The daemons are coming.
Creative Assembly's gearing up to finish off its bloodthirsty, fantastical trilogy, finally announcing Total War: Warhammer 3. It's been a much longer wait than the gap between the previous Warhammers, but it's also shaping up to be considerably larger, pitting six factions—four of them following the Gods of Chaos—against each other in a map that covers the Realm of Chaos and the Lands of the East.
Below you'll find everything we know about Warhammer 3 so far, and make sure to check back later, as we ferret out more details.
Warhammer 3 is coming out in late 2021 via Steam and the Epic Games Store, but we don't have a specific date yet.
We're heading to the Realm of Chaos this time, as well as the Lands of the East. The former is a dimension of Chaos and magic, where the evil Chaos Gods squabble and plot their conquests. It's connected to the mortal world, but also very much its own thing, defying the laws of reality and being shaped by thought and emotion. It's not yet clear how Creative Assembly is going to present this, given how mutable it is, or how you'll get from the regular world to this spirit realm.
The Lands of the East, meanwhile, are a bit closer to a real-world location. Expect some similarities to Russia and China, but with hobgoblins, ogres, marauding worshipers of Chaos and other fantastical elements.
It's also going to be huge. "In campaign map terms, it's big… roughly twice the size of Warhammer 2's Eye of the Vortex map," game director Ian Roxburgh told us in our Total War: Warhammer 3 interview.
Warhammer 3's launching with six factions, predominantly full of daemons. Chaos will be represented by the armies of Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch, while the human factions of Cathay and Kislev will be opposing them.
Cathay and Kislev don't have armies in the tabletop game right now, though Games Workshop is putting together a Kislev army for its resurrection of the Old World setting. This means we're going to be in for some surprises, and you can expect some brand new daemonic creatures as well.
Confirmed units include Bloodletters, Bloodthirsters, bear cavalry and powerful lord units like Katarin, the Ice Queen of Kislev, all of which you can see below.
Yes! Give it a watch above. It's just a cinematic, but it sets the scene. It's focused on Katarin, who is preparing to face daemons and warriors of Chaos with the forces of Kislev. At the end, we also see a map that teases Cathay. There's no in-game footage or screenshots yet, unfortunately.
Mortal Empires is a mega campaign that combines the maps and factions of the first two games. It's huge, and it's incredible. It's also going to be getting a lot larger. It's not clear when the updated campaign will launch, though it will probably be a bit after the main game.
When it first arrived, Mortal Empires was very slow. Hitting 'End Turn' gave you enough time to make a cup of tea and read at least one chapter of a book. Since then, Creative Assembly's worked magic on the engine and, given the sheer scale of the campaign, it's now surprisingly quick. At least when it comes to waiting for your turn. It still takes a million years to finish a campaign.
Creative Assembly's still focused on performance, so you can expect more improvements this time around.
The previous games, Warhammer 2 in particular, enjoyed lots of free and premium DLC, along with lots of significant updates and overhauls. More of the same will be coming with Warhammer 3, though Creative Assembly hasn't specified what we can expect.
Hints, on the other hand, are aplenty. We know Creative Assembly wants to use every army, and we know it's also willing to include stuff that doesn't have armies. With that in mind, an Ogre and Nippon faction seem likely, given that both are neighbours and rivals of Cathay. People have been keeping their fingers crossed for a Chaos Dwarf faction, too, and at this point I wouldn't rule any of them out.
The question is what shape the DLC will take. With Warhammer 2, Creative Assembly decided against introducing lots of mini-campaigns, instead releasing loads of new lords, accompanied by new mechanics, units and quirks. It was definitely the right call, and I suspect we'll see the same here.
