Games Workshop, the creators of Warhammer 40K, issued a DMCA takedown notice to small video game studio Tundra Interactive over its new FTL-style spaceship game Void War due to some very specific similarities to its iconic tabletop series.
Now available again on Steam, Tundra has revealed that Games Workshop took issue with a single frame from the game’s release trailer where a character’s shoulder pauldrons looked too similar to that of a Warhammer Space Marine.
Speaking to IGN, Tundra Games revealed that Games Workshop’s “concern was limited to a specific shot”, although the game does take a lot of obvious inspiration from Warhammer 40K. Set in a sci-fi world with cybernetic-infused characters, cults that spread across the universe, ancient starship and more, it does feel like 40K’s personality has infused almost every aspect of the game.
In the trailer, one character shot shows a character that looks very similar to a Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine with some very familiar shoulder pads. Out of everything in the game, this is the only thing that Games Workshop took issue with.
“[The DMCA was] arguing that certain elements could create the mistaken impression that Void War is associated with Games Workshop, specifically what they described as ‘the oversized convex shoulder pads with a metallic rim,’” the Void War developers said.
As you can likely tell from the image above, the shot in question did look very much like a Chaos Space Marine from Warhammer 40,000. In fact, I think if anyone with even a passing knowledge of Games Workshop’s tabletop series would have assumed that it was 40K art if it was shown out of context.
While Warhammer 40,000 has a lot of obvious inspirations across its decades of designs, the Space Marine design is so iconic and wholly 40K that Void War’s copy was particularly egregious. Nevertheless, the situation is now solved, and Games Workshop has let the game roam free now that the not-so-Space-Marine has been removed from the game and its trailer.
Void War is now available to grab entirely on Steam alongside a free demo for players to try out. As for Warhammer 40K, Games Workshop has licensed the franchise out for a sizeable number of exciting video games.
While Space Marine 3 is still years away, the ongoing Space Marine 2 is still receiving new content updates as well as mod tools that allow players to create their own maps. Additionally, Dawn of War 4—which features the return of the original’s Sync-Kill system—launches later this year, while Total War: Warhammer 40,000 still has no release date.
