Co-op narrowly averted being locked out of its computer systems during the cyber attack that saw customer data stolen and store shelves left bare, the hackers who claim responsibility have told the BBC.
The revelation could help explain why Co-op has started to recover more quickly than fellow retailer M&S, which had its systems more comprehensively compromised, and is still unable to carry out online orders.
Hackers who have claimed responsibility for both attacks told the BBC they tried to infect Co-op with malicious software known as ransomware – but failed when the firm discovered the attack in action.
Both Co-op and M&S declined to comment.
The gang, using the cyber crime service DragonForce, sent the BBC a long, offensive rant about their attack.
“Co-op’s network never ever suffered ransomware. They yanked their own plug – tanking sales, burning logistics, and torching shareholder value,” the criminals said.
But cyber experts like Jen Ellis from the Ransomware Task Force said the response from Co-op was sensible.
“Co-op seems to have opted for self-imposed immediate-term disruption as a means of avoiding criminal-imposed, longer-term disruption. It seems to have been a good call for them in this instance,” she said.
Ms Ellis said these kinds of crisis decisions are often taken quickly when hackers have breached a network and can be extremely difficult.
Speaking exclusively to the BBC, the criminals claimed to have breached Co-op’s computer systems long before they were discovered.
“We spent a while seated in their network,” they boasted.
They stole a large amount of private customer data and were planning to infect the company with ransomware, but were detected.
Ransomware is a kind of attack where hackers scramble computer systems and demand payment from victims in exchange for handing back control.
It would also have made the restoration of Co-op’s systems more complex, time-consuming and expensive – exactly the problems M&S appears to be wrestling with.
The criminals claim they were also behind the attack on M&S which struck over Easter.
Although M&S has yet to confirm it is dealing with ransomware, cyber experts have long said that is the situation and M&S has not issued any advice or corrections to the contrary.
Nearly three weeks on, the retailer is still struggling to get back to normal, as online orders are still suspended and some shops have had continued issues with contactless payments and empty shelves this week.
An analysis from Bank of America estimates the fallout from the hack is costing M&S £43m per week.
On Tuesday, M&S admitted personal customer data was stolen in the hack, which could include telephone numbers, home addresses and dates of birth.
It added the data theft did not include useable payment or card details, or any account passwords – but nonetheless urged customers to reset their account details and be wary of potential scammers using the information to make contact.
Co-op seems to be recovering more quickly, saying its shelves will start to return to normal from this weekend.
Nonetheless it is expected to feel the effects of the cyber attack for some time.
“Co-op have acted quickly and their work on the recovery helps to soften things slightly, but rebuilding trust is a bit harder,” Prof Oli Buckley, a cyber security expert at Loughborough University, told the BBC.
“It will be a process of showing that lessons have been learned and there are stronger defences in place,” he added.
The same cyber-crime group has also claimed responsibility for an attempted hack of the London department store Harrods.
The hackers who contacted the BBC say they are from DragonForce which operates an affiliate cyber crime service so anyone can use their malicious software and website to carry out attacks and extortions.
It’s not known who is ultimately using the service to attack the retailers, but some security experts say the tactics seen are similar to that of a loosely coordinated group of hackers who have been called Scattered Spider or Octo Tempest.
The gang operates on Telegram and Discord channels and is English-speaking and young – in some cases only teenagers.
Conversations with Co-op hackers were carried out in text form – but it is clear the hacker, who called himself a spokesperson, was a fluent English speaker.
They say two of the hackers want to be known as “Raymond Reddington” and “Dembe Zuma” after characters from US crime thriller Blacklist which involves a wanted criminal helping police take down other criminals on a ‘blacklist’.
The hackers say “we’re putting UK retailers on the Blacklist”.
Apple announced plans to support Switch Control for Brain-Computer Interfaces
The tool would make devices like iPhones and Vision Pro headsets accessible for people with conditions like ALS
Combined with Apple’s AI-powered Personal Voice feature, brain-computer interfaces could allow people to think words and hear them spoken in a synthetic version of their voice
Our smartphones and other devices are key to so many personal and professional tasks throughout the day. Using these devices can be difficult or outright impossible for those with ALS and other conditions. Apple thinks it has a possible solution: thinking. Specifically, a brain-computer interface (BCI) built with Australian neurotech startup Synchron that could provide hands-free, thought-controlled versions of the operating systems for iPhones, iPads, and the Vision Pro headset.
A brain implant for controlling your phone may seem extreme, but it could be the key for those with severe spinal cord injuries or related injuries to engage with the world. Apple will support Switch Control for those with the implant embedded near the brain’s motor cortex. The implant picks up the brain’s electrical signals when a person thinks about moving. It translates that electrical activity and feeds it to Apple’s Switch Control software, becoming digital actions like selecting icons on a screen or navigating a virtual environment.
Brain implants, AI voices
Of course, it’s still early days for the system. It can be slow compared to tapping, and it will take time for developers to build better BCI tools. But speed isn’t the point right now. The point is that people could use the brain implant and an iPhone to interact with a world they were otherwise locked out of.
The possibilities are even greater when looking at how it might mesh with AI-generated personal voice clones. Apple’s Personal Voice feature lets users record a sample of their own speech so that, if they lose their ability to speak, they can generate synthetic speech that still sounds like them. It’s not quite indistinguishable from the real thing, but it’s close, and much more human than the robotic imitation familiar from old movies and TV shows.
Right now, those voices are triggered by touch, eye tracking, or other assistive tech. But with BCI integration, those same people could “think” their voice into existence. They could speak just by intending to speak, and the system would do the rest. Imagine someone with ALS not only navigating their iPhone with their thoughts but also speaking again through the same device by “typing” statements for their synthetic voice clone to say.
While it’s incredible that a brain implant can let someone control a computer with their mind, AI could take it to another level. It wouldn’t just help people use tech, but also to be themselves in a digital world.
A new NYT Wordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing ‘today’s game’ while others are playing ‘yesterday’s’. If you’re looking for Wednesday’s puzzle instead then click here.
It’s time for your guide to today’s Wordle answer, featuring my commentary on the latest puzzle, plus a selection of hints designed to help you keep your streak going.
Don’t think you need any clues for Wordle today? No problem, just skip to my daily column. But remember: failure in this game is only ever six guesses away.
Want more word-based fun? TechRadar’s Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our verdict on two of the New York Times’ other brainteasers.
SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.
Wordle hints (game #1426) – clue #1 – Vowels
How many vowels does today’s Wordle have?
• Wordle today has vowels in three places*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Wordle hints (game #1426) – clue #2 – first letter
What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?
• The first letter in today’s Wordle answer is E.
We don’t get many Wordle answers that start with an E – though it’s the most common letter in the game, it’s only the 14th most likely to begin a solution.
Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. However, it’s still more likely that a Wordle doesn’t have one.
Wordle hints (game #1426) – clue #4 – ending letter
What letter does today’s Wordle end with?
• The last letter in today’s Wordle is R.
R is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – it’s actually the 4th most common there, behind E, Y and T.
Wordle hints (game #1426) – clue #5 – last chance
Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1425.
Today’s Wordle answer is enthusiastic.
If you just want to know today’s Wordle answer now, simply scroll down – but I’d always recommend trying to solve it on your own first. We’ve got lots of Wordle tips and tricks to help you, including a guide to the best Wordle start words.
If you don’t want to know today’s answer then DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER BECAUSE IT IS PRINTED BELOW. So don’t say you weren’t warned!
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1426)
(Image credit: New York Times)
NYT average score: 5.5
My score: 4
WordleBot’s score: 4
My skill score: 86
My luck score: 44
My start word performance: DUSTY (777 remaining answers)
WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (87)
Tomorrow’s start word: CHUMP
Today’s Wordle answer (game #1426) is… EAGER.
Phew, well this was a tough one! At the time of writing, EAGER has an average score of 5.5. That’s incredibly high – in fact, it’s the second most difficult this year (behind ROWER, 5.6) and the equal fifth hardest ever. Or at least among the answers I have an average score for, which is about 1,100 of them.
It’s not so hard to see why it’s providing such a challenge: not only is it an ER word, but it’s an ER word with a repeated letter.
More than that, the E at the start is unexpected. The -AGER format has four solutions, with PAGER, WAGER and LAGER the other three. But it’s easy to overlook EAGER in that company; the brain is naturally drawn towards placing a consonant in front of that A in the second position.
And that’s assuming you even had the G in the middle. Lots of people played the likes of PAPER, BAKER, GAMER, WATER, MAKER and WAFER at various points today. Many also played RAGER and CAGER, but they both seem very unlikely to be solutions.
Somehow, I scored a four – but to do so I needed a bit of luck on my third guess, and a lot on my fourth.
I began poorly, with DUSTY leaving 777 options and supplying no letters. I followed up with an ER word, as is now customary in these situations and as I did yesterday. There, it was not helpful. Here, it was, with LONER giving me the ending format.
That cut my shortlist to 44, of which I found a few dozen. Not that I was choosing between them as such – I just wanted to know which letters to play next. In the end I went with MAGIC, reasoning that one of A and I would probably be needed, and that M, G and C all featured in lots of my possibles.
This was a “great choice”, according to WordleBot, and gave me the A and G. I now had four words to choose from, the ‘Bot said later: PAGER, WAGER, EAGER and, um, RAGER. As I said above, I can’t believe that’s a real possibility, but maybe I’m missing something.
I had the other three on my list, and was torn between whether to play a narrowing-down word (maybe WIPED or something like that) and accept a 5/6, or to shoot for the answer and possibly end up with a six.
I was confident that it wouldn’t be worse than a six, so uncharacteristically decided to go for it – and got lucky. I played EAGER, and to my relief scored a four that felt like a real success today.
In a different time zone where it’s still Wednesday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1425, too.
Wordle yesterday had vowels in two places.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was B.
B is a very, very common starting letter in Wordle. In fact, it’s the third most common overall, behind only S and C.
There were repeated letters in yesterday’s Wordle.
Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. However, it’s still more likely that a Wordle doesn’t have one.
The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was O.
O is a middling ending letter. It ranks 12th in this regard, and finishes 58 Wordle answers in total.
Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1425.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a musical instrument.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1425)
(Image credit: New York Times)
NYT average score: 4.3
My score: 4
WordleBot’s score: 3
My skill score: 96
My luck score: 49
My start word performance: DIMLY (842 remaining answers)
There’s a lovely onomatopoeic feel to BONGO, isn’t there? Go on, say it: BON-GO! BON-GO! Okay, just me then.
We can all agree that it’s a tough Wordle answer, though. WordleBot says it has an average score of 4.3, and it contains my most hated of all Wordle formats, the repeated O.
Or rather, it almost does, because the ones I really don’t like are the OO words; here, the Os are separated and the options are fewer.
There were still plenty of them after my opening guess, DIMLY, which drew a blank and left 842 possible solutions. That’s by some distance the most words I’ve had to contend with on the second guess for some time.
I did what I always do now in situations where I don’t have any letters uncovered and neither E or R played yet, and chose an ER word, in this case SANER. That was incredibly lucky, giving me a green N in the middle and leaving only eight solutions.
I only found four of them, though, and BONGO wasn’t among them. Instead, they all ended either NCH: CONCH, BUNCH, HUNCH and PUNCH. Like BONGO, the others I missed all had that O at the end: GONZO, JUNTO and FUNGO. But really, are the latter two realistic answers? I doubt it.
BONGO was, obviously, but for now I was blind to it. I played BUMPH as a way to narrow down the quartet on my shortlist, and when the B turned green but the H was ruled out, it removed all of my choices. I looked again and this time found BONGO, giving me a satisfactory four.
Wordle answers: The past 50
I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than three years now and have tracked all of the previous answers so I can help you improve your game. Here are the last 50 solutions starting with yesterday’s answer, or check out my past Wordle answers page for the full list.
Wordle #1425, Wednesday 14 May: BONGO
Wordle #1424, Tuesday 13 May: AWARE
Wordle #1423, Monday 12 May: BICEP
Wordle #1422, Sunday 11 May: DOWEL
Wordle #1421, Saturday 10 May: YEAST
Wordle #1420, Friday 9 May: TRIPE
Wordle #1419, Thursday 8 May: BALMY
Wordle #1418, Wednesday 7 May: MACHO
Wordle #1417, Tuesday 6 May: SUITE
Wordle #1416, Monday 5 May: SHUSH
Wordle #1415, Sunday 4 May: TROUT
Wordle #1414, Saturday 3 May: PATSY
Wordle #1413, Friday 2 May: WHOSE
Wordle #1412, Thursday 1 May: ADEPT
Wordle #1411, Wednesday 30 April: IDLER
Wordle #1410, Tuesday 29 April: BLISS
Wordle #1409, Monday 28 April: DUMMY
Wordle #1408, Sunday 27 April: WEEDY
Wordle #1407, Saturday 26 April: CLASH
Wordle #1406, Friday 25 April: KNOWN
Wordle #1405, Thursday 24 April: GENIE
Wordle #1404, Wednesday 23 April: OZONE
Wordle #1403, Tuesday 22 April: ARTSY
Wordle #1402, Monday 21 April: SPATE
Wordle #1401, Sunday 20 April: PATCH
Wordle #1400, Saturday 19 April: INBOX
Wordle #1399, Friday 18 April: DIRGE
Wordle #1398, Thursday 17 April: STOOD
Wordle #1397, Wednesday 16 April: MORAL
Wordle #1396, Tuesday 15 April: ASHEN
Wordle #1395, Monday 14 April: CREST
Wordle #1394, Sunday 13 April: LAUGH
Wordle #1393, Saturday 12 April: NURSE
Wordle #1392, Friday 11 April: ARROW
Wordle #1391, Thursday 10 April: TURBO
Wordle #1390, Wednesday 9 April: WHEAT
Wordle #1389, Tuesday 8 April: SPARE
Wordle #1388, Monday 7 April: HAZEL
Wordle #1387, Sunday 6 April: VILLA
Wordle #1386, Saturday 5 April: FOAMY
Wordle #1385, Friday 4 April: KRILL
Wordle #1384, Thursday 3 April: SHEAR
Wordle #1383, Wednesday 2 April: CURSE
Wordle #1382, Tuesday 1 April: JEWEL
Wordle #1381, Monday 31 March: BOOTY
Wordle #1380, Sunday 30 March: QUOTA
Wordle #1379, Saturday 29 March: SORRY
Wordle #1378, Friday 28 March: VERSE
Wordle #1377, Thursday 27 March: SHEET
Wordle #1376, Wednesday 26 March: ELBOW
Wordle #1375, Tuesday 25 March: SHELF
What is Wordle?
If you’re on this page then you almost certainly know what Wordle is already, and indeed have probably been playing it for a while. And even if you’ve not been playing it, you must surely have heard of it by now, because it’s the viral word game phenomenon that took the world by storm last year and is still going strong in 2025.
We’ve got a full guide to the game in our What is Wordle page, but if you just want a refresher then here are the basics.
What is Wordle?
Wordle challenges you to guess a new five-letter word each day. You get six guesses, with each one revealing a little more information. If one of the letters in your guess is in the answer and in the right place, it turns green. If it’s in the answer but in the wrong place, it turns yellow. And if it’s not in the answer at all it turns gray. Simple, eh?
It’s played online via the Wordle website or the New York Times’ Games app (iOS / Android), and is entirely free.
Crucially, the answer is the same for everyone each day, meaning that you’re competing against the rest of the world, rather than just against yourself or the game. The puzzle then resets each day at midnight in your local time, giving you a new challenge, and the chance to extend your streak.
What are the Wordle rules?
The rules of Wordle are pretty straightforward, but with a couple of curveballs thrown in for good measure.
1. Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.
2. Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.
3. Letters that are not in the answer turn gray.
4. Answers are never plural.
5. Letters can appear more than once. So if your guess includes two of one letter, they may both turn yellow, both turn green, or one could be yellow and the other green.
6. Each guess must be a valid word in Wordle’s dictionary. You can’t guess ABCDE, for instance.
7. You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses unless you play on Hard mode.
8. You have six guesses to solve the Wordle.
9. You must complete the daily Wordle before midnight in your timezone.
10. All answers are drawn from Wordle’s list of 2,309 solutions. However…
11. Wordle will accept a wider pool of words as guesses – some 10,000 of them. For instance, you can guess a plural such as WORDS. It definitely won’t be right (see point 4 above), but Wordle will accept it as a guess.
12. The NYT has added in some of its own words, that weren’t in that list of 2,309 solutions. More will undoubtedly come over the next few years.
Microsoft faces more legal action in the UK, this time from a barrister named Alexander Wolfson who issued an opt-out class action claim this week alleging that public or private organizations in the UK that purchased certain software licenses (including for Microsoft Office and Windows) since October 1, 2015, were overcharged due to Microsoft’s market practices.
Wolfson, who retained the services of Stewarts LLP, a litigation-only law firm, said in a release issued on Wednesday, “Microsoft’s actions have had a significant and far-reaching impact on UK consumers, businesses, and public bodies.”
This claim, he said, “seeks to hold Microsoft to account and to secure compensation for the many affected members of the class. With billions of pounds potentially at stake, this case is about ensuring fairness in the digital marketplace and ensuring even the largest tech companies play by the rules.”
“Microsoft’s conduct has had a profound and costly impact on millions of individuals and private and public sector organizations that rely on its software for daily business operations,” said Kate Pollock, the head of competition litigation at Stewarts. “We believe that Microsoft abused its market dominance by imposing restrictive licensing practices that effectively shut down competition and inflated prices.”
Highlights an industry-wide issue
An FAQ created by the plaintiff explained the format of the suit: “Opt-out collective proceedings are a special form of court proceedings that enable a class representative to bring a claim on behalf of a defined class of persons in the UK affected by an infringement of competition law,” it said. “This means that if your organization fits within the class definition you will automatically be included in the claim and will be bound by any judgment or settlement unless you choose to opt-out of the proceedings.”
Ellora MacPherson, managing director and chief investment officer at Harbour, which has agreed to fund the case, described the suit as “likely to be one of the largest the UK has seen and is an example of how big corporate entities can be held to account.”
Forrester Senior Analyst Dario Maisto pointed out Wednesday via email, “this is not the first time that Microsoft gets attention for allegedly unfair commercial practices. Microsoft was also sued in the UK in 2024 over allegations that it overcharged Windows Server customers to use the software on competing cloud platforms.”
He added, “the Cloud Infrastructure Providers in Europe organization (CISPE) took a similar action on Microsoft’s licensing practices when its cloud computing competitors filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission.”
According to Maisto, “while it is totally understandable why law firms and competitors keep engaging in such lawsuits against Microsoft, we should finally admit that these are all symptoms of a bigger issue, that is, people and organizations’ extreme [dependence] on third-party proprietary solutions and a fundamental lack of alternative standards.”
This is, he said, the problem that we as an IT industry need to solve, as we cannot keep relying on specific lawsuits to address — one at a time — all the problems of what we could start to define now as a much broader market disfunction.”
Computerworld reached out to Microsoft for a comment but at press time had not received a response.
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: You can now talk to your PC’s built-in AI.
A few years ago, you’d use the term, “Hey, Cortana” in Windows 10. But in Windows 11, Cortana has been replaced with Windows Copilot, and you can now interact with Copilot by saying “Hey, Copilot” instead.
Microsoft is testing the new feature within the Windows Insider program. If your PC is unlocked, and you’ve configured it to accept the “Hey Copilot” wake words, you can now interact with Copilot verbally. The Copilot UI will launch as a small microphone icon. Tapping the “X” next to it closes the conversation.
Toggle “Listen for ‘Hey, Copilot’ to start a conversation” on or off. It is off by default.
The user interface looks virtually identical to the way in which you interact with Copilot Vision, which is now set up to test as well. I tried going hands-on with Copilot Vision a short time back. While the concept is sound (and even works quite well in a few apps!), it still needs some fine-tuning in terms of recognition.
However, Microsoft announced this week that you can now interact with more than one app within Copilot Vision. Even better, Copilot Vision now provides the visual indicator that it previously lacked. You can enable it by asking Copilot Vision to “show me how.”
As a PC gamer, you may have already seen some panic around the web regarding Steam—headlines saying 89 million Steam accounts hacked. But you shouldn’t panic.
The reports stem from a post on the dark web, where an alleged hacker offered up supposed records from millions of Steam accounts, including one-time codes used for two-factor authentication (2FA). Sounds bad, right? Except when Twilio, the third-party service that powers the 2FA text message codes for Steam, was asked for comment, the company told BleepingComputer it had not found any evidence of a breach or leak.
In the meanwhile, however, multiple outlets have published the original claim—as well as a follow-up from X/Twitter user Mellow_Online1, who says they were told by Valve no relationship exists between Steam and “Trillio.” (A possible typo, as Mellow_Online1 refers to Twilio in a follow-up post on X.)
So what’s the deal? As BleepingComputer points out, this data could suggest a leak in the delivery system for text messages—one of three major reasons why security experts don’t recommend receiving 2FA codes through SMS. (The other two? Someone could steal your phone number to receive codes, or they could redirect the codes to their own device without you knowing.) This is not a Valve problem, though. It’s unfortunately a known weakness in how text messaging works.
Using a mobile app for two-factor authentication codes is much more secure than via SMS/text message.
Alaina Yee / Foundry
But while this situation is likely nothing to worry about, your account is probably still at risk for other reasons. Chances are, your password is weaker than you think. (Just have a look at how fast modern GPUs can crack passwords.) And you’re probably not using two-factor authentication yet.
Bump up your password to something strong, random, and unique. Turn on Steam Guard now, too. The better method for getting codes will be through the Steam Mobile App on your phone.
Already using a good password and Steam Guard? For peace of mind, you can still change your password (which should be simple and fast if you use a password manager). Also switch to the Steam Mobile App as your 2FA method if you haven’t already.
You may not be able to trust the claims made in dark web forum posts, sure. But strengthening your security is a process you can put weight behind—and you get full control over it, too.
Space Marine II now has official mod support baked into the base game, fresh from the devs’ hands to your eyeballs. This is big news, albeit for a very particular kind of fan. Allow me to give you some necessary context.
Space Marine II is based in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Which, in terms of pop culture settings, is about as deep as it gets. Starting with a tabletop strategy game that was itself a spinoff, the setting has been going strong since the late 80s, with ten editions of the main game, all with deep accompanying lore; several alternate games (ditto); hundreds of novels; and dozens of video games. All of that is, to a greater or lesser degree, canon to the game’s story. A story that takes place across literally millions of planets and tens of millions of years, dozens of human and alien species, psychic magic, demons, and sci-fi tech, all rolled together in one miserable, glorious heap of grimdark fiction.
Focus Entertainment
It’s a lot. I think it’s very possible that Warhammer 40K might have the most information and lore of any media property, ever. It is so deep and so wide that it makes Star Trek look like Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys. (What? Exactly.) And here’s the crazy thing: That’s just the official material.
As a tabletop war game that also includes building, painting, and customizing your own incredibly delicate, tiny, and expensive army, 40K attracts the kind of fan who loves to literally get their hands dirty. You can spend thousands of hours and a small fortune painstakingly choosing your perfect fighting force, assembling them, and showing off your skills.
And a lot of players aren’t content to simply go along with the game’s official story; they’d rather invent their own “chapters” or “factions” of the game’s various sci-fi legions. They do the same with the fiction itself. There are decades of fan content, an entire culture, surrounding this game, its stories and lore, and even its basic mechanics. I’m not exaggerating when I say you could spend the rest of your life obsessed with Warhammer 40,000 and still never see everything there is to see.
Here’s one of my favorites, playing off the Ork’s latent psychic powers. 40K’s space Orks aren’t smart enough to make things like cars or spaceships, but because they believe a car-shaped thing should work like a car, it does. They also believe that painting a car red makes it go faster. For them, it actually does.
Space Marine II knows this, knows that its most dedicated fans want to dive into all of that headfirst. While a single video game can only encapsulate a fraction of the full breadth of 40K’s official material and can’t even begin to accommodate all the unofficial stuff, it includes an impressive customization tool that lets you equip and “paint” your giant, grimdark supersoldier in an incredible variety of ways. It’s exactly the sort of thing that makes a 40K fan’s heart go pitter-patter.
But for the most dedicated 40K fan, that’s still not enough. Which is why the game now has official, native support for player-created mods. It’s a formula that’s worked well for tons of PC games, from Skyrim to Cities Skylines to Baldur’s Gate III. But because of Warhammer 40K’s unique relationship with both its own medium and its fans, it’s inevitable that an explosion of user-generated content is coming.
Within the first release of the official Integration Studio, modders will get access to tools for making new levels, new modes, new NPCs and enemy behavior, and even the base game’s logic. But that’s just the bones of what players can make. They can recreate essential moments from 40K fiction, like, say, the Fall of Cadia or the throne room battle of the Horus Heresy. (That would be roughly equivalent to the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the Charge of the Light Brigade, for those not in the know.) They can add in iconic allies and enemies, from an Avatar of Khaine to Ciaphas Cain. They could bring in some Exodite Eldar and play as an alien elf riding a dinosaur, which Games Workshop has yet to give players in the real game.
And again, that’s just emulating the stuff from the official fiction. Warhammer 40K fan content goes hard and crazy, often leaning into the setting’s most ridiculous elements or its largely forgotten satirical bent. (The humans and Space Marines are unequivocally and almost universally bad guys, if not necessarily the Bad Guys, something that’s often overlooked in the video games.) I can’t wait to see Buzz Lightyear marines, or the Angry Marines, or the best unofficial chapter: the Space Maids, who go around in pink maid dresses giving aid and comfort to the armies of the Imperium.
This is a joke. But also it isn’t. The Space Maids have semi-official lore, as official as fan content can get. They have divisions of their army with documented insignias, and they have a “Primarch” or founder like all the other Space Marine chapters/legions. They’re based on cutesy anime tropes, including lots of catgirls and baked goods. They’re wonderful.
Space Maid Marines are coming to Space Marine II. It is inevitable, and it’s going to be glorious.
