Games Workshop, in conjunction with their licensed partners, have revealed that 27.4 million viewers watched this year’s Warhammer Skulls Showcase.
The annual festival for Warhammer video games, which includes massive sales, exclusive DLCs and world premiere announcements, has risen in popularity over the last few years, becoming one of the most highly anticipated showcases and considered by some to be an unofficial start of the Summer showcase season. Over 20 million people tuned into the Showcase stream, hosted by Rahul Kohli, on May 23rd to see the latest announcements for Warhammer video games, outpacing the last Nintendo Indies Direct on Twitch with 9.24k peak viewers and 7k average views compared to Nintendo’s 9.23k peak viewers and 5.3k average views. A further 7.3 million have watched the individual trailer announcements this year, with the hugely popular Space Marine 2, now Steam’s 8th most wish-listed game, gathering over 4 million trailer views across Skulls alone.
The increasing popularity of Warhammer Skulls has also strongly benefitted the games announced at the annual event. The Warhammer Skulls Steam page saw 8 million reads, up from 6.3 million last year, a further 45% increase since the rebrand of the event in 2021. This year’s world premiere announcement from Kasedo Games, the anticipated sequel to fan favourite Mechanicus, received a massive 105.4k wishlists from May 23rd to May 30th.
“The reveal really did feel like a defining moment, and I was delighted to see and hear so many positive comments from a community taken completely by surprise. You can only hope people like what they see, but with the sheer volume of excitement, our team at Kasedo Games and Bulwark Studios knew the hard work had been worth it,” said Jonathan Hales, Managing Director of Kasedo Games. “Of course, this is just the start of our journey, and whilst we have been labouring intensively for a couple of years already, having the Warhammer fans wanting more only fuels our desire to deliver something spectacular.”
Mechanicus II’s Steam wishlists would place it amongst the ten most wishlisted games on Steam across Not-E3 when compared to predicted results from showcases across June 7th to June 13th, according to estimated Steam wishlists added data from GameDiscoverCo.
“Partnering with Games Workshop allows us to once again create something special, ensuring a passionate fanbase can experience the next instalment of an epic saga in Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II,” added Hales. “With Skulls being a significant entry in the Warhammer calendar, providing a unique platform to speak directly to a passionate fanbase, this year’s event was the ideal opportunity to share that the long-awaited sequel is coming.”
Warhammer Skulls will return in 2025 for its ninth year. For more news and activities, check out the Warhammer Community website here.