Total War: Warhammer 3 is the sixteenth mainstream game belonging to the beloved Total War strategy series developed by Creative Assembly and the third game taking place in the Warhammer fantasy universe.
As an explosive conclusion to the trilogy, the game takes the series to the new heights, utilizing everything offered in the two previous titles and adding a variety of new content such as the revamped Diplomacy system.
In Total War: Warhammer 3, you find yourself in the midst of conflict between the forces of Chaos, Grand Cathay, Kislev and Ogre Clans, seeking the fallen god-bear Ursun. Whether it is to free the deity or to use the crumbs of his might towards furthering your own goal, you will have to make haste to be the first to claim the divine power.
Note: this review covers only the single-player portion of the game.
For someone unfamiliar both with the Total War series and the Warhammer fantasy universe, the thought of delving into TW:WH3 was a daunting one. Not only is there a huge wealth of story to take in but the way mechanics and features of Total War connect together into one massive system is nothing short of breathtaking – and a bit overwhelming, even a few dozens of hours in.
Sure, you might have encountered turn-based exploration, technology research, hero-leveling, base-buildings and massive army battles split between Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic and Mount and Blade franchises, but to have it all at once, in a single game? That’s enough to scare a newbie away before the first fight against the daemons of Chaos.
Thankfully, Total War: Warhammer 3 has a lengthy prologue serving as the tutorial mission to get you well on your way towards greatness. Playing through it can take a couple of hours, but between learning the mechanics and the lore behind the overall conflict around Ursun? It’s well worth it.
In Prologue: The Lost God, you learn what is so important about Ursun and what does it mean to have him absent as you take control of a young Kislevite prince Yuri Barkov. The narrative hook is strong in this one. The game meticulously introduces you to various mechanics and features, element by element – from the UI to character movement and ending your turn to building up cities, army battles and sieges.
So meticulously, in fact, that you might want to hurry it up from time to time as more and more pop-ups appear before you can actually continue playing.
Once you choose your side, the campaign starts off small and humble, usually with a single city and a single lord to wrangle, allowing players to adjust to complexity of the series and ease into the world of Warhammer and its diverse factions before ramping up the stakes.
However, while the prologue might have given you enough information about starting your game, it is certainly nowhere near enough to master it. Especially when you add faction-specific features such as the Motherland and Ice Court for Kislev, Harmony for Grand Cathay and others, diplomacy, a hundred other factions on the map alongside you – and the entirety of it slowly spinning out of control as you go.
Soon enough you will find yourself dealing with new features and threats from all sides: hero equipment, income fluctuation, daemon rifts opening up, corruption, control, a million side-quests and enemy spies sneaking about your cities and outposts.
Every dozen turns or so, there will be a number of rifts opening up and leading to the Chaos Realms. As it usually goes with such things, they open a way for the daemonic armies to pour into your lands and mess up the orderly way you have set up your empire.
The game’s main quest requires your main lord to venture into the rift with a mighty army and collect four quest items scattered around four different realms. The bigger your holdings and the longer you take in pursuing this task, the harder it becomes to keep everything under control.
The game makes a valiant effort to explore and explain these things on the fly, but chances are you will not be making optimal decisions and it will come back biting you fifteen-twenty hours later when the stakes rise high enough that mistakes can actually spell your delayed doom if you take too long.
On the other hand, if you tackle the main quest about venturing into the Chaos Realms seriously and don’t stretch too thin to keep things from spiraling, you might find that the game reaches its conclusion entirely too soon.
One of the things I’d have liked to see expanded more is the main story. As I mentioned before, I’m a newcomer both to Total War and Warhammer franchises, and my experience might be different from someone more versed in the lore.
However, to me the campaign about the plight of Ursun felt less like a story that Creative Assembly wanted to tell and more a convenient excuse to have all these highly diverse and unique factions in one place and competing for a single goal.
The plot does not offer the same depth that can be boasted by gameplay, and is frankly next to invisible against the backdrop of faction stories, heroes’ journeys, vibrant interesting cultures and more.
There aren’t really any major plot twists – the biggest one happens in prologue of all things – and from time to time the game will gently poke you to remind you that you should focus your attention on Ursun instead of throwing yourself excitedly into battles and sieges.
But how can you think about poor absent Ursun when there are tactical battles featuring hundreds of units and impressive reworked sieges right there? Even when traversing the Chaos Realms, fighting in the multi-stage battles to claim a piece of the quest items takes priority over thinking about the trapped bear god.
To sum it up, Total War: Warhammer 3 is a uniquely complex game, mildly overwhelming with the diversity of features and options it offers, each adding their own nuances to gameplay. Any strategy or RPG lover will find something to enjoy in this game, from memorable cast of characters to massive army battles and sieges.
Seeing hundreds of units engage in warfare or siege towers advance towards an enemy settlement gives the undeniable thrill. At the same time, nothing is quite as humbling as being shown that you are not as good a strategist as you previously thought.
Note: a Steam key was provided for free for the purposes of this review.
