Warhammer Blood Bowl will not arrive this year after all. Slitherine and Cyanide Studio, which develops it, announced at a showcase in Berlin on Saturday that the revised fantasy-football game now targets early 2027, which also moves back the Blood Bowl World Cup event. The playtest on Steam stays open in the meantime.
The stated reason was polish. “The game’s history and the feedback received during the latest playtest have reinforced the team’s belief that the game needs to be as polished as possible, as disappointing the fans is not an option,” Slitherine said. Mathieu Valero, a programmer at Cyanide, added a second reason on stage: “There’s been a bit of an issue on Xbox”, and the team wants the game to launch on every platform on the same day. He said that checking that purchases from Blood Bowl 3 carry over has to work with no failures on each platform, and that it is not a trivial job.
This is the second slip. Cyanide first aimed for spring 2026, and after Slitherine bought the studio from Nacon in July the target became a vague fourth quarter of 2026. Some fans had expected another delay once no date appeared.
What was already promised has not changed. Anyone who owned Blood Bowl 3 gets the new game at no cost and keeps every team and cosmetic item bought in it, as the game’s Steam page states. The page lists 12 base teams, with 12 more that were paid DLC in Blood Bowl 3, plus two new factions: the Tomb Kings and the Bretonnians. Slitherine confirmed that both factions come with the base game at no extra charge.
It is built on Blood Bowl 3 but updated to the latest tabletop rules. Besides the classic 11 against 11, it adds Rumble Bowl, a smaller 7 against 7 mode on a tighter pitch. The playtest has recently gained an Arena mode in which a coach plays 10 matches in a row and may not lose, or draw more than twice. Each team returns to its starting roster after every match, with no gains or losses carried over.
Valero said the playtest build will stay online until shortly before the finished game ships. Whether leagues started in it will continue into the final game is undecided, because the delay is so recent. No exact release date has been given, and there is no price announcement for anyone starting fresh.
