This Cheap Hidden Gem Is Secretly One Of The Best Warhammer 40K Games

The best Warhammer 40,000 game is one you may have missed a long time ago. The wider Warhammer franchise has been adapted into multiple forms of media, including video games, novels, and an upcoming TV series. Perhaps most notable in recent days is Space Marine 2, an excellent, high-octane, co-op third-person shooter that earned excellent reviews and saw a surge in popularity following the rise and fall of Helldivers 2 last year.

Space Marine is pretty good – so’s Boltgun, a DOOM-inspired, retro-styled FPS that came out the year prior. But the best Warhammer game is a lot older, and a lot more accurate to the tabletop game that inspired it all. If you want a more realistic Warhammer experience on PC today, you owe it to yourself to give this often-overlooked classic a shot.

Final Liberation: Warhammer Epic 40,000 Was One Of The First 40K Games

A Classic Tabletop Experience

If you’re looking for a video game that accurately recreates the experience of playing tabletop Warhammer, you need look no further than Final Liberation: Warhammer Epic 40,000. Developed by Holistic Design and first released in 1997, it was one of the first Warhammer games to ever come out.

But it was the very first video game to be based directly on the Epic tabletop game, under the umbrella of which the original Warhammer 40K exists. It’s basically just that: a PC version of tabletop Warhammer, with two playable factions: Space Marines and Orks.

There are two game modes, of which the first is a campaign in which you play as the Space Marines through a series of interconnected scenarios. In Skirmish mode, you can choose either side, and play against the computer or another player. Unfortunately, these days Final Liberation only supports multiplayer through hot-seat (i.e., sharing the same PC) or LAN (sharing the same network).

And the best part is that Final Liberation has been ported to modern PCs with the help of GOG, so you can download it easily and cheaply. It only costs $5.99, and that’s at full price – if you’re not sure, you can wait for a sale to see if the price goes down any further.

If You’re A 40K Lore Fan, This One Holds Up

Final Liberation Is Worth The Price

I won’t lie to you: Final Liberation occasionally shows its age. It’s a 1997 turn-based strategy game, after all; it doesn’t have all the modern, triple-A flash of a thing like Space Marine 2.

That said, if you’re into the deeper aspects of Warhammer 40K – the more arcane lore, or the tabletop game that started it all – Final Liberation is a fascinating artifact. Personally, I love the way it looks, and I find its retro graphical style fits better with the 40K setting than something like Darktide‘s more modern, realistic graphics.

And really, at a price point of just $6, you have very little to lose. If you’re looking for a Warhammer 40,000 game that really feels like Warhammer, you owe it to yourself to give Final Liberation a shot.

Source: GOG