titans.
With the use of the phrase “enduring appeal” in reference to the setting of the two games series, this can be properly understood to mean they sold well. Sales themselves were confirmed in last year’s leaked steam sales figures to be in the millions for each series. The decision to return to the classic setting that is performing well in the gaming space is purely a financial one.
That isn’t to say the Age of Sigmar hasn’t managed to capture its own dedicated audience. Merely that outside that dedicated audience the Age of Sigmar isn’t held in high regards and is even hated in some circles. Owing in large part to a rocky launch that saw miniatures overpriced and a rule set and lore that wouldn’t be fully defined until three years later with the release of the second edition.
Suffice to say, Age of Stigmar and the End Times that preceded it were not held in high regards by the community and did not generate the sales potential Games Workshop was hoping to capture with the move to a more generic high fantasy setting.
Take this as an outsider’s perspective, but Pathfinder and D&D’s high fantasy settings have more of an illustrious draw to them than the Mortal Worlds. No matter the iteration from Vermintide to the overhaul mod for Mount and Blade, when I’ve played the Old World it has been encapsulating and gritty. It inspires cravings to more fully explore the setting, and to experience the setting in other genres.
What will come now will be determined by earnings. It is entirely possible the Age of Stigmar could end up on the back-burner and ultimately shelved as the Old World spins a new direction of history, rebooting the setting and direction. What is to come will certainly be decided by the wallet.
