One of the greatest franchises around is Warhammer 40 000, a tabletop wargame that has been adapted to many different forms including novels and video games. While the video games based on the series have included a variety of genres like third person shooters, hack n slash games, action rpgs, real time strategy games and of course turn based strategy games, one genre that has not been , is the fighting game genre. This is unusual because of the sheer potential such a game has, and the different directions it could take., with a multitude of possibilities. Yes, there are issues of some characters being more powerful than others such as a Space Marine being more powerful than an imperial guard, but there are different ways a game can go. In addition, fighting games often have mismatched characters in their roster that should not logically win, such as Joker in Injustice 2.
The first possibility for a fighter would be a game starring the primarchs, the sons of the Emperor of Mankind. This would include both the traitor primarchs and the loyalists ones ( though not the two missing primarchs.. This would make sense in the lore, as they would all be around the same level of skill and power, and there would be a balanced roster. There is even DLC potential in the form of the Daemon forms of the traitor primarchs as well as the modern incarnations of Guilliman and Corax. This may not allow for a ton of characters, but it would make for a fun fighting game with all the primarchs could do. Konrad Curze, the primarch of the Night Lords is basically an evil Batman with brutal terror methods, Magnus is a powerful Psyker, Jhagatai Khan focuses on hit and run strikes, wile Guilliman is more conventional but balanced, just to give some examples. There is much potential for this to b a mid tier budget game with a neat premise.
Another idea could involve a game based on the Feast of Blades. The Feast of Blades is a tournament held by the Imperial Fist Space Marine chapter, and their successors such as the Crimsons Fists, Fire Lords, Excoriators, and the Black Templar. This is where they spar in a great tournament designed to foster relations between the chapters formed by the sons of Rogal Dorn. However, the game could take many liberties as a non canon affair, and can say the Fists have invited other chapters for one tournament such as the Ultramarines, the Blood Angels, the Blood Ravens, The Space Wolves, The Salamanders and the Exorcists. Of course, this is all with the understanding that this is not a canon representation of the Feast of Blades.
You could even go one step further and have a a game involving an invasion by Chaos marines , such as the Black Legion, The Thousand Sons, The Crimson Slaughter, The Red Corsairs and more facing off against loyalist marines or other forces.. You do not even need a tournament, but a decent narrative set up. Throw in a showdown with a powerful final boss, and the game could have an excellent arcade mode, and the various chapters and warbands present would make for a balanced roster, with a representative or two from each. This could even be a three vs three fighting game similar to King of Fighters. And other factions like the Mechanicus could be represented in support roles.
Warhammer 40 000 has tried many genres, but fighting games have yet to be attempted. I do feel though, there is potential as I have argued here.
Warhammer dont need a fighting game, warhammer needs balance in their actual games, and games workshop dont gives a s**t about balance, they just want to sell miniatures, thats why they just will make a bad fighting game to sell miniatures of their games, no one likes games workshop at all, they just have luck because their hardcore fans like the game so much, if anyone wants a good warhammer game, games workshop needs to change A LOT about their bussiness plans