
Like the previous two it inserts a twist to the basic go-and-conquer-everything sandbox by adding a main objective, and again like the previous two this results in a kind of wave-based system of recurring climaxes and a Wacky Races sprint to complete your goals first. Warhammer 3, predictably, sprawls its grand campaign across an expansive, gorgeously implemented map. And again, once you do kick things off for real, what a trip. Still, it's an on-ramp, and there's a new, lesser-trumpeted system of "tours" that you can take around certain elements once you kick things off for real too that arguably explain the smaller things better. The prologue does well to re-familiarise you with the absolute basics of Total War but it does invest a little too much time into the old "left-click an army to select it" side of things, when what would truly be welcome is a gradual introduction to Warhammer 3's reams of mini-mechanics, say, or the lesser-known intricacies of manoeuvring armies around the world map, or the specifics of each of the eight playable race's several unique elements. In fact I can pick at a lot of Warhammer 3. It's not the most incredible educator but far more fun than most tutorials in memory. Manage cookie settings The Prologue is absolutely ace. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. And just walls and walls and walls of tech trees, tooltips, and multipliers on top. Cannibals, horrible gaping orifices, frog-legged bird wizards, and basic, bottom-tier units that somehow utilise ranged attacks and melee attacks and regenerating shields and magic damage, all at once (I hate them!). It's fireballs and flailing tongues and weird spikes. Showing it to someone who'd only played Rome or Shogun would be like picking up a giant amp and travelling 700 years back through time to blast Slayer's Reign in Blood at a Catholic peasant. This is the silliest, most convoluted, most chaotically maximalist Total War game I've played.

Developer: Creative Assembly, Feral Interactive.It's overloaded at times, caught up in the fun of all that Daemonic excess.

Warhammer 3, as a likely result of those decades of iteration, has an extraordinary amount of systems to it. It's intimidating for me, at least, and I've been bumbling around these turn-based overworlds since the Medieval era. This is helpful, because there is a lot of Total War out in the world now - this is the third game in its little high-fantasy sub-series and something like the fifteenth full-sized Total War overall - and that means it might be just a tad intimidating for new players. Good tutorials are rare and actually enjoyable ones rarer still, and Total War: Warhammer 3's is a treat. Warhammer 3 is Creative Assembly's most maximalist, chaotic, and arguably best game to date.
