Sega and Creative Assembly are ready to unleash literal Anarchy into Total War: Warhammer II. The new game mode will give players sixteen different ways to alter game play that is “aimed squarely at those with powerful gaming PCs”. The new mode is being made in cooperation with Intel and via the Total War Laboratory.
What exactly does that mean? You can, for instance, increase unit sizes to be gigantic or, conversely, teeny tiny. You can remove gravity or increase impact force to create chaos.
The new Anarchy game mode will be coming to the game on December 14th and we can’t wait to see what players come up with.
Anarchy Reigns
Here’s a sampling of the FAQ on the Total War: Warhammer II site.
The Laboratory offers a brand new free game mode for Total War: WARHAMMER II, designed in collaboration with Intel®. It introduces a custom battle playground with 16 different sliders to tinker and play with to push your battles to new and ridiculous levels of mayhem.
While all players will be able to play in The Laboratory, it is entirely free of any minimum or recommended specification guidance. As a result, sliders that effect GPU or CPU performance can easily override your main performance settings unless you have a very high-powered PC. This can negatively impact your frame rate or likely cause gameplay behaviours you won’t see in the main game.
This is intentional and very much the point of The Laboratory!
When can I play with The Laboratory? Do I have to pay?
The Laboratory game mode will be available in a free update for Total War: WARHAMMER II on the 14th of December. It will automatically be added into the game in an update on that day, and you can access it from the main menu, under ‘Battles’.
What can I do with The Laboratory?
The Laboratory will allow players to tamper with 16 sliders that drastically change the makeup of a traditional Total War battlefield. Players can ramp up the unit sizes to have horizon-spanning hordes of clan rats, remove or lower gravity to see enemies fly through the air and increase impact force to see unparalleled destruction amongst your enemies’ ranks.
It’s very much a toybox to play with, and subtle changes and combinations of the sliders can produce varied and drastically different results and challenges for you to overcome – or just sit back and enjoy the carnage!
The full list of settings you can adjust are:
- Unit Size – Increase the number of soldiers per unit and single units’ health
- Winds of Magic – Increase the availability of Winds of Magic for spellcasting
- Explosions – Increase the size of explosion and vortex spells
- Vigour Cost Reduction – Make units stay fresh for longer
- Reload Time – Reduce the amount of time it takes to reload ranged weapons
- Ammunition – Increase the total amount of shots per ranged unit
- Projectile Penetration – Increase the distance projectiles can travel through enemies
- Gravity – Decrease the effect of Gravity on units who are knocked into the air
- Ability Radius – Increase the effect radius of abilities
- Ability Recharge Reduction – Reduces recharge time on abilities
- Charge Duration – Increase the duration of time it takes for charge bonus to fade away
- Entity Scale – Increase or decrease the size of single unit entities like Lords and Monsters
If you hit on a particularly interesting combination of sliders, you can share them with other players.