The Blood Bowl update, using the tabletop game's latest rules, will be a separate game called Warhammer Blood Bowl 'free for all players who already own Blood Bowl 3'

Last year Games Workshop announced there would be a new edition of Blood Bowl, the tabletop game of frenzied fantasy football ferocity. Cyanide Studio's digital adaptation, Blood Bowl 3, is getting updated too. Only instead of a patch, it's a whole new ball game.

"This new adaptation will be free for all players who already own Blood Bowl 3," Cyanide says, "who will keep their accounts along with all the content they have purchased or unlocked in-game."

Rebranded as Warhammer Blood Bowl, it'll include two new teams—the undead Tomb Kings and knightly Bretonnians—making for a total of 26 teams at launch. Everything from Blood Bowl 3 will carry over. "There will be no step back in terms of content or features," Cyanide says.

Another new addition will be Rumble mode, in which two teams of seven players (rather than the usual 11) take to a narrower pitch for a 30-minute match, promising a faster and more focused way to play. Rumble mode will be available ahead of launch as a free demo on Steam from March 18 to March 25. The demo will let us choose one of five pre-designed team rosters—Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Necromantic Horrors, Khorne, or the Old World Alliance—and try out both a PvP and PvE version of Rumble play.

Warhammer Blood Bowl also promises "updated rosters, new competitions, new tutorials, and an evolving competitive ecosystem culminating each year in a World Championship." It's scheduled for release in spring of this year.