Where this setting stands
Imperium Sanctus and Imperium Nihilus are the two halves the Imperium was cut into by the Great Rift. The publisher has not mentioned either name in any material we were able to open, so nothing on this page describes the video game. What follows is the setting’s own background, from Games Workshop, and the question it raises for a campaign that claims a galactic scale.
What the tabletop establishes
Sanctus is the half that still sees the Astronomican, the beacon that makes faster-than-light travel navigable, and it therefore continues to function more or less as an empire. Nihilus is the half that does not. In the fiction, worlds in Nihilus are not merely distant: they cannot be reliably reached, reinforced or ordered, and many of them have spent decades assuming they were the last human settlement in existence. It is the most consequential piece of geography Games Workshop has added to the setting in thirty years.
The two halves the Imperium was cut into by the Great Rift: Sanctus, which still sees the Astronomican and can therefore be navigated, and Nihilus, which cannot. It is the reason the setting now has regions that are effectively unreachable.
Tabletop identity, as established by Games Workshop. It says nothing about the video game.What has actually been shown
Whether the game represents this division at all is unannounced. The publisher describes a galaxy at war and a fleet to upgrade; it has published no map, no region names and no travel rules. It is worth being precise about what that means: this page is not reporting a feature, it is recording that the setting contains a structural division and that the game has said nothing about it.
What to watch next
The open question is whether a Total War campaign can contain a region that is deliberately hard to reach. The series’ maps have always been continuous — every province touches another, and the whole map is eventually contestable. A setting where half the empire is effectively unreachable is either a strong campaign idea, giving one part of the map a completely different rhythm, or a design problem that gets quietly flattened into ordinary distance. Nothing has been announced either way. Information correct as of 17 August 2026.
What is not known
These questions have no published answer as of 12 December 2025. They are listed because an absence of information is information — and because we would rather name the gap than fill it.