The Emperor Protects: A Warhammer 40,000 Musical is a deeply committed April Fool's joke from Games Workshop, and I don't care if it's a day late because it's just that good

This is April 2, which means April Fool's is over and we can put the whole thing behind us until 2027. Except, well, this was just now brought to my attention, and I must insist you bear witness to it. Because this is The Emperor Protects: A Warhammer 40,000 Musical.

"Experience Warhammer like you've never heard it before," the YouTube page states, and boy, it is not kidding. Seeing fully decked-out space marines and battle sisters belt out timeless hits like Suffer Not the Alien To Live, My Collection, and There Is Only the Emperor—"the ballad of the Dark Millennium"—is a stirring sight by any measure.

"Witness the spectacle of galactic cataclysm as it's never been seen before!" the announcer exclaims, and yeah, I think that's a fair statement. I've certainly never seen anything like this.

My first thought, sadly, was to wonder whether this was put together with generative AI, but fortunately that doesn't appear to be the case: A couple people in the comments say they recognize the players, including the battle sister and the necron—Trazyn the Infinite, apparently—from cons. So that's good to hear.

The thought that immediately followed was, briefly, tougher to answer: Is this real? The answer, it seems, is no—but also, well, maybe?

The link for ticket information leads to a video on the making of the musical, and as good as the trailer is, this is where the magic really happens because it's played completely straight as a behind-the-scenes look at a real musical production, including rehearsal footage and commentary from the producers, Adam and Eddie. (You'll probably need a VPN to see the video—when I tried to access it from Canada, I landed on a blank warhammertv.com page, and could proceed no further.)

"I think there's some parts of Warhammer 40,000 that can only be expressed through music," Eddie says at one point in the video.

"A lot of people thought that maybe an upbeat, very excited, poppy song wasn't appropriate for an alien of infinite evil. But we made it anyway."

The confusion—and look, I don't really believe this is happening, but I keep my heart open to all possibilities—comes at the end of the video, which says The Emperor Protects: A Warhammer 40,000 Musical opens on April 1, 2027. So even though this surely isn't happening, it seems clear that something is going to happen next April Fool's: Games Workshop's commitment to the bit is way too deep at this point to just let it all slide, right?

The other reason I leave open the possibility that this might be turned into a real thing is that, entirely predictably, the Warhammer community wants it. Comments on the YouTube video are packed with people doing their utmost to manifest this thing into reality. If there was someplace they could buy tickets, they'd already be standing in line.

And you know—why not? They've already got three banging songs, incredible costumes, the foundation of a cast that's clearly up to the task, and official grimdark lore and musicality consultants. So, why not?

As Eddie puts it: "Just because there is only war, doesn't mean there can't also be music." I can't believe I'm saying this, but I am really looking forward to April Fool's 2027.

Just in case you missed it yesterday, here's our roundup of the best April Fool's gags of 2026. None of them are as good as this, I'm afraid, but some are pretty good.