The universe of Warhammer 40,000 is rich and full of countless little details, all of great importance to the passionate community that’s grown around the franchise. It’s these people, spurred on by new gameplay footage from Total War: Warhammer 40,000 and Dawn of War 4, who are now fiercely debating the colour of lasers.
This debate is not especially new, but it’s proven hard to shake, and recent gameplay footage of Total War has reignited the debate in particular. In this footage The Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum) are seen fighting off a giant force of Orks. While the footage looks fantastic, the yellow lasers being shot by the Guard has thrust the game into a raging war between those who prefer their lasers coloured red or yellow.
Ever since the reveal of Dawn of War 4 last year, or the equally exciting announcement of Total War: Warhammer 40,000, a passionate slice of both communities have been bamboozled by the Guard’s yellow lasers. “No one was asking for this change. If it wasn’t broke why break it?” wrote ImpressivePlum7350 on the Total War 40k Reddit. TributeDaJerek agreed, writing: “I would love the red beams back but if we can’t have that then better clarity would be nice! People telling you to get over it need to chill out, I know Total War subreddits are plagued with vocal doomers but some of these replies are a bit aggressive.”
Others pushed back, believing this isn’t a huge deal, a. This includes bigxangelx1, who commented: “They always were this way, the games you are naming took their own creative liberties I’m pretty sure.” Commander Dumb echoed this, adding: “Lasguns were always a yellow bolt from the very start. It was never broke, we just refused to see lasguns the way they are in lore.”
In fairness, they are right. This yellow laser depiction was reinforced by a blog post on the official Warhammer website in December last year which cemented the yellow lasers into hard canon.
“Their depiction has been remarkably consistent: they fire discrete, pale white-yellow bolts, not visually dissimilar to the tracers of the hard-round guns they replaced,” the post reads. “You can see that lasguns do have a type of muzzle flare – not a flame like gunpowder weapons, but more a flash of light. More recently, we’ve also started to see them pop up on our TV screens and gaming devices with varying examples of what they look and sound like in action.
“Of course, some variance in colour is explained by the energy interacting differently to different sorts of atmospheric conditions, not to mention the many patterns and variations in use across the vastness of the Imperium. “
As part of this reinforcement of laser colour, one of the developers of Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector responded to a Steam page complaint about why lasguns were shooting white / yellow back in December (interestingly around the same time the blog post came out).
They wrote:”White bolts is the canon appearance of lasguns in the codex(es) and while GW [Games Workshop] allowed other colours and representations in the past, they are now enforcing the white bolts in all media. This isn’t exactly a new thing, as it was discussed in Gladius as well many years ago.
What is new, is that since the release of the 10th Edition Codex, the white bolts lore is being more [restrictively] enforced. The video game lore of “Lasers = Red” is being phased out. I’m afraid that we are bound by licence to keep the appearance of the lasguns in the game and cannot offer any alternative, either.”
Okay, so that’s the truth around why these lasers are yellow in newer games, but what about why people are so confused, and where this confusion stems from? Well, while this was cemented in a blog post, it’s not as though everyone is a keen reader of the Warhammer blog (as good as it is). Instead, they remember what they’ve experienced firsthand, and red lasers have made appearances in popular Warhammer media both new and old.
Perhaps the most obvious is Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, which was crucially released in September of 2024, just before this strict yellow mandate seemingly went into effect. This game was incredibly popular, and very good indeed, introducing millions of people to the world of Warhammer 40,000. It, as you may have guessed, had red lasgun lasers.
Prior to Space Marine 2 was the excellent Warhammer: 40,000 Darktide, which having released in 2022, features red lasers. These two games have largely led the charge in Warhammer 40,000’s growing popularity among video gaming enthusiasts, and as such newer fans have already learned to love red lasers.
But it goes even further than that. Total War: Warhammer 40,000 may be coming to consoles, but the Total War series is known as a PC-centric grand strategy series. Dawn of War 4 is similar, being a much-anticipated sequel to a popular RTS series, and it’s likely many older strategy fans would have been familiar with the groundbreaking (for the most part, ignore the third one) Dawn of War games.
Those games, until recently, were the most well-known Warhammer games of all time, and featured red lasers. I myself experienced Warhammer 40,000 first thanks to Dawn of War, and it’s no secret your first impression of a universe sticks. I still love the old boxy Dreadnoughts, and yes, the red lasers.
So it’s an iconic visual that’s locked in for many. Ultimately, as Warhammer continues its big push not only into the world of video games but also multi-media ventures such as the Amazon series headed by Henry Cavill, getting visual stuff like laser colour consistency is probably important. A plaster that needs ripping off, sooner or later.
It will nonetheless continue to cause confusion among fans both new and old. There’s even a Helldivers 2 crossover warbond that was released recently with the yellow lasers, which is stirring up the conversation yet again.
Whether these lasers are red or yellow, it’s oddly nice to see Warhammer 40,000 conversations bubble away in video game spheres again. It felt like there was a real dry spell for a good while after 2010. Given the newfound popularity of multiple newer 40k games plus the approaching Dawn of War 4 and Total War: Warhammer 40,000, more people than ever can chime in on stuff like this. If the internet isn’t about that, I don’t know what it’s about.
