Geek Interview – Total War: Warhammer III Might Be Creative Assembly’s Best Work Yet

When you are working on a trilogy, it is hard not to look at it as the end. After all, this will represent the natural conclusion of an arc, but it could very well also be laying the foundations for starting something new. For the folks over at Sega and Creative Assembly, Total War: Warhammer III represents the culmination of everything they have learned, and the results are set to be spectacular.

We spent a considerable amount of time in an early preview of the game, but it was also important that we understand the thought processes behind putting something as substantial as this together. Thankfully, James Whitston (Lead Battle Designer) and Mark Sinclair (Lead Campaign Designer) were on hand to share their wisdom.

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There’s no running away from how massive the Total War games are, and Warhammer III is no different. In fact, it might actually be the most complicated one thus far, with eight different races all battling for dominance in different ways. However, that kind of depth was never meant to be a barrier for players.

“We’ve made so many different quality of life changes and so many little features that are much more accessible now. We’re shipping the game with the prologue that’s going to really help new players get on board, understand the new features, understand how Total War plays,” Sinclair explained.

“We want to do everything, we want to appeal to everyone. So things have been specifically designed to be very recognisable and familiar to our veteran player, there’s a lot of parallels there, Whitston added.

“We put a lot of focus into helping to onboard people who aren’t perhaps familiar with the series. The prologue, the quality of life improvements, having the advisor in the game, and it’s basically all about, kind of taking new players by the hand and saying, this is, you know, this feature and this is how you use it.”

And once you get into the thick of it, it becomes clear that this is vintage Total War with all of the systems running, but more importantly, this time around, there is a clear narrative backbone that showcases more of an emphasis on storytelling and driving players forward, even if it can be an optional thing.

It serves as “an onboarding mechanism, and also drives the campaign,” and as Whitson stated, it unfolds concurrently on the open-world sandbox, and players can still choose to “paint the map red and win.” However, should you take the plunge, players will enjoy all kinds of “high points and crescendos,” participate in “epic, survival battles” and end the campaign with a bang rather than a whimper.

“You’re never left kicking your heels wondering what to do next,” and this is only but the beginning of things to come.

In fact, you will have plenty to do in all kinds of ways thanks to the variety of races available, of which we had the pleasure of leading as the Grand Cathay and the Daemons of Chaos. As Sinclair emphasised, “all the races are completely unique, and they play completely differently. So they’re almost like their own game in their own right. So there really is something for everyone I think.”

No two campaigns are going to turn out the same, and if you are looking for even more customizability and freedom to tailor your gameplay, then you would be very happy about the 500 billion combinations available to the Daemon Prince hero of the Daemons of Chaos.

According to Whitston, “this is the biggest game that we’ve done within the trilogy in terms of the number of playable races that are available to play on day one. So there’s a lot of work that goes into each of those races and the Daemon Prince is one of those.”

“You could spend one game focusing just on Khorne and getting those body parts and then start again and focus on another or combine the two. At the same time, you can switch mid-game so if you come across a specific enemy that requires a different playstyle you can just switch it up. So I think we’ve really nailed that replayability factor,” Sinclair concluded.

It is not just the campaign that has gotten a boost in the arm, with Creative Assembly understanding that there is a huge multiplayer audience for Total War: Warhammer III waiting in the wings as well. On that front, it has been all about expanding the scope and scale of games, which is why up to eight players can enjoy the campaign together.

Simultaneous turns are now possible, so no more waiting for each player to take their time and slow down the process. Even in battles, one can gift units to allies to spice things up. For those on a time crunch, the team has also included other campaigns which “allow players to jump in and complete in an evening.”

“We’ve got Domination battles now and the ethos behind those was to have battles in which players have the opportunity to come back, perhaps from a bad situation, bring on reinforcements to reconfigure your army,” Whitston shared.

“In some of our past battles. The army that you pick before the battle almost kind of determines the outcome of the battle if you pick badly and your opponent had already countered that, there was very little you can do about that. But within Domination battles, you can reconfigure your army on the fly. So yeah, we were kind of pushing the game in all areas.”

At this stage, Total War: Warhammer III has delivered on a whole other scale compared to previous games, and even with so much going, the gameplay is not quite approaching the bloated territory yet.

There is room to manoeuvre as different races, and different ways of strengthening one’s grip on the world, and in its battles, that rush of adrenaline still provides a sense of enjoyment unlike any other. We simply cannot wait until Total War: Warhammer III launches on 17 February.