The Total War Warhammer 3 team at Creative Assembly just put out a new video, shedding some light on what to expect for the strategy game’s next DLC and the game in general going forward. Upcoming expansions will focus heavily on the Immortal Empires megamap campaign, and there were lord and unit reveals for the Ogres, Greenskins, and Khorne factions that headline the next DLC – slated for the “back end of the year”. Certain party poopers among you will be pleased to know that I cannot accurately refer to the 17 minute video below as a “tray-tray”.
To kick things off, game director Rich Aldridge spoke of plans to “continue in the mold” of Thrones Of Decay’s pricing scheme, which split the factions into three separate, cheaper purchases. As for the shape the expansions might take, Aldridge said that “the big news is that you’ve shown us where the importance of the game is, and that’s Immortal Empires”. The “next DLCs will be focused on Immortal Empires specifically,” although this doesn’t mean they’ll stop supporting the smaller Realms of Chaos campaign in terms of balancing and bug fixes. I do hope this means bringing some of the more focused narrative campaigns into the wider sandbox with things like worldwide story events. A hopelessly addicted man can dream.
On the upcoming DLC: It’s an ogre-haul, baby! Aldridge confirmed that the new Legendary Lord – or subfaction leader, if you’re new around these parts – will be the long-suspected Golfag Maneater. He’s a travelin’ man(eater), fond of exploring the world and finding strange and new cultures to eat. There will be more characters revealed later, but the video does spoil a few of the new units: the Thundertusk, which is actually an ice-type unit, confusingly, and Blood Vultures. These look to fill the ‘annoying flying unit’ archetype common among many factions. Not especially sexy, but with a huge amount of battlefield utility.
Next up, it’s Khorne. The legendary lord is U’Zhul the Skulltaker, who I’d describe as an angry red man if that narrowed it down at all. Let me try again: he collects skulls. Nope, still too vague. He likes interesting skulls, like a mad stamp collector. Ok, that’s fun. Maybe he’ll get a lord skull trophy rack? Maybe Queek can get the same one! I’ve somehow turned this into a conversation about rats and I don’t care. For Khorne’s new units, they showed off the Slaughterbrute (Big, Red, Angry, like a daemonic Kool-Aid man).
Next up, it’s your boys and mine, the Greenskins. For the LL, it’s Gorbad Ironclaw. We haven’t had a boar-mounted orc lord yet (or indeed, any DLC orc lords, they’ve all been gobbos), so this is interesting to me, an enjoyer of furry pigs. They also suggest a diverse new roster, including not-so-subtly confirming a Colossal Squig on the horizon.
In terms of free bits, Aldrige reaffirms a return to the free LL format, last seen with Nurgle’s Epidemius. This time, it’s another Khorne lord, though they’re staying schtum on which one.
As for details on future content, Alridge says that getting the rest of the Chaos gods fleshed out is the main priority, which more than likely means Slaanesh is next. He also suggests sooner-rather-than-later updates for Vampire Counts, Norsca, and – happy days! – the glorious Lizardmen’s not-so-glorious Geomantic Web.
My high level take on the video is: it’s great to see Rich Aldridge in the flesh and chatting about the game! Rich and his team have always felt like the beating heart of all that’s great about the series, and even if it’s still marketing, it’s a fine choice to highlight his team talking about a game they’re evidently brimming with passion for.
If you don’t fancy waiting, a quick reminder that Khorne got a free dog this week (angry, red). A quick reminder, also, that a former Creative Assembly developer recently took to Medium to allege a culture of mismanagement and “limited by design” AI, dating back to the launch of Rome 2.