If pushed, I’d describe my 2024 gaming habits as eclectic, but that would actually be a lie. All my favourite games for the year are actually very similar: they are all the best. Unfortunately, the realities of sharing website space with several less-correctos means they didn’t all make this year’s advent calender.
]]>In more ways than one, today’s Total War: Warhammer 3 expansion marks a milestone for game director Rich Aldridge and his team at Creative Assembly. Omens Of Destruction’s three headline legendary lords each bring new campaigns and units for their respective factions, but it’s the fourth lord - a Khorne champion free to all players - that I imagine Aldridge will end up remembering the most fondly.
When Total War: Warhammer released back in 2016, it shipped with eight legendary lords - famous characters from Games Workshop’s fantasy setting that here act as faction leaders. The number grew steadily and, in terms of announcement order at least, today’s addition of Arbaal The Undefeated marks the series’ 100th. That's a hundred campaigns, a hundred joint efforts of game design, animation, art, writing and voice work.
Aldridge has never been shy about the team’s ambition for the series to eventually offer up each unit from every Fantasy Battle 6th edition army book ("The goal is to do everything, right?"). But ambition is one thing, and considering the fraught conditions at Creative Assembly and parent company Sega over the past few years, it’s not just the addition of the 100th lord that feels like something to celebrate. It’s taken time, effort, and a siesmic shift in update frequency, but Total War: Warhammer III is in the best place it's ever been.
]]>Here are some orc names I quite like. Haters will tell you these “aren’t real orcs”, but those fools are forever trapped in a stifling prison forged from the failures of their own imaginations. Suck it, haters:
]]>Ogres, Orcs, and Khorne are all on the way in the upcoming expansion for strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3, and Creative Assembly have just released their latest dev vlog with a few more details on what to expect. There’s still no word on the exact title, although given the established naming convention (Shadows Of Change, Thrones Of Decay), I’m tentatively calling it “Sniffers Of Glue” in honour of the No Think, Only Krump faction selection.
You’ll find the vlog in its full glory below. What’s interesting about this one is that vlog mainstay director Rich Alridge has brought along some new faces: battle designer Josh King and audio director Chris Goldsmith. And, yes, so no-one can accuse me of burying the lede: that audio design involved the enthusiastic, deeply disgusting slurping of porridge and yoghurt, and the jangling of real bones. The source of the bones is not revealed.
]]>Death and taxes remain constant, the sun rises and sets each day, and I must write about every bit of Total War: Warhammer 3 news until the end of time. No-one is making me, I must add. I simply cannot help myself. Every addition is one step closer to us getting an official Clan Skurvy. Creative Assembly just put out a new video going into more details about what to expect from the strategy game’s next DLC. Here’s a roundup of the last one to get you up to speed before I start frothing like a pint of Bugman’s. That was a Warhammer reference! From Warhammer!
]]>Oh, hey, would you look at that? Total War: Warhammer 3's patch 5.2.0 (arriving later today) has some new orcs and goblins in it.
Look at 'em! They've got swords and shields now!
]]>Any gags I could make about an update that lets Total War: Warhammer 3’s dawi play tall are far too obvious for the discerning comedic palette that brought you such bangers as that time I just wrote “(penis)” a bunch so the Overkill’s Walking Dead page wouldn’t quote me out of context, so let’s just dive right in to the details. The strategy game’s 5.2 update is on the horizon, and tagging along with it are the first of the “extra bits” the team teased in June. I’m very excited about them. They sit somewhere between the usual patch fare of stat tweaks and errata, and the weightier faction facelifts that come alongside paid DLC. They’re also focused right where Immortal Empires needs them the most: depth, rather than width. In the dawi’s case, quite literally.
]]>Back in June, strategy bods Creative Assembly put out a chunky, chatty video discussing the next expansion for Total War: Warhammer 3. Aside from a not-so-subtle hint that the orcs, ogres, and Khorne pack would feature at least one colossal squig, it also ended with a tease at smaller bits of new content coming alongside regular patches. As of the game’s latest hotfix blog, we’ve now got a better idea when we’ll start seeing some of these “smaller bits and pieces.” Bits and pieces? In this economy? Yes, and this month in fact. “Late August” to be precise by quoting a vague statement precisely.
]]>The Total War: Warhammer series is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. Luckily, coming up with completely original quotes is not my only skill. I’ve also become very adept at pouring hundreds of hours into this series of strategy games. The aim of this guide is to save you some time, and give some tips on what they’re all about.
For my money, they’re the best Total War games available, but they’re also very dense and a bit complicated to get started with. I’m hoping this will stand as a comprehensive one-stop beginner’s guide for anyone looking to jump into the series for the first time, without getting too bogged down with the details. Included is an exhaustive list of which DLC to buy depending on what faction you like the look of the most, since navigating the expansions can sometimes feel more complicated than the game itself. Onward!
]]>The Total War Warhammer 3 team at Creative Assembly just put out a new video, shedding some light on what to expect for the strategy game’s next DLC and the game in general going forward. Upcoming expansions will focus heavily on the Immortal Empires megamap campaign, and there were lord and unit reveals for the Ogres, Greenskins, and Khorne factions that headline the next DLC - slated for the "back end of the year". Certain party poopers among you will be pleased to know that I cannot accurately refer to the 17 minute video below as a “tray-tray”.
]]>The orcs and goblins of the Greenskins, the sizeable gourmands of the Ogre Kingdoms, and the angry Christmas ornaments of Khorne are the next three factions to get new units, lords, and campaigns as part of strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3’s next DLC. The news comes via official posts by developer Creative Assembly on both Reddit and X.
]]>Skulls! You’ve got one. I’ve got one. Everybody has a lovely skull keeping their lovely face right where it should be. Warhammer is big, so it needs must have multiple of them, hence their yearly event Skulls, which collates a bunch of Games Workshop related announcements into a sort of bizzaro world Nintendo Direct if Yoshi was actually a parasitic corpse emperor. There’s usually at least a few game announcements in there, and this year was a bumper. The headline announcement being an upcoming sequel to well-loved space-pope turn-based strategy Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus. Yes, yes. I’m getting to the dog.
]]>Creative Assembly, the studio best known for their strategy Total War series, are rumoured to be working on a licensed Star Wars title. ‘Rumoured’ is the key word here, mind. Dualshockers credit “a reliable source” with the information that “three new Total War games are currently in development,” and that “one of the three new projects is expected to be a Star Wars-themed Total War game.” There’s currently no further information beyond that, I’m afraid, although I’ve reached out to Creative Assembly for comment.
]]>Thrones of Decay - the expansion for strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3 that finally made it viable to steamroll the old world with a doomstack of 20 tanks, just as Franz intended - just released around three weeks ago, but developers Creative Assembly are already on their third hotfix. This one is mainly aimed at re-balancing an overly demanding new grudge system for the Dwarfs that punished players for stopping to enjoy a swift pint of Bugman’s instead of constantly being on the offensive, but also includes so many other fixes it’s veering into larger patch territory.
]]>Well, swaggle me horns and fasten me timbers so they stop shivering like that, because the noise is quite irritating. Welcome back to another edition of Plundertales - my quest to conquer strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3 without ever stepping foot on dry land. If you don’t know the other rules by now, I can only assume you’ve been living under an extremely specific type of rock that changes nothing about your life except preventing you from reading the previous two editions of this column. Who would carve such a rock? How would it even work? These are lubber-tier queries and shall remain unanswered, because it’s plundering time. Avast!
]]>Well, this was unexpected. Malakai Makaisson is the single best campaign experience I’ve had since strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3 launched, and might just be up there with some of the best in the series’ history. That’s over ninety lords he’s given both barrels to getting here and, honestly, I wasn't sure Creative Assembly still had it in them. Not the talent, mind, just the passion. And nothing says passion like the amber mohawk of a furious dwarf quivering in the wake of a shakily-built zeppelin's explosive payload. Warhammer!
]]>I can feel some kind of sore throat bug coming on. It must be the baleful influence of Creative Assembly's latest free update for bellowing strategy bonanza Total War: Warhammer 3. Out 30th April, the update introduces Epidemius, Proctor of Pestilence - a new Nurgle Legendary Lord who gains rewards based on how many ickle diseases you’ve spread to other factions (already my favourite aspect of playing Nurgle in the game). Does Epidemius also get buffs if the player is infected by something? I hope so. It would be a consolation to know that my ailing trachea is contributing to the Nurgle cause.
That’s not the only new addition in TWW3 patch 5. They’re also bringing a Gold Wizard hero, who is sort of Magneto but blingier, and a cursed crown that will make everybody hate you. Let’s dig in.
]]>Avast, me hearty bowls of soup! Welcome back to Plundertales, a chronicling of my journey to best strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3 as vampire pirate Count Noctilus without ever touching grass. When we last saw Noctilus, he’d just received a challenge from his ancient rival Gentlemen Jenkins, crudely scrawled on the rear of a carrier pigeon (I had to google ‘do birds have buttocks?’ to write that.) I say ancient rival, it’s been about 15 turns, but Horace said the column needed more drama and that Noctilus’ ongoing battle with the weevils to reclaim his biscuit tin ‘wasn’t testing well’ with the Treehouse’ preview audience. Avast, Jenkins! (I really should find out what avast actually means.)
]]>Sega and Creative Assembly have released the first proper trailer for Total War: Warhammer 3's forthcoming Thrones of Decay expansion, which pits the human Empire, Chaos Nurgle faction and industrious Dwarfs against each other in what the press release terms "a showdown of mohawks, maggots and machines". Alliteration, is it? Well, two can play at that (strategy) game: the new expansion explodes upon the extensive environments of this elaborate ex-tabletop experience with an eccentric... ensemble of new legendary lords, battle units and campaign features, plus various free bits for owners of the base game.
9-3 to me, Creative Assembly! Find the Thrones of Decay trailer below - sorry, I just need a few minutes to massage my temples.
]]>In the dingy portside taverns that pop up, seemingly unbidden, like roiling blisters along the coastal towns of the Old World, the name Count Noctilus is spoken only in hushed whispers by those blasted enough on grog to forget themselves. They are sure to be swiftly rebuked by their fellows for playing dice with fate, those still of sound mind rightly afeared that the name may echo through the brine and tickle the ears of the dread captain himself. On the seas he calls kingdom, Noctilus is without equal, without mercy, and utterly without hesitation. For what has a dead man left to fear?
He has but one fatal flaw; he is deathly afraid of ever leaving his comfortable ship to touch ‘pon the verdant grass of land. I intend to honour this. Do you hear me, lubbers? I will show my strategy game mastery by conquering Total War: Warhammer 3’s world, and I will never touch grass.
]]>Thrones of Decay, the upcoming expansion for strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3, will now be available to purchase as either three separate faction packs, or as a bundle at a discount. So, if you don’t fancy shelling out the full £19.10 for all three factions, you can grab new bits for either Nurgle, the Empire, or the Dwarfs for £7.49. If you do buy just one to start off with - say, to get a feel for the quality of Thrones of Decay as a package - you’ll get a 15% discount on the remaining two packs in the future.
]]>I haven’t been keeping up with player reaction to the latest Twar and Twarhammer games, but it seems players are none too pleased with Creative Assembly right now. In a rather dramatic open letter, the company's vice president Roger Collum has acknowledged that Total War: Warhammer 3’s Shadows of Change add-on and the recent historical strategy outing Total War: Pharaoh did not ship in a desirable state, with complaints ranging from wobbly execution to overpricing. The studio will try to make things right by offering partial refunds to Pharaoh owners and giving away DLC on top of the usual updates.
]]>Troubled developers Creative Assembly will double-down on their strength in making offline real-time strategy games, following their failed attempt to break into the competitive shooter market with extraction FPS Hyenas.
]]>Sega have formally unveiled the next steaming helping of Total Warhammer 3 DLC, Shadows of Change, which adds three Legendary Lords to this already-jam-packed strategy game: the Changeling for the demonic Tzeentch faction, Yuan Bo for Grand Cathay, and Mother Ostankya for Kislev, plus a brace of new campaign mechanics, units and battlefield abilities.
I've been going off Total War lately - I fired up a new Lizardman game last month, having developed a hankering for dinos after reviewing Exoprimal, and found myself lingering in disappointment on each faction's reliance on rock-paper-scissors unit relationships. There's only so many times you can do that dance of shieldwalls before it loses its charm. Still, it sounds like the new Tzeentch Lord might wash away my Total Warennui, in being one of those playstyles that is more about tricking and invading rivals than taking territory.
]]>The Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs expansion is hot out of the oven, but Creative Assembly have already detailed what’s next for Total War: Warhammer 3. A fresh roadmap shares what’s coming in the next twelve months, which includes three paid expansions: Shadows Of Change (Summer 2023), Thrones Of Decay (Winter 2023), and To Be Revealed (which I’m hoping is the official title, coming Spring 2024). Each expansion will be accompanied by a free update that brings Legendary Heroes for everyone, as well as interim patches in between content drops.
]]>“In a rare display of AI genius, Grimgor has spent the last 4 turns camping outside Zharr-Naggrund killing every caravan I try to send. I'd be furious if it wasn't so funny,” reads the Discord message I sent to a friend - roughly another four turns before the orcish warboss’s occasional smash-and-grab turned into an entire racket that nearly crippled my burgeoning military industrial complex. Last week Total War: Warhammer III's new DLC Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs arrived, and it highlights the setting’s greatest rivalry to comical effect.
]]>Today saw the release of the Chaos Dwarfs DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3, which is pretty cool if what you like is beards and spending money. If you only like beards, today also saw the release of the free update 3.0.0, Mirror Of Madness, which includes two new game modes, a new legendary hero, and more.
]]>Total War: Warhammer 3’s next expansion Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs is still coming on April 13th, but now it’s being accompanied by some free DLC too. Developers Creative Assembly have detailed the Mirror Of Madness update - previously teased a couple months ago - in a blog post, and it’ll contain two new game modes for all players.
]]>“Imagine someone saying ‘We need you to make a trailer for our movie, but we've only got half of the sets and props ready…” says Tim Bevan de Lange, Creative Director at Realtime Nordic, a studio that makes, specifically, video game trailers. “...and we haven’t actually shot anything, so you’ll need to do that yourself. Some of the actors won't come out of their trailers. One of them will but if you shoot him from the front you realise he's got no eyes, but don't show the audience that. It's not intentional, he's getting them fixed. Also can you film it twice, for different streaming platforms? Make a really good version for Netflix and a slightly worse looking one for Quibi.”
Every so often a game trailer comes along that makes me think, hang on, that was bloody brilliant! I bet some people made that! Most recently it was Creative Assembly’s Immortal Empires trailer. Well, I’ve been digging around and I’m happy to report that yes, although I’m the first one to just see a trailer as an algorithm trying to snatch my coin purse away like a manure-encrusted Victorian ne’er-do-well, game trailers are made by humans. They're often humans who do it as as specific job, either in-house at a developer or as an outside agency like Realtime Nordic. Enlightened and enthralled, I asked some of them about what went into the strange space that is making the trailers for your favourite games.
]]>Total War: Warhammer 3 is getting a new expansion on April 13th. The Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs campaign pack adds, well, the Chaos Dwarfs, with three Legendary Lords - Astragoth Ironhand, Drazhoath the Ashen, and Zhatan the Black - and new campaign objectives and units to command. One of those units is a big, roaring daemon-machine-dinosaur hybrid.
]]>This isn't technically a review, because who would review a game mode for Total War: Warhammer 3? What’s next, a title screen review? A lengthy personal essay about an attract mode clip? Can my cat get a review? First off, yes. Captain Waffles is a visceral tour-de-force that no fan of the genre should miss. 10/10. Secondly, you should know that Immortal Empires is, as far as Total War: Warhammer goes, the game mode. More importantly, this ridiculously expansive, years-spanning grand-strategy project exists as tangible proof that sometimes, the limitless hubris of man is actually rad as hell, despite what the ancient Greeks said. Euripides nuts, more like.
]]>Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for your favourite strategy games of all time to celebrate the launch (and glorious return) of several strategy classics this month, including Relic's WW2 RTS Company Of Heroes 3, Blue Byte's The Settlers: New Allies and Cyanide's fantasy Warhamball Blood Bowl 3. And cor, I've never seen such love for individual expansions and total conversion mods among mainline RTS games and 4Xs. As with all strategy games, however, there can only be one victor - and you can find out what that single strategy game to rule them all is right here. Here are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted for by you, the RPS readership.
]]>To celebrate Total War: Warhammer 3’s first anniversary, developers Creative Assembly are making the Immortal Empires campaign free to all owners of the Warhammer 3 base game. Previously, you needed to own all three Total War: Warhammer games to play Immortal Empires, since it compiles campaign maps, war units, and Legendary Lords from across the strategy trilogy. Now, you’ll just need to own Warhammer 3 for access to the campaign.
]]>Fantasy strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3 has got its final patch of 2022, update 2.3.0, which brings the single-player customisable endgame scenarios to its multiplayer mode. This change allows whoever is setting up one of the game’s Immortal Empires campaigns in multiplayer to fiddle with the endgame how they please. Devs Creative Assembly have even gone and done one of those video thingies for the update, which you can watch below.
]]>Total War: Warhammer 3 will tomorrow receive a public beta of Immortal Empires, the vast, trilogy-merging game mode. At the same time, it'll also receive a 2.0 update which brings sweeping changes to faction mechanics, the UI, individual units and many bug fixes. Creative Assembly have detailed some of those changes in a new video release today, which you'll find below.
]]>There’s a long-standing theory among the Warhammer community that the chaos wastes at the globe’s south pole house a peculiar breed of beastmen in the form of evil, monstrous penguins. The theory is based on a world with similar geography to our own, and the tendency of the ruinous powers to morph local fauna into mockeries of their previous forms. No ping-gors show themselves as I trawl the southern wastes as stealthy chameleon-skink Oxyotl, but I find myself thinking about them all the same. Noot for the noot god, the blasted crags seem to whisper. Fish for the fish throne.
Evil penguins or not, all things seem possible with Immortal Empires, the combined landmass of the Total War: Warhammer trilogy into a single sandbox map, vast and varied in its climates, landmarks, and inhabitants. Creative Assembly have already dug deep into dusty stacks of White Dwarf to flesh out footnotes into full factions, and as the list of obvious additions dwindle, things can only get wilder and more creative. For now, we have one very big map stuffed with each faction and lord from three massive strategy games, creaking and occasionally buckling under the weight of its own promise. But it works. There’s a breadth of technical and balance issues still to solve, but the Immortal Empires beta is substantially more stable, playable, and enjoyable than I dared to hope it would be for at least another six months.
]]>The week-long Warhammer Skulls event has kicked off with an avalanche of announcements. Leading the pack are three new games: CRPG Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader, digital card game Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge, and retro FPS Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef, the 2D action platformer, also got a release date. It’ll be out on the 20th of October.
]]>Creative Assembly have laid out the 2022 development roadmap for Total War: Warhammer 3. It contains detailed descriptions of the fixes and balance tweaks to come over the next few months, but the exciting stuff will all land this autumn, including the series-spanning Immortal Empires, mod tools and the first of several revamps for the series' older races.
]]>At the heart of Total War: Warhammer 3 is an extremely relatable struggle to murder four members of the monarchy, claim their souls, and cash them in so you can meet a really big bear. I would like to meet a big bear. I'm willing to do a lot to meet a really big bear. But many players have felt that this 'Souls race' forces the game into an unpleasant and uninteresting shape. Thankfully, the devs have plans for the next patch which they say should "make the Souls race less urgent".
]]>Looking for a Total War: Warhammer 3 Slaanesh guide? One of the four brand new chaos monogod factions in Total War: Warhammer III, Slaanesh is a micro-intensive faction with a low damage threshold that can nonetheless dish out tonnes of rapid hurt in the right hands. Read on to find out the nuances of each unit, hero, and spell, as well as a tactical overview of how the forces of Slaanesh compliment each other on the battlefield.
]]>Looking for a Total War: Warhammer 3 Nurgle Guide? One of the four brand new chaos monogod factions in Total War: Warhammer III, Nurgle is a deceptively strong faction, once you learn to compensate for their glaring weaknesses on the battlefield and campaign. Read on to find out the nuances of each unit, hero, and spell, as well as a tactical overview of how the forces of Nurgle compliment each other on the battlefield.
]]>Back in 2012, the late great Antony Bourdain tweeted an impassioned defence of a fellow food writer, then 85 year old Marilyn Hagerty, whose recent positive review of her local Olive Garden had become the subject of widespread memery. I’ve never eaten at an Olive Garden because a.) we don’t have them in the UK, and b.) unlimited pasta sounds like a death sentence. But I understand it’s viewed as a faux-fancy chain for people who think Al Dente was the name of the man who invented spaghetti, and not somewhere you’d want to earnestly praise as a quote unquote ‘serious critic’.
Big Tones was having none of it. He applauded Hagerty’s celebration of Olive Garden as a genuine expression of widespread American food culture, calling her detractors ‘snarkologists’, and then published a book of her reviews. A class act, no doubt. And it’s this championing of the everyman gourmand, this deep passion for non-exclusionary, unpretentious foodie culture, that powers Total War: Warhammer 3’s most joyfully silly campaign experience.
]]>Looking for a Total War: Warhammer 3 Kislev Guide? Slavic bear-buds Kislev are one of the most versatile factions in Total War: Warhammer 3, offering powerful hybrid units, magic, and some of the best archers in the game. Kislev, like most factions in Total War: Warhammer 3, have more nuance than you might expect from their ‘Empire with Bears’ aesthetic. As such, we’ve put together a list of helpful pointers so you can get the most out of Kislev both on the battlefield and in campaign. For the Motherland!
]]>Almost six years after the historical strategy action of Total War crashed into Games Workshop's wacky fantasy world of Warhammer, the trilogy wraps up today with Total War: Warhammer 3. Oh I'm sure expansions will follow, and the game-joining Mortal Empires campaign is still to come, but Total Warhammer 3 is here now. Sadly, the launch is somewhat blighted by many players suffering serious performance problems.
]]>Looking for a Total War: Warhammer 3 faction tier list? Whether you’re playing a solo campaign or going up against friends in multiplayer, you’ll want to know the best Total War: Warhammer 3 faction. With that in mind, we’ve ranked every Total War: Warhammer 3 faction from best to worst based on their strength, simplicity, and unique mechanics, so that you know which to use and which to avoid.
Below, we'll provide our Total War: Warhammer 3 factions tier list and then explain these rankings, covering what made each faction deserve their position.
]]>Looking for a Total War: Warhammer 3 beginner’s guide? Humans, Daemons, and Ogres collide in a brutal war, as Total War: Warhammer 3 is finally here. The strategy threequel brings some welcome changes to the series, including a siege battle rework and survival battles that will provide new thrills for Total War enthusiasts. However, if you’re new to the Total War franchise, or have decided to give Total War: Warhammer 3 a try on Game Pass PC, then you might feel a little lost. Fortunately, we’ve got a simple guide that should help explain everything you need to know.
Below, you’ll find 10 essential tips and tricks for Total War: Warhammer 3 that will explain the basics you need to learn if you want to become a powerful leader and conquer your foes.
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]]>Total War: Warhammer 3 is an extremely hard game to review in isolation. It’s utterly massive in itself, with eight hulking single player campaigns at launch, not to mention a greatly expanded range of multiplayer and PvE skirmish options. But that’s just the start of it. For indeed, just like beloved Warhammer villain Ebeneezer Scrooge, any attempt to form an opinion on this game has to contend not just with the present, but with the bedevilments of its past and future to boot.
While it is very much a game you can buy and enjoy on its lonesome, TWW3 is perhaps better considered as the last, grand instalment of a game whose release began nearly eight years ago with Total War: Warhammer. It’s a genuinely epic construction; a proper Pillars-Of-The Earth-level feat of game development. And here’s where the future sticks the boot in. Because while the last stones of this electric cathedral have been lowered into place, the phone line to God hasn’t been wired in yet.
]]>The first time I wrote about Total War: Warhammer, Ed Milliband had just lost a general election because of a sandwich. There’s a joke there about him stepping down but the Chaos having remained, but I can’t figure it out. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is this: it’s been almost seven years since then. SEVEN! And I’m still head over heels in love with these games even now. Somehow, impossibly, that seems to be holding true for Warhammer 3 as well.
In a recent hands-on event, I was able to play something like eight hours worth of this final game in the trilogy from the comfort of my own spare room. Having not done a “digital preview” before now, this was something of a revelation to me. Wearing my comfortable clothes and with a steady supply of big mugs of tea, I booted up the game, hit ‘New Campaign’ and was greeted with the following screen.
]]>2022 is finally here and that can only mean one thing. We've got another year of hip new video games to look forward to, and we've been busy rustling up the ones we're most excited about. In truth, there are tons of games on the horizon that could easily sit on this list, and some of them are so close to release we can practically already see the pixels on our screens morphing into their lush, polygonal landscapes. Games like Monster Hunter Rise, God Of War and Rainbow Six Extraction. You won't find them here, but trust us, you'll be seeing a lot of them over the coming weeks.
There are always more games coming out than we have fingers to write about them, but the 2022 games we've listed below are the ones the RPS team are personally most looking forward to playing. We've got games big and small here, and they're all listed in alphabetical order. After all, release dates are increasingly slippery beasts these days. Think we've missed something? Why not take to the comments below and tell us all about it. You might just convince us to put it on our radars. But enough from me. Here are our 43 most anticipated games of 2022.
]]>I don't know my Warhammer from my Warlathe, Warchisel or Warphillipsheadscrewdriver. You, you might watch the reveal trailer for Total War: Warhammer III's campaign map and think, "Gosh, what a beautiful rendering of the home of Katarin Bokha, the ice queen of Kislev." Me, I'm just enjoying it for the pretty textures and fog effects.
]]>While some Chaos gods have perfectly reasonable cover stories for their interests in pursuits like decay and mutation or murder and mutilation (I mean, one can hardly get skulls for one's skull throne at Ikea), Slaneesh is unashamedly 'horny on main' (as middle-aged people like me believe young people might still say, possibly?). This much is clear in a new trailer which introduces the Slaneesh of Total War: Warhammer 3, clad in hot pinks and meat lingerie.
]]>Oh Xbox Game Pass, that subscription service I constantly forget that I have. It's always nice to be pleasantly surprised by new games I didn't expect to play (or had no plans to buy outright). Microsoft have detailed a bunch more games I'll likely be surprised by coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC when they launch over the next year or so - from epic space RPG Starfield, to Arkane's vampire hunting adventure Redfall. It looks like they're revealing more later this week too.
]]>After taking a deep breath, Sega have shouted a large amount of news about Total War: Warhammer 3's launch. For starters, the release date is February 17th, 2022. For main course, folks who buy it within a week of launch will get the Ogre Kingdoms DLC for free. And for dessert, it will be in Xbox Game Pass For PC. A fair meal, there. But here, come meet the Ogres in this new trailer below.
]]>After a lot of explaining how the factions of Grand Cathay and Tzeentch will work in Total War: Warhammer 3, Creative Assembly today demonstrated with a nine-minute video dramatically recapping a battle between the two. The third game in their fantasy real-time strategy series has needed to invent and fill out a lot of armies not present in the tabletop game, so it's interesting to see them in action. Got some nice colours and weird warmen, at the very least.
]]>The mysterious army of Grand Cathay have finally been revealed for Total War: Warhammer 3, wearing their Chinese influences plainly. Grand Cathay have existed in the world of Warhammer (Warlore? Lorehammer?) for almost 30 years but not fielded a full plastic army, so one had to be created for Creative Assembly's fantasy strategy game. Led by dragons in human form, they field forces including Jade Warriors, towering Terracotta Sentinels, and the Celestial Dragon Guard. Come meet 'em in the new trailer below.
]]>Alright, someone has to apologise to the neighbours and round up the dogs of war, because Total War: Warhammer 3 has been delayed. Previously expected late this year, the trilogy-concluding strategy game based on Games Workshop's fantasy plastic world is now due in 2022. The developers, Creative Assembly say they want to make sure it's good, yeah?
]]>As the 40K fellowship are known to say, "you'll have my hammer" and also my hammer and that hammer and anything vaguely hammer-shaped hidden in the kitchen cabinet. That's right, Games Workshop hosted their yearly Warhammering announcement event and there was an entire hammer parade. They announced upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters, the final DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2, a closed beta for Blood Bowl 3, and a whole hammerful of other things.
]]>One thing I had not known about the Kislev until I saw Total War: Warhammer 3's new trailer: their armies have sleighs full of riflemen pulled by bears. To be honest, it's exactly the sort of nonsense I should have expected from a Games Workshop faction of magical Notrussians. And yet, I am surprised and delighted. Here, come watch the trailer to see more of their forces, including polar bears, spectral snow leopards, and... some sort of Rasputin?
]]>In the end, the finals of the 2021 Total War: Warhammer World Championship come down to an overextension. French finalist Alfredino’s Archmage of Fire, leading his High Elves from the back of a giant eagle, pushes past the safety provided by ranks of elite archers. His Russian opponent Evenstar's Wood Elf caster drops a Tempest spell. The arcane whirlwind plays havoc with Alfredino’s Archmage, leaving the elf caster wounded and near immobilised. It’s then the Wood Elves’ deadly arrows come, sealing the Archmage’s fate.
Losing a general is always a morale hit, but for players this practised, it isn’t always a death sentence. In this case it’s a disadvantage Alfredino, despite some excellent cavalry plays, never quite manages to recover from. The finals wrap, and Evenstar takes the lion’s share of the $4,200 prize pool. A relatively humble figure, as far as organised e-sports go, but this isn’t some sponsored, glitzy event.
]]>Tower defence and Total War are not, you might think, two tastes that go particularly well together. You’d be surprised. Last month, I got to play one of the set piece battles from Total War: Warhammer 3, which saw an army of furious fantasy Slavs, battling to fortify a toehold in their invasion of hell. There were barricades built, hoards of devil dogs wiped out by AI-controlled, magic-spaffing turrets, a gigantic polar bear made out of moss and dirt. You know, normal, reasonable things. And it was bloody wonderful.
]]>Kislev and Khorne are going head to head in the newest Total War: Warhammer 3 trailer that just landed today. The next part of Creative Assembly's series is giving some serious love to the snowy folks of fantasy Russia with cavalry bears, magical bears, and other pretty cool looking icy units. You can spot the lot in the new cinematic trailer right here ahead of the gameplay reveal that's still scheduled for tomorrow.
]]>Do...do you feel that, reader? The snap of cold in the air? The thud of heavy feet on the frozen earth? Ah, but it must be our imagination yet. But wait. Do you hear it, reader? The scrape of mighty antlers as they brush through the pine branches? The frantic chuckling of a turkey? Oh no, no, not now. We thought we had escaped her this year. We made the obeisances; we left a glass of Monster Energy on by the hearth. Tremble, for it is the mighty terror wreathed in bone and wire; it is she, who augurs the future in the innards of her flock of eternal turkeys, each one disgorging the promise of a future video game.
It is the fearsome giantess Horaszdóttir. The harshest of all deities. The winter god of game releases yet to come. She has come again, to push our faces to the turkey giblets, and make us see and tell of the desires we hold - desires for games in 2021. Unbidden, the words come to us, and we must describe our most anticipated titles for the year ahead. What will it be today, dread Horaszdóttir? Only tell us, and we will obey! Ah, it is the tricksy genre, that beloved of warmongers and managers, builders and battlers. It is... strategy games!
]]>There’s not a lot about Total War: Warhammer 3 that couldn’t have been worked out by reasonable deduction, in the three-and-a-bit years since its predecessor launched in 2017. Given the Twarhammer trilogy’s long-stated aim of reproducing pretty much every faction and scrap of land in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle setting, there were only so many places it could go.
True to expectations, then, after Twarhammer 2 spread the map westwards to the lizards-’n’-elves carnage of pretend South America, this time we’re going to be headed East, to the region of Warhammer’s Old World setting centred around pretend China, aka Cathay, and pretend Russia, aka Kislev.
]]>The hordes of Chaos will finally hit the battlefield this year with Total War: Warhammer 3, announced today by Creative Assembly and Sega. Along with the four main flavours of Chaos (Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch), the third game in the strategy series will add the polar bear-riding Kislev and China analogue Cathay. Here, come watch a Kislev ice witch give a daemon a kicking in the cinematic trailer.
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