Total War: Warhammer 3

We didn’t play Total War: Warhammer 3 is enough to give it a final score, but after 10 hours of play it’s still a very promising game, with new teams featuring great new mechanics to make every playthrough feel completely different. There has also been an improvement in the story’s campaign for the new ‘Survival of the fittest’, while it is also great to see how the Creative Assembly has improved diplomacy and made it less intimidating for newcomers.

Introduction

The Creative Assembly has perfected the art of creating epic-scale warfare, which we have seen on numerous occasions from the Total War franchise, from ancient Rome to Troy. But it’s the Warhammer series where the series is arguably its bloodiest.

Total War: Warhammer 3 builds more teams based on the greatest power of its predecessors, and a new campaign that sees you enter the realm of chaos – the equivalent of the game’s hell.

And while the original gameplay remains the same, Creative Assembly introduces a number of features to make battles feel even more intense, to test your mighty army, including the boss battle-esque climax.

I’ve played about 10 hours so far, so I won’t give it a final score yet, but so far I have an impression here.

Faction

• The new teams have interesting new mechanics
• Very large focus on the chaos faction

If you’re a Warhammer veteran, the main reason for buying the third and final entry in this Total War trilogy is to unlock seven new teams, one of which (Ogre Kingdom) is DLC which can be downloaded for free in the first week. Get started.

The list consists mostly of chaos subgroups, which include the likes of Kharne, Tezench, Nurgel and Slanesh. Being monsters from the underworld, they all look pretty much the same on the surface, but the creative assembly has confirmed that they all have unique mechanics to make their play styles feel completely different.

While not a significant race in Warhammer lore, Kislev and Kathy have also been added to the team, with Game Workshop jumping in to help clear their background.

With the obvious Russian stereotype and mountable polar bears I’ve had time to play as Kislev so far. They also have a big focus on religion, because in order to reap the benefits like increased growth you have to gather devotion and followers. You will be punished for not focusing on devotion, as this could lead to the formation of rebellious forces.

This feature can be frustrating if you’re not interested in the religious side of the game, but it’s a great way to force the player to use team-specific features instead of behaving like any other race.

Kislev seems to be a jack-of-all-trades team so far, with most infantry capable of doubling as a wide-ranging unit, and the cavalry has plenty of tactical opportunities. You’ll also find battle sleds drawn by evil polar bears and many ice magicians who can blast enemies with ice sheets in the distance.

Importantly, Kislev feels incredibly unique compared to all the previously released Warhammer teams, which is impressive because there are now more than 20 in the series.

I haven’t tested the other new teams yet, so I’ll save the verdict until I spend more time with Warhammer 3. Older teams, such as Dwarf and Scavenger, will also appear on the promotion map as rival teams, but even if you own previous games, they are no longer playable. For this we will have to wait until the expansion of the free Mortal Empire, which is expected to come after the launch.

Gameplay

• Proposals help teach newcomers the basics
• Survival Battles adds a new challenge to the campaign
• There have been several improvements in diplomacy

Total War: Warhammer 3 surprisingly feels very similar to its predecessors. You can unlock new unit types by building buildings and conquer enemy lands through sieges. You really have to dig into the game to see the new additions, though it’s rarely surprising.

The creative assembly offers a long proposition to help newcomers gain momentum with a variety of mechanics. Menus have been streamlined to offer as much information as possible without fear, and helpful guides will pop up next to the screen when you encounter a new feature. I truly believe that this is still one of the most newcomer-friendly entries in the series, aimed at persuading PC game pass customers to go for it.

Of course, the studio did not forget the veterans of the loyal series. The biggest new addition here is how the wars are arguably fought while trying to conquer settlements that are not protected by walls.

Instead of playing as a standard battle, it features a ‘flag capture’ system, where the attacker is tasked with defeating each defense unit or claiming several important areas of land within the fortress.

The defending team is able to build strongholds to slow down the attacking forces, or at least, channel them into more compact areas to give you an upper hand. This is a nice addition, helping to differentiate between different battles, encouraging more tactics so you don’t have to rely on ordinary brute force.

The new castle feature has also been applied to the fight for survival, as your army goes against a Demon Prince and his army. Encounters like these seem like the equivalent of a boss battle, with a multi-wave army hammer in your defense for about an hour, testing your skill and stability to the very limit. Fortresses and fortifications are almost essential to deal with the abundance of daemon troops that turn on you. Organize your army badly and you may soon be overwhelmed.

I have time to experiment with one of these challenges so far, I have finally made it until the Demon Prince was born. He quickly wiped out my flag-bearing army, seeing an hour of hard work go all the way down the drain. I will have one more chance to fight this enemy, but this push can be detrimental as I am competing with other teams to kill the four Demon Prince.

This story-driven campaign looks very different from Warhammer 2’s Eye of the Vortex and is arguably an improvement because these new wave encounters offer a fresh change in the pace of standard combat and blockade. However, it’s still annoying that the time-sensitive pressures of publicity force you to focus on completing a list of objectives rather than just increasing the size of your empire. But it’s still a great way to learn all the major mechanics before the launch of the giant-scale Immortal Empire game mode.

The Creative Assembly has given more focus to diplomacy for Warhammer 3, which is great to see because it was the weakest component of Warhammer 2. You will now have the option of making a ‘quick deal’ which removes the painful process of negotiation and allows you to immediately see the demands of a faction for a trade agreement or a peace agreement. This should come as a big relief if you have stopped diplomacy before because of the FAF involved.

You may want to ask defensive allies to help protect one of your settlements now, as well as have the option of taking allied missions, which will help you improve your relationship with the faction. Such tweaks do a great job of making the alliance feel successful, although the focus is still too much on the war.

And while I haven’t used this feature yet, I’ve noticed that my allies have been able to build outposts in my settlements, allowing the team to use my unit’s pool, as well as strengthening their garrison in return. I need to spend more time with the game to judge how effective this new mechanic is, although it’s a great incentive to focus on making allies instead of just winning every single settlement in sight.

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