"Total War: Warhammer 3" in review: epic strategy battles for beginners and pros alike

This is an article from our content partner "PC Games". Here you can find the original article by the two authors Andreas Altenheimer and Benedikt Plass-Flessenkämpe.

"Epic" computer games abound, but the Total War series is a beast all its own beyond that. Whether you're fighting in ancient Rome, leading a campaign through feudal Japan as the Shogun, or conquering the three legendary kingdoms of China, in each game you build your empire turn by turn, cooperate with friendly nations, and command entire armies full of polygon soldiers bashing each other's heads in large-scale battles. Almost every Total War makes reference to historical events and real facts that we know from history classes. Among the few exceptions are the two Warhammer installments from 2016 and 2017, which are based on Games Workshop's tabletop classic of the same name and mix the 4X strategy concept with a heavy dose of fantasy and magic. Strictly speaking, developer Creative Assembly aimed for a trilogy from the beginning, which now comes to an end with "Total War: Warhammer 3".

Already during the installation, you'll notice that the motto of the Brits is "Don't spill it, make it count": The game takes up a whopping 112 gigabytes of memory on your hard drive. This means that the third installment is almost twice as thick as its predecessor, which in turn has an effect on the presentation. First and foremost, the graphics look less colorful or even artificial; instead, the environment is bursting with details and provides a much darker atmosphere thanks to its subtle color scheme. In addition, there are short, but wonderfully staged cutscenes and a harmonious orchestral soundtrack.

Unfortunately, you have to be prepared for long loading times, which take several minutes per save state or battle in the case of an HDD storage medium. You should therefore free up enough space on an SSD drive to significantly reduce the waiting time.

Familiar strategy fun

The core gameplay of "Total War: Warhammer 3" has remained the same at first glance: You build up your empire in a turn-based mode, move your armies across the world map in the form of small game pieces, equip already conquered cities with new buildings and maintain diplomatic relations with other factions. If, on the other hand, a conflict arises between two hostile parties, you'll usually be able to decide: Do you want to let the computer generate the outcome or would you rather fight the battle yourself?

In the former case, in contrast to the previous Total War games, you'll receive much more concrete information about what the final result will probably look like. In addition to a rough chance of success, all units that will most likely lose their lives now flash red.

If you want to fight, on the other hand, Total War switches to real-time mode and puts you in command of hundreds of soldiers. These are grouped into units and are divided into different types, which you'll use as efficiently as possible against the enemy troops, as in a complex rock-paper-scissors principle. Archers work best in the background and are a good means against swordsmen, mounted units should flank ranged fighters from the side, with the spearmen you outmaneuver the cavalry and the swordsmen ideally decimate those very spearmen at close range.

Thanks to the Warhammer setting, there are also numerous flying creatures and giant demons, not to mention the commanders' multi-layered magic skills. The latter also provide a fair amount of role-playing flair by gaining strength with increasing combat experience, being allowed to wear equipment and learning a new combat skill with every level-up or at least improving an old one.

One of the biggest weaknesses of "Total War: Warhammer 3" is the AI, which sometimes takes on strange excesses within the real-time battles. While you as the player take care to distribute your units separately and specifically to your opponents, the computer too often relies on blind rush-and-attack tactics.

In addition, we noticed some strange dropouts in the test, which we observed in the "normal" difficulty level. The best example: Once we brazenly placed our archers in the front row and shot at a unit standing in the foreground. The computer, on the other hand, didn't move, even though masses of arrows rained down on its soldiers. Only when half of them lay dead on the ground did he act and move his troops.

Regardless, there are many possibilities and sources of error that can lead to failure of your plans for conquest - whether you run out of money while expanding your cities or are overrun by the enemy's suddenly advancing reinforcements in a battle. That's why the series already stands out massively in the lower difficulty levels from more accessible competitor products like Sid Meier's Civilization. It is true that the controls are well sorted considering the high complexity, and numerous in-game helpers specifically explain your questions. However, we miss a classic manual that you can comfortably browse through from front to back and where you don't have to laboriously click from one keyword to the next.

Nevertheless, Creative Assembly has come up with something especially for "Total War: Warhammer 3" to help beginners: an extensive prologue campaign, in which you play the role of the Kislev race and get a large part of the game mechanics explained. The campaign takes several hours and sets very specific objectives that you'll have to fulfill bit by bit. At the same time, it doesn't get lost in details and leaves many nuances and facets open. It simply focuses on the essentials, namely conquering cities, the basics of diplomacy and, of course, handling your army within a battle. That's a good thing!

Faction overkill

Of course, the developers have also thought of their loyal fans and impress first with an enormously large scope, which also contributes to the game's hard drive hunger. There are eight independent races with which you can fight the main campaign "The Realm of Chaos". The aforementioned Kislev race is roughly based on our local Russian culture, while the Cathay are distant relatives of the Chinese. If you don't fancy human units, it's best to choose the subordinates of the four mighty Chaos gods Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch or Slaanesh. The octet is rounded off by the chaos demons and the inhabitants of the ogre kingdoms. However, the latter are part of a DLC that only first-time buyers who purchase "Total War: Warhammer 3" by February 24, 2022 will get for free.

Video games

Sega Total War: Warhammer 3

PC, DE

2

Video games

Sega Total War: Warhammer 3 Day One Edition

PC, FR

The story of the campaign, by the way, directly follows the end of the prologue. According to it, Yuri Barkov was led astray by the demon prince Be'lakor and manipulated into mortally wounding the bear god Ursun. Depending on which race you play, you'll pursue different goals accordingly: While the humans of Kislev and Cathay want to save Ursun, the underlings of the Chaos Gods want to see him dead for good.

Moreover, each race has its own game mechanics, which makes for quite a bit of variety. For example, the Slaanesh are able to seduce enemy units and turn them to their own side, while the Tzeentch can manipulate the enemy with the help of the transformation of paths and force a war between two friendly factions.

Some races even shine with really innovative ideas that will require you to completely rethink your army structure. The best example: the Cathay, who live for a balanced relationship between the Yin and Yang forces. That is, constructing buildings, recruiting units, or researching a new technology shifts the compass either toward yin or toward yang. And the more balanced this ratio is, the more efficiently your empire will operate.

Another unique feature of the Cathay race is caravans, which allow you to build trade routes to the Kislevs. But be careful: the caravans march across the game world like independent units and are therefore at the mercy of surprise attacks from the enemy, which you'll have to fend off in case of doubt.

Dare more diplomacy

Apart from that, Creative Assembly has mainly focused on the diplomacy aspect and expanded it with useful features. Especially important: If you lead a military alliance with another faction, then you automatically collect so-called alliance points. You can spend these points in several ways, for example to borrow a unit from the ally or to ask him to defend one of your cities.

Things get really interesting once you set up outposts in the cities of your friendly faction: After that, you'll have their unit types at your disposal, which you can recruit from now on and combine with your own troops.

Other diplomacy innovations relate to the exchange of settlements or the quick trade already introduced in Total War: Three Kingdoms, thanks to which you can see all chances of success with all available factions at a glance.

Now with up to eight players simultaneously

If you prefer to play with friends, you can of course play the main campaign online. In this respect, "Total War: Warhammer 3" once again differs from its predecessor in two points: Firstly, this time up to eight players can compete against each other, and secondly, all participants also perform their actions on the world map simultaneously instead of one after the other. This gives the turn-based part a certain real-time factor, because you can literally run away from another player's units and take refuge in one of your cities.

On top of that, there are two more bonus campaigns, which are mainly meant for multiplayer sessions. While "Darkness and Discord" also features up to eight players fighting each other, "Something is rotten in the state of Kislev" is much more compact. Creative Assembly has explicitly designed the mini-campaign for a long afternoon, in which up to three opponents can go through a complete adventure.

If you don't feel like playing one of the campaigns and just want to fight out a few battles, then you can choose to compete with the computer AI or again with a few friends. A large part of the game modes, such as "Land Battle" or "Siege", are already familiar to veterans from the previous Total War games. New, however, is the so-called "Survival Battle": here you advance with your army from one node to the next and have to defend yourself against several waves of enemies. To compensate, you can recruit fresh units directly on the battlefield and build protective walls to slow down the onslaught of your enemies.

Conclusion: a Total War for beginners and pros alike

The Total War series overwhelms many a beginner with its complexity. There's so much to keep in mind and why I'm in danger of failing at numerous corners. No wonder: Creative Assembly has always had trouble giving a good overview of all the important game mechanics - until now. Because exactly in this respect, "Total War: Warhammer 3" is a big step in the right direction. The extensive prologue campaign was long overdue: It's true that newcomers will feel overwhelmed at first due to the many icons and options. However, if they simply let themselves go and follow the instructions, they'll realize over time: "Oops, it's not really that hard! Veterans, on the other hand, will be happy about the huge scope, the sometimes wonderfully innovative factions (Cathay!) and all the improvements around diplomacy. Only with the AI should the makers sit down again and iron out one or two inconsistencies.

Pro

• The most comprehensive "Total War: Warhammer" to date
• Eight independent races with partly really innovative game mechanics
• Greatly expanded diplomacy options, which, among other things, allow a mix of units from different factions
• Very well written prologue, which skillfully explains all important game elements
• Strong presentation and great atmosphere
• Multiplayer campaign with up to eight players possible

Contra

• Despite the prologue campaign, still not an easy game to learn
• Very long loading times (especially on HDD hard drives)
• Eats up over 100 gigabytes of hard drive space
• Unattractive AI dropouts in the battles