Games Workshop Confirms Necromunda Roleplay Is Not Happening

Well, that was short-lived.

Just over a month ago, Games Workshop revealed Warhammer Necromunda Roleplay during its Big Autumn Preview. The idea immediately caught my attention. This was being described as a fully fledged, miniatures-driven RPG set in the Underhive, with players taking on the roles of bounty-hunting Venators while an Arbitrator handled the story and adjudicated the rules. It even seemed to explain why the new edition had started using the Necromunda Skirmish name. There would be Skirmish, and there would be Roleplay.

Now, Games Workshop says the Roleplay expansion isn’t happening.

In a new Warhammer Community post outlining what is coming to Necromunda in 2027, GW gets the bad news out of the way almost immediately.

“There won’t be a Roleplay expansion,” the company says. Instead, after “careful consideration,” the team has decided to focus its efforts on producing more miniatures for the core Necromunda game.

The good news is that the miniatures originally shown alongside Necromunda Roleplay are apparently safe. Games Workshop says those models are still on the way and will be usable in standard games of Necromunda.

What we’re losing is the RPG itself.

And that raises a pretty obvious question.

The Cubicle 7 Question

Games Workshop hasn’t given us anything beyond that short explanation, so everything from here is speculation.

But I have a hard time looking at this situation without wondering about Cubicle 7.

Cubicle 7 holds Games Workshop’s license to produce Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying games. GW announced the partnership in 2019, specifically stating that Cubicle 7 would produce Warhammer 40,000 RPGs. Since then, the company has handled Wrath & Glory and created Imperium Maledictum, along with a substantial catalog of supplements supporting both games.

That makes the original Necromunda announcement a little strange in retrospect.

This wasn’t simply a Necromunda campaign expansion with some additional narrative rules. Games Workshop was specifically describing it as a full RPG. It had player characters, adventures, an Arbitrator functioning as the GM and a separate identity from the Necromunda Skirmish game.

My suspicion is that someone at Cubicle 7, or perhaps someone on Games Workshop’s licensing side, saw the announcement and started asking questions.

Again, there is absolutely no confirmation of that. Cubicle 7 hasn’t publicly said it objected to Necromunda Roleplay, Games Workshop hasn’t blamed licensing, and we don’t know the exact terms of the agreement between the companies.

Still, the sequence of events is hard to ignore. Necromunda Roleplay was revealed on September 18. The original English announcement subsequently disappeared from Warhammer Community, which prompted plenty of speculation among fans. Now, on October 23, Games Workshop has officially said the Roleplay expansion isn’t coming.

Maybe the explanation really is as simple as Games Workshop deciding it would rather concentrate on miniatures. But I certainly wonder whether two different parts of the Warhammer business accidentally wandered into the same territory.

Give Me Imperium Maledictum: Hive City

The frustrating part is that Necromunda is almost absurdly well suited to an RPG.

The Underhive has gangs, guilds, bounty hunters, mutants, cults, corrupt officials, ancient ruins, forgotten technology and entire settlements barely holding themselves together. You could run years of roleplaying campaigns without ever needing to leave a single hive.

Fortunately, Cubicle 7 already has a game capable of doing most of this. Imperium Maledictum is built around relatively ordinary Imperial citizens working for a powerful Patron. It focuses heavily on investigation, factions, influence and navigating the ugly machinery of Imperial society. Even its core material specifically talks about characters venturing into the depths of hive cities.

Cubicle 7 has already dipped its toes into this territory, too. The Imperium Maledictum Starter Set includes Rokarth: A Guide to the Hive, a mapped hive-city setting covering everything from the spire down into the sprawl, complete with factions, locations and characters.

So maybe the consolation prize should be a full Hive City sourcebook for Imperium Maledictum. Give us gang territories, criminal organizations, underhive settlements, black markets, pit fights, guild politics and scavenging expeditions. Give us expanded options for bounty hunters, gangers, fixers and hive scum. Give GMs tools for generating a hive from its glittering upper spires all the way down to forgotten levels where nobody remembers what the corridors were originally built for.

It wouldn’t be Necromunda Roleplay, at least not by name. But it could get awfully close.

For now, Necromunda still has a busy 2027 ahead, with new vehicles, Malstrain fighters, Cinderak releases, mercenaries, scenery and more. Just no RPG. And considering how excited I was when they announced it, that one hurts.