What Skyrim, Warhammer 40k, and Wingspan teach us about worldbuilding
Games are some of the best teachers of worldbuilding, and their lessons translate directly to brands. In this clip from You’re Not the Audience, Parliament Creative Director Calvin Ross Carl looks at three examples: Skyrim, which invites constant discovery by going one level deeper at every turn; Warhammer 40,000, whose satirical, grimdark universe was defined by the art of the late John Blanche; and Wingspan, which turns players into bird nerds through strict accuracy and charming facts. Together, they show that hyper-detail gives people permission to become hardcore fans. It’s from the You’re Not the Audience episode on worldbuilding, Stop Brand Building, Start Worldbuilding.
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Outline
Summary
Calvin Ross Carl starts with Skyrim, part of the Elder Scrolls series. At first it looks like a generic fantasy game, but climb a hill and you’ll spot a tower unlike anything nearby, or walk a few minutes to a town with a different language, culture, and architecture. That constant invitation to discover what you don’t yet understand is what pulls players in.
Next is Warhammer 40,000, a massive tabletop war game where building and painting miniatures is part of the fun. What sets it apart from other miniature hobbies is its deep world, a cynical, satirical take on endless war and religious fanaticism, captured in the tagline about the grim darkness of the far future. Calvin pays tribute to artist John Blanche, who defined the look of Warhammer.
Finally, Wingspan builds its world through knowledge rather than lore. Every bird card is accurate, from its measurements to its effects, and includes a small fact about the real animal. The game itself is perfectly serviceable, but the joy of becoming a bird nerd is what makes people love it.
Highlights
Skyrim doubles down at every chance to go one level deeper.
Warhammer’s world is so self-serious that it becomes funny.
John Blanche’s artwork defined the look of Warhammer.
Wingspan’s strict accuracy turns players into birders.
Hyper-detail is permission to become a hardcore fan.
Key insights
Mystery drives exploration
Skyrim keeps players moving by constantly showing them places and cultures they don’t fully understand yet.
World beats mechanics
Calvin doesn’t love Warhammer as a game, but its world is incredible. People could paint any miniatures; they choose Warhammer for the universe.
Knowledge can be a world
Wingspan shows that worldbuilding doesn’t require lore. Inviting people to learn something real can be just as immersive.
Rules create trust
Wingspan’s strict commitment to real birds makes every fact feel worth reading.
Detailed analysis
The three examples cover different ways to build a world: discovery in Skyrim, satirical lore and art in Warhammer, and real-world knowledge in Wingspan. Calvin contrasts Wingspan with Catan, a popular game with little worldbuilding, to show how a world can elevate an otherwise ordinary product.
For brands, the common thread is depth that rewards curiosity. Whether it’s an unexplained tower on the horizon or a fact about an oriole’s nest, the details give fans something to learn, and learning creates attachment.
Conclusion
Going into hyper-detail is an invitation not just to play a game or like a brand, but to become a hardcore fan. Calvin’s examples show many routes to that depth.
Transcript
So, okay, let’s talk some games, some games that I think we can learn some things from. We’re going to go into some video games and tabletop games that we can learn some things from here.
I think the first one is maybe what comes to mind for everybody when they think of deep world story, and this is the video game called Skyrim. It’s been out for years. It’s part of a series called Elder Scrolls, and it is known for having these vast worlds filled with tons of different towns in this fantasy medieval setting, where there are dragons and all this stuff. And the things that they do really, really well that establish their brand of storytelling as unique: it seems at first that this is a generic fantasy video game. Look at this. It’s a Viking-ish town. We get it, yada yada yada. But then you can climb a hill in this and see so far into the distance that you might see a tower that looks nothing like the towers or the city you were nearby. You go to a town, and it has a completely different language. It has a completely different culture. The buildings look different. And even though it just took you a few minutes in the game to walk over that way, it immediately transports you into this world of “I don’t fully understand everything. I have to discover the secrets of this small town versus the town I was just in.” And there are tons of people to interact with. It just allows you to immediately go deep and discover foreign ideas and places that you don’t actually understand yet, and that entices you into this.
I think it’s such a strong example of—oh, and I had to pull up the classic meme from it, for anyone who knows: “I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee.” That’s only for the real Skyrim nerds here. So yeah, it’s a great example of how doubling down at every chance to go one level deeper with your story is really, really powerful. Sarah says, “Deep cuts.” Yeah, deep cuts.
Okay, the next one that I think is an incredible example is Warhammer 40,000, which is a massive tabletop war game. It looks like this on the table: you’ve got tons of little miniatures, all these little guys. You move them around. You’re fighting. It’s a big combat game. Part of the fun is painting the miniatures and all of these things. It’s massively popular, and a big part of this thing is the crafting of it. You actually build and paint the miniatures. But that’s not it, because there are plenty of other options. Why wouldn’t you just go paint dollhouses if you’re into miniatures, or you could do trains, or any of these things? But the reason something like Warhammer has been really, really good—let me switch this here—is because they developed this incredibly deep world, where there are planets everywhere filled with different races of people and different cultures. But it’s actually a really deep, cynical, and satirical viewpoint on endless war and religious fanaticism.
And this is the first box from it, from the first edition of Warhammer 40K, 30 years ago. Even this tagline, “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war,” is so self-serious that it’s actually funny, and it becomes this unique twist. I love it. The funny thing is I don’t really like the game, but its world is absolutely incredible. And this art—RIP John Blanche, the artist who created all of this artwork for it and defined the look of Warhammer. He just died. Just unbelievable work. So that’s another world where not only is there this character, but they’re a part of a whole culture that has this completely different set of beliefs, and it just keeps going deeper and deeper.
So those are a couple of real nerdy ones. And the last one, I think, is an interesting one: another board game, called Wingspan. This one does worldbuilding in a completely different way from those other ones. Those were about creating these deeper layers of stories, deep layers of lore. Wingspan is a really, really popular card game and board game. For a lot of people, it has kind of replaced Catan. Anyone who plays board games knows Catan. Catan does not have very deep worldbuilding. You’re just a farmer.
But the thing they do very well in this game is it invites you to gain knowledge about something you might not have a lot of knowledge about. So it really hits that achiever mindset of learning things, and a little bit of that exploration of discovering facts. Part of the reason is they’re incredibly strict. In this game, you’re creating habitats for your birds and then putting eggs on them, and it’s all very cute and charming, but they have very strict rules that these are real animals. If you look at the cards closely here, you can see there are actual measurements of the size of the animals. Every single effect on them relates to the real animal.
And then the other important thing—let me see if I can zoom in on this. You can kind of see here: each card has a tiny little fact about it that’s just a charming little fact about that bird. For example, [unclear] orioles weave pouch nests that hang from a tree branch. And they’ve done such a good job. It shows you where that bird is located in the world, and it does this amazing job of turning everyone who plays this game into a little bit of a birder, which is a thing I never thought I was interested in. But as soon as I’m playing this game, I want to read every single fact. I want to know more about it. And the game is totally fine. It’s a perfectly serviceable hobby strategy game, a step up from Catan. The thing that sets it apart is it brings you along on this journey of becoming a bird nerd, and that’s why everyone actually falls in love with this game. The game is almost secondary to this joy of exploring this world of birds you knew nothing about.
So if there’s one thing you can take from looking at all of these games, it’s the idea that going into hyper-detail on a lot of different elements is really a big invitation to not just play a game or become a fan of a brand. It’s permission to become a hardcore fan, because it gives you all of this deep knowledge to really, really learn about.