It’s a sad day when I have to write this review. TWWH is, in my very humble opinion, the best strategy game/trilogy of all time. There are grander strategies, I.E. the paradox titles, and there are more accessible titles, I.E. the Civ series. But no game does it quite like this one. Let me get my thoughts out the way, and then I’ll explain why I can’t recommend the game, although I’m sure you’ve already heard, despite me loving this title so dearly.

Let’s start by saying, this is a good game. Phenomenal even. At it’s core, it’s in every sense of the word, fun. It can be brutally challenging, but is far more accessible than many of the paradox titles for example. I’ve dipped in and out of a range of strategy games (not just on steam, but Epic, GoG and growing up playing CD copies of games I still own to this day), and generally speaking, I love the genre. I grew up playing Age of Empires and Warcraft 3 before moving away from RTS games in favour of more 4X style games. Eventually moving onto grand strategy such as Total War. And let me tell you what a blast this has been. I adore this game, I’ve spent many nights up until 5/6am, just playing “one more turn!” And being late for work the following morning because I was so tired I just overslept. I’ve sat watching videos on my lunch breaks from Legend and General, I’ve fallen asleep to Total war streams, having it consume my life for a period of time. And I don’t regret a single second of it. I’ve bought copies of it full price for my friends to play so I can share that experience with others and bring them into this community. And I mention this because despite my low playtime, I genuinely love this game, and even when I’m not playing it, I’m consuming it in whatever ways I can, or being that annoying friend who pushes you to do the same.

But why? Why do I think so highly of it? Well there’s just no experience quite like it. It’s easy to learn, hard to master. Despite what perceptions of it are, it’s incredibly easy to pick up and play, even if it’s a little confusing at first. The in game tutorial does a really excellent job of just teaching you the core of what you need to know, and the rest of it you’ll pick up as you play. Unlike a paradox game, it doesn’t feel like you need a YouTube guide open as mandatory training while you play (although I suppose that subjective based on skill and patience). All my research and external work has been because I’m invested and the game is so good, that it incentivises you to learn, not because it’s too complicated for it’s own good, but just because I want to improve and get better on my own terms. And unlike more casual games like Civ, where after a campaign or two, you just go through the motions, you actually have to keep atleast a small part of your brain switched on. Even at lower difficulties, you will get smashed by what can often feel like incredibly unfair AI. The game actually ends up almost feeling rogue like in nature, you play 20 turns, realise you messed up at turn 15, and then start again, using the knowledge you gained to progress further, this time getting to turn 40 and realising you made a mistake or didn’t account for something on turn 35 and repeating. It’s an incredible loop that never gets dull or boring based simply on the fact that every faction plays so uniquely to each other. From Skarbrand’s all out blitzkrieg on anything In sight, to my new personal favourite, Empire campaigns, where you slowly build up and out, playing politics and managing multiple states of affairs. I firmly believe there is a faction for anyone and everyone, and you WILL find something or someone you like in this game.

I’m going to brush over gameplay and such, because I won’t lie, it’s great. As the ancient Chinese say, “It Just Works”. The overworld map is basically a relatively simple 4x style game. You have cities, ruins, towns etc, various sizes locations you can colonise to control regions, before setting out and conquering or politicking your way into others. There’s not much to say to it. It’s big, it’s fun, it’s a paint the map in your colour type of ordeal that isn’t particularly unique to this game.

And then there’s the battles, where the game just blows you away. Hundreds and later at times thousands of individual units, all modelled and animated smashing into each other in the RTS style battles. You can watch as a giant T-Rex smashes it’s way through tiny little nurglings, small creatures that clump together to make large monstrosities, all while your massive great unclean one charges into ranks of lizardmen before tactically chundering and excreting all over them. It’s phenomenal and if you’re the type of person to watch AI battles on YouTube, you’ll absolutely adore it. Hundreds of battle maps, hundreds of unique units, with thousands of animations (I’m sorry I didn’t count each one but there’s a lot!). It’s immense in scale and spectacle in a way no other franchise can really rival. And most importantly, it’s fun! Winning feels great, but losing doesn’t feel bad when you watched as packs of rat men slowly swarm your empire city, each man holding the line as best they can, faith and steel binding them. It’s exciting and gorgeous. I’ve never enjoyed getting my ass handed to me so much.

But onto why I can’t recommend the game. Two reasons, with one being an ongoing issue in the state of DLC, and the other being the recent actions by the developer.

DLC for this game is kind of egregious. There’s going to be people who say, just buy the ones you want, but I’m not a huge fan of that mentality. The main draw of these games specifically is the immortal empires map, where all the factions across all three games play on one unified map. It’s huge, and really brings the grand into grand strategy. It’s a spectacle and genuinely an incredible feat, with 200+ factions on the map. However, of the around 80 playable lords, buying Warhammer 3 alone, only gives you access to around 15/20, which is a lot of gameplay don’t get me wrong, but with around half of those being chaos themed, and the rest being a take your pick between Slavic stew or ancient Asian hotpot, there’s not all that much variety in terms of visuals and aesthetic. To get the full experience and have the choice of playing whatever you want, you need to pay out hundreds of pounds just to get every dlc and every game and then every dlc for those games. It’s just all a bit much. It’s something total war fans have put up with, and it’s something I’ve financially supported due to having the disposable income and enjoying the games. However as a new player, imagine looking at the game thinking, I just want the complete experience, access to everything that’s in the game and finding out you’ll have to spend well over £200 just to have the option to play a race. And it’s not like you can try the races either, there’s no demo, and with campaigns lasting anywhere from 10 to 60 hours, you can’t try them and then just refund realistically. It’s something I looked past for a long time, but with recent events, I just can’t support this model anymore.

And those recent events. You’ve heard about them, there’s a reason everyone is reviewing this negatively. Creative Assembly is now forcing unwarranted price increases on these already quite minimal DLCs. £20 (a third of the price of the game might I add) for three lords, no one was particularly excited or asking for, with very few additions other than that no real new units with issues coming with the ones they did add, serious bugs that they still refuse to fix or just ignore, and a frankly, quite disgusting response to fan criticism and feedback, vaguely threatening to cut support for the game should fans choose not to pay for the dlc. This is a company who’s revenue has increased by 20% over the last year, who release updates at a speed that it would be generous to call slow, all while claiming that they need to do this to keep up with the market