The future of Total War: Warhammer 3

[Serrano]

Hi everyone, I don’t know if there are many Total War players here but it’s mainly been the only game I’ve played for well over a year now. I used to love roleplaying games and anything with a story but I just don’t have time for them anymore. Warhammer 3 is brilliant for just wasting a couple of hours without any pesky story details or character builds to keep track of. For those who don’t know, this is obviously the third game in the series and with each sequel they’ve combined the previous races, DLC and maps to make a giant mega-campaign called Immortal Empires. The game is pretty huge by now but there are still a couple of factions that feel a bit limited or outdated compared to the others and originally the plan was that Warhammer 3 would get several more years worth of DLC. In a recent DLC called Shadows of Change there was massive community backlash due to the DLC being released at a high price with a lot less content and polish than fan felt the DLC was worth, then also there were a couple of PR disasters with badly handled public statements and heavy handed forum moderating. Sega have recently done two rounds of layoffs at Creative Assembly in no small part in relation to this, which is a shame because the most recent DLC Thrones of Decay was very well received and things have got a lot better on the PR front. Rumour has it that the plan has now changed and that the game will only get I think around one and half years worth of support and around 4-6 more DLC. If true this really sucks because there was still a lot of really cool things that could potentially be added to the game. Most if not all of the tabletop races have already been added but CA have added quite a lot of obscure things from Warhammer lore into the game and in some cases almost entirely created races from scratch which have turned out really well. Plus they’ve made this giant world map and two regions of the map are very conspicuously off limits. I think at this point, if the rumours are true which is looking increasingly likely, I’m hoping that CA will at least do a DLC for the last two chaos god factions and also release a rework for Norsca who probably need it the most out of all the races. But even though if they stopped working on the game immediately I think there’s certainly enough content and the game is stable enough to declare it finished already, it does sting knowing that there is so much really fun stuff they could have added to the game still that will probably never be implemented now. Because despite everything CA have proven that they’re a really talented studio and despite all the problems the TW:W series has faced, it has been an incredible trilogy and accomplishment for them.   

What do you guys think? Do you think the game is about to get scrapped in favour if Total War 40k or some other title? What do you think about Warhammer 3’s lifespan possibly being greatly reduced but them doubling down on Pharaoh? That rumour is wild, I mean it looks very much like it’s true but as an outside observer that seems like such a strange decision given that Pharaoh absolutely bombed at launch and Warhammer 3 has been CA’s main title.

[melkathi]

I was hoping for a bit more Dwarf love than what was added in Thrones of Decay.

I have trouble getting into the game though. Any faction you ally with will basically stop playing and get overrun. If you play Kislev, dwarves will get steamrolled by orcs. Empire will get wiped out by nurgle and vampires. If you play Dark Elves vampires will get wiped out by the Empire. So basically, if you have a favourite faction and want to see them win, play one of the opposing factions - the faction you like will wipe out the map and all you have to do is lose to them.

Edited June 3 by melkathi

[Serrano]

Maybe that is partly tied to the difficulty? I always play on normal because I don't like the way the difficulty slider works by buffing the ai with extra gold and units with stats that are inflated quite dramatically, I really wish it would just make the AI more intelligent. In my experience a group of order or chaos factions will ally with each other and then dominate pretty early on, but I've been part of that order/chaos tide just as often as I've been against it.

[melkathi]

I couldn't bring myself to put up with the guy's rambling.

He talks too much.

Repeats himself too much.

But the gist seems to be that there are plans for a year and a half of content. Some of it Cathay.

 

[Serrano]

A lot of people are upset with this because there are rumoured to be about 4-6 DLC left before they end Warhammer 3's support and that means a third of that would be Cathay who just had an update The main point of their argument is that there are other factions that could use extra units and mechancis a lot more, which is true, but it still improves the game to have more units and characters regardless of which race is updated. I'd rather get the Khorne and Slaanesh DLC to finish fleshing out the chaos god factions but I'm sure whatever Creative Assembley release will still be good so I'm happy to wait and see what they come up with. 

 

 

 

 

[Serrano]

Creative Assembley have said that the next DLC is going to be Khorne, Ogre Kingdoms and Greenskins. So it looks like all of the rumours were false which is great news. There's more info coming on the 26th and possibly a new roadmap.

[melkathi]

Nice.

I found the rumour dudes annoying.

[EolVoid]

I totally get where you’re coming from! Total War: Warhammer 3 has been my go-to for a while now, and it’s frustrating to hear about the possible cutbacks. The blend of factions and deep lore really drew me in, especially with the more obscure elements they added. If they do shift focus to Total War 40k, I can’t help but feel like they’re leaving a lot of potential behind with Warhammer 3. I was really hoping for more DLCs, especially for the chaos gods and a Norsca rework, since they definitely need it. It’s just a letdown to think about all the cool content we might miss out on, especially after all the fun I've had with the game.

 

[uuuhhii]

a pirate themed dlc with dark elf norsca and vampire coast maybe

it is rare to be bounce back from failure so fast like ca

first with warhammer 3 base game and immortal empire

second with shadow of change and throne of decay

it is certainly better performance than most big developer right now

[Serrano]

On 10/15/2024 at 7:00 PM, EolVoid said:

I totally get where you’re coming from! Total War: Warhammer 3 has been my go-to for a while now, and it’s frustrating to hear about the possible cutbacks. The blend of factions and deep lore really drew me in, especially with the more obscure elements they added. If they do shift focus to Total War 40k, I can’t help but feel like they’re leaving a lot of potential behind with Warhammer 3. I was really hoping for more DLCs, especially for the chaos gods and a Norsca rework, since they definitely need it. It’s just a letdown to think about all the cool content we might miss out on, especially after all the fun I've had with the game.

 

I'm a lot more optimistic at the moment than I was a few months ago. CA seem to be putting in a lot of effort with their community update videos and obviously the quality in Thrones of Decay and the Empire rework has been really high. It seems unlikely that they'd bother to throw this much effort into the game if they were about to walk away from it. They've mentioned wanting to update Norsca previously and now they're saying they want to revisit Bretonia too so all the signs point to CA and Sega still being serious about supporting Warhammer 3. Maybe they're planning less DLCs in total now but I think by the time they're done the game is going to be in a better state than it is currently (But I do think the game is already brilliant as is). Legend of Total War's rumour video had me worried they were just going to abandon the game outright. 

Edited Thursday at 10:18 PM by Serrano

[Serrano]