Zombies are pouring across the gantry, plague-addled maniacs with curses on their lips and wicked implements waving in their hands. Behind them, the traitorous soldiers of the Moebian 6th lay down a withering hail of lasgun fire, forming a defensive line around Pike, our captured squadmate. It would be simple to turn in the opposite direction and head for the Storm Raptor. We’ve done what we came here to do. Anyway, we gain no special benefits from extracting with a full squad. Our downed teammate will receive his experience and rewards for completing the mission even if we leave without him. But that is not the Ogryn way.
“Not leavin’ ya behind, sah!” I type, charging into the horde and scattering their bodies into the inky depths below while Karg and Cragh blast them with their massive ripper guns. I extend a helping hand to the Veteran and the entire fireteam exfiltrates. Mission complete. No man left behind.
Ogryn: Origins
Ogryns have been a part of the Warhammer 40,000 game and setting for decades. 40k, as it’s commonly known, is both a tabletop miniature wargame and the setting it takes place in, which now encompasses novels, specialist miniature games, video games, and more. The setting is, as the name suggests, 40,000 years in the future, in which the baroque and xenophobic Imperium of Man does battle against aliens, internal strife, and the unfathomable daemons of Chaos.
Historically, Ogryns have been a part of the Imperial Guard army, which is composed of countless normal human soldiers and tanks, in contrast to the superhuman, genetically-modified Space Marines which have become the face of the franchise. On the tabletop, Ogryns serve as shock troops who provide close combat support to the gun line tactics of the Guard, giving them a counter-charge option against armies that prefer to attack in melee.
In 40k’s lore, Ogryns have been described in wildly conflicting ways. (Welcome to Warhammer.) They’re the descendants of prison populations on high-gravity planets, and gradually evolved to be big and strong at the expense of intellectual faculties. Supposedly, Ogryns are so unintelligent by human standards that they’re unable to count to ten, yet they’re also capable of operating automatic weaponry and following basic orders without massacring their own side.
Until recently, Ogryns were a pretty minor part of 40k, since they’re specialist troops available to a single faction. That all changed with the release of the co-operative four-person online shooter Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, which made Ogryns playable characters for the first time. Developer Fatshark chose to depict Ogryns as much more intelligent than they’ve traditionally been depicted as in the lore, making them affable yet dim-witted characters who sometimes stumble over complex words and are unaware of key concepts in the 40k universe.
The 40k online fandom, which exploded in size over the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, latched onto Ogryns almost immediately. Warhammer content creators like DreadAnon merged them with memes like Norf F.C. and “Day in the Life of a True Brexit Geezer,” resulting in the current fan understanding of Ogryns as lovable, incurably British oafs who “‘ate chaos, ‘ate xenos, ‘luv me emprah, simple as.”
‘elp Shouty, ‘elp Sah, ‘elp Sparkhed
In Darktide, Ogryns function mainly as the tank class. In addition to their massive weapons, they are the only class in the game with a “taunt” ability which allows them to draw enemy ire away from their more vulnerable squadmates. Pair this with a shield and club weapon combo that allows them to deflect nearly anything thrown their way, and they’re exceptionally good at keeping their team alive.
It’s because of this twinning of gameplay mechanics and worldbuilding through voice-acting, not to mention the community’s meme efforts, that playing as an Ogyrn lends itself so well to roleplaying. Sure, the other characters have great voice lines too, but who wants to type “the voices in my heaaaad” while playing as a Psyker when you can say “will keep ya safe, sparkhed” as an Ogryn?
I’m not the only one who gets a kick out of this, either. I asked about Ogryn roleplaying on the Darktide subreddit and got several replies, most of them in-character.
“Bes’ way tha’ I’ve found ta get yer squad int mood fer a laff,” RockySprinkles replied, “is when yer in th’ Valkuhry, jus’ say summin ta’ one of em like: ‘I like yer ‘at sah!’ or ‘Tha’ weapons loud as you shouty! HAH!’ or ‘Sorry lads, I’ve let summa’ me own pox gas loose in ‘ere, bad rashuns this mornin’.’”
Reddit user Shidd-an-Fard-d simply responded: LOV ME EMPRAH, LOV ME LIL’UNS, ‘ATE ‘ERETICS, ‘ATE NETTERS [Darktide’s “trapper” enemies which can ensnare players], SIMPLE AS. edit: LOV ME NOSH TOO SAH. OOO I ALMOS FORGOT SAH! LOVE ME ROK” [one of the Ogryn’s grenade options is simply a rock].
The best-case scenario for me is ending up in a fireteam with two other Ogryns and one other character. Suddenly, Darktide turns into the world’s only fun escort mission. We will get that frail little creature to the finish line. It doesn’t matter that Darktide, unlike its spiritual predecessor Vermintide, doesn’t care whether all four teammates are in the elevator or on the ship at the end of the mission. It also just tickles me to see a normal-sized person crammed into the dropship on the loading screen alongside three Incredible Hulks.
Darktide currently occupies something of a strange space between full-on live game and traditional retail release. Fatshark has pushed a number of free updates for the title since they released it in 2022, but it isn’t nearly on the level of a Destiny 2 or Apex Legends. That’s fine by me — I’m still having a great time running missions with my Ogryn and keeping my teammates safe. Do I sometimes charge headfirst into a crowd of enemies and get myself downed? Sure. But playing as a lovable “big man” it’s hard not to have fun even then.
A Dim Bulb in the Grimdark
“Grimdark” has become synonymous with Warhammer 40,000, but onlookers and newer fans might not realize that the two didn’t always go hand in hand. Decades ago, back when Games Workshop was a tiny UK company, the 40k universe was much more glam than grim. Orks played guitars, there were rainbow-themed Space Marines, and the whole affair was much cheekier.
The current, “grimdark” incarnation of the 40k universe started to develop in the third edition of the tabletop game in the late 1990s. As Games Workshop grew and shaped the setting into a marketable IP suitable for licensing out to video games, comics, and now maybe even an Amazon series, grimdark became its distinguishing factor, its special sauce that makes 40k different from sci-fi juggernauts like Star Wars.
That’s fine in theory, and I certainly prefer 40k’s Gothic-inspired churches as spaceship and armor festooned with impractical wax seals and lit candles over the more generic “tacticool” aesthetic — pouches, bandoliers, and skull facemasks — that the tabletop game has veered towards over the last decade, perhaps in an effort to woo the Call of Duty crowd. But it can get to be a bit much.
And the thing is, 40k is an inherently silly setting. It’s filled with Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmares and bleakly funny scenarios. And if you step back from the setting’s factions for even a second, suddenly you realize you’re talking about Robo-Zombie Egyptian The Terminators in SPHESS or Goth Hellraiser Drug Addict Nightmare Elves in the same.
That said, most 40k video games don’t lean into the silliness of the setting, since they tend to cast the player as the typically-dour superhuman Space Marines, beings who live mainly for combat and whose lives are defined by ritual and distance from the humans they’re sworn to protect. Darktide instead has players take on the role of “rejects,” individuals who have been convicted for any number of trumped-up charges by the setting’s omnipresent religious bureaucracy. It could still have leaned into the dark hopelessness of the premise — four poorly-armed cast-offs against an army of monsters — but that kind of thing doesn’t always work so well in a video game where the players are expected to succeed.
Wisely, Darktide opts for comedy at times, and the Ogryn is possibly the biggest source of it. In a setting dominated by ancient evils and monstrous aliens, it’s fun to just play as four dipshits who nonetheless manage to get things done. And it’s especially fun to play as a huge dude who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on beyond the immediacy of “throw rocks at bad spiky ones.” Space Marines are the demigods of 40k, near-mythical beings who wield blessed weaponry and are protected by Iron Man-esque power armor. Ogryns are just big guys who know it’s their job to keep the lil ‘uns safe.
What’s more, in contrast to Fatshark’s Warhammer fantasy game Vermintide, the rejects in Darktide aren’t named. Instead, players create and name their own characters, choosing from one of a few different personalities which determine their voices and the types of lines they utter during a mission. Maybe it’s just the lure of the setting, but players tend to get pretty in-character with this stuff. You see Ogryns named Thud, Kronk, things like that. In creating mine, I based him off of Brad Neely’s classic “Babycakes” character.
There’s just something about playing as a ten foot tall pleasant chap that lends itself to talking to other players in Darktide. And most of the time, they actually respond too. “Lotsa shoutys,” I said in a match where I was paired with three Zealots while writing this piece. “WHAT?” one of them replied, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER MY PRAYERS OF DEVOTION.”
I find I don’t get frustrated as much when I’m playing as an Ogryn, I’m less upset when other players’ blunders cost us missions. It’s just a game, and it’s hard to take seriously when your character is such a goofball. In the grim dark future, there isn’t only war after all — there’s friendship.
