Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 5th Edition Is Coming in 2026

2026 will the 40th anniversary of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the classic British fantasy TTRPG launched in 1986 by Games Workshop. It's also the year of a brand new edition of the game, with WFRP 5E hitting shelves, courtesy of Cubicle 7.

Cubicle 7's CEO Dominic McDowall, in an interview with Wargamer, indicated that the new edition will be backwards compatible with 4th edition, retaining the classic d100 system, and set in a similar time period. There will be a conversion document of sorts, but most older material will be usable with ease.

McDowall said that the goal is to 'standardize' things more, and remove subsystems which don't add enough player satisfaction in relation to their complexity. Existing 4th Edition books will not be re-released, and a new 'mega campaign' is being worked on.

WFRP has been published by various publishers over the decades--Games Workshop, Hogshead Publishing, Green Ronin/Black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games, and--since 2018--Cubicle 7. The game is set in a 'grimdark' fantasy setting called the 'Old World', with various regions very loosely based on countries in the Middle Ages. One of the game's predominant themes is the battle against Chaos, as represented by beastmen, mutated ratmen (Skaven), and dark cults.

 

[overgeeked]

Also, I was very happy that Mooman, the developer of the WFRP4e game system for Foundry has been working on coding for 5e for two years already and from what I've read, it will just be some toggles in the settings to select whether you use 4e or 5e rules. It'll be interesting to see how granular it is. Will it just be a single switch to 5e setting or can you mix and max and just turn on settings for the 5e changes you like and keep some of the 4e rules if you don't like the changes.

That has the opposite effect on me. They’ve known that 5E is coming for two years, what the changes are, and it’s still an ongoing dev process for the VTT module. That tells me the changes are absolutely massive and that 5E will be dramatically different from 4E. If it were a few minor fixes and streamlining it wouldn’t take two years to update things.

 

[schneeland]

That has the opposite effect on me. They’ve known that 5E is coming for two years, what the changes are, and it’s still an ongoing dev process for the VTT module. That tells me the changes are absolutely massive and that 5E will be dramatically different from 4E. If it were a few minor fixes and streamlining it wouldn’t take two years to update things.

If I'm not mistaken, Mooman is really just a single developer and I'm not even sure if he's employed by C7 (I think not, but I don't know for sure). So it means, while he might have been working on that for the past two years, he's not working full time on it, and he also does a lot of other stuff for C7. There will probably be a few more changes to the rules, but I don't feel the period over which the development happened is necessarily an indication that the number of changes will be large.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

If I'm not mistaken, Mooman is really just a single developer and I'm not even sure if he's employed by C7 (I think not, but I don't know for sure). So it means, while he might have been working on that for the past two years, he's not working full time on it, and he also does a lot of other stuff for C7. There will probably be a few more changes to the rules, but I don't feel the period over which the development happened is necessarily an indication that the number of changes will be large.

Yeah, MooMan does the Foundry developement for all C7 games as I understand it, it’s not like he’s rolling his thumbs waiting for 5e stuff to trickle in.

 

[kronovan]

There was a time, when Fantasy Flight Games had the license, there was a POD of the 2E core book on drivethrurpg. Alas it is no longer available, probably gone when Cubicle 7 got the licence. I already had a core rulebook for 2E so decided on not getting one, but now regret not taking advantage of its availability at the time and getting an extra copy.

Yep, figured that was the case - the WHFRP 3 book I was lent was published by FFG. Even if there was a drivethrurpg WHFRP 2 POD around then, I wouldn't have considered it because I'm in Canada and PODs from them had VERY high shipping costs then - probably would have been just as cheap to buy a preown.

While I feel I missed the boat on WHRRP, I'm still open to WH40k. A local vidogame co. that devs games for the 40k verse is only blocks from me. I met one of their ex-employees who still RPs with some of the staff, but they're playing with FFG Dark Heresy. They mentioned they were considering moving to one of the C7 TTRPGs.

Why do I mention all this... because I way eyeing Wrath & Glory Revised for a while, but print copies in my area are in the same state that WHFRP 2 was back in 2010 - not a copy anywhere. Even online stores on the other side of the country are sold out. Meanwhile, buying it directly would fetch me a shipping cost almost equal to the cost of the book - yikes! Anyhow...I was told by a buddy who's a 40k miniatures fan that Dark Heresy players probably wouldn't enjoy W&G anyways. There's a newer WH40k RPG out from C7, but it's already sold out at LGSs. <sigh> I live in a city with a couple of Warhammer stores, but of course being from a 3rd party publisher, they don't carry the TTRPGs. I'm thinking I probably missed the boat on WH40k too.