Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 Closed Beta

The closed beta is the only public way Creative Assembly has offered to play Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 before the 2027 box. Sign-ups opened in June 2026, during the PC Gaming Show window, on the official Total War site. Playable testing is later in 2026. CA has not posted a login day. Invitations are selective. Owning WARHAMMER III does not print a key.

This page is the news recap. The practical checklist — form URL, scam warning, what to do when a wave lands — lives in how to join the closed beta. Storefront buttons live in the wishlist tool. The year of the finished game is on release date: 2027 around Gamescom, Steam still TBA.

The two dates that are actually official

June 2026 is when registration opened. Creative Assembly and SEGA pointed at totalwar.com/games/warhammer-40k/beta in a Steam news post on 7 June 2026 and on the @totalwar account the same day. Completing that form is a register-your-interest flow. It does not mail a depot.

Later in 2026 is the official phrase for play. Around Gamescom (26–30 August 2026) the studio still had not converted the test into an open beta or named a day-one login hour. Reddit calendars that print a Tuesday are fan fiction. The Gamescom 2026 page covers the Alpha Strike Gamescom Edition stream, Eurogamer’s hands-on, and Cody Bonds’ demo — previews, not the beta client.

Treat the closed beta as a snapshot of the new engine, gun combat, and galactic campaign, not as a timed demo of the 2027 disc. Alpha Strike builds were already months old on stream. Your invite, if it comes, will also be a slice.

What the test is likely to contain — and what CA has not locked

CA has not published a locked beta faction list. Everything shown in 2026 still centres on the four launch races: Space Marines, Astra Militarum, Orks, and Aeldari, each with two lore sub-factions and a custom warlord. Chaos Space Marines remain post-launch. Traitor Guard is a Guard reskin. Public slices leaned on Guard versus Orks at a river and Marines hunting a crash site. If your wave is a subset, do not assume Aeldari were cut from the box. Compare the faction hub before you panic.

Expect NDA language until CA says otherwise. Expect gore: this is the studio’s first 18+ Total War. Expect bugs. Closed tests exist to find them. Unlimited simulated projectiles, cover, sentry, strafing armour, and mixed-weapon cards are the systems the preview streams were built to stress. Practise them on the army planner and in ranged combat before you install.

Steam lists app 4199910 with full controller support because this is the first mainline Total War on DualSense and Xbox. Exact buttons are not public. Console controls and PC keybinds will not invent them. Windows 10 64-bit is the published minimum OS and Windows 11 the recommendation; full CPU and GPU numbers are unpublished, including for the beta client. Hitching is bug-report fuel, not proof you are “below minimum.”

What this update will never tell you to do

It will not tell you to buy a key in a comment section. It will not tell you a Discord bot is official. It will not tell you a million wishlists unlocked a wave. It will not pretend Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 is a Roblox game with weekly redeem codes. There are no codes. Use the official form. Wishlist Steam, Epic, PS5, and Xbox. Wait for Creative Assembly mail.

If a key arrives, treat the build as documentation for crusade theaters and Armageddon, not as the 2027 meta. File bugs. Take notes on cover. Come back to this wiki when the NDA lets us describe the client without guessing.

If a key does not arrive, you have not missed the game. The box year is 2027. Keep the wishlist. Pick a race with the faction picker. Learn how to play. The closed beta is a door, not the whole house. Bookmark news and come back after every official wave so this recap stays a chronology instead of a screenshot of a screenshot.