Total War Warhammer 3 review: A spooky new Warfront 4.5 stars - Pocket-lint recommended Quick verdict It's another seamless release f...
Total War Warhammer 3 review: A spooky new Warfront
It's another seamless release from Creative Assembly, with new mechanics layered on top of its familiar systems to create a more engaging and attractive package.
Read the full verdict
- Varied campaign map
- Detailed bloody visuals
- RPG elements for Daemon Prince
- Incredible reach
- Fun prologue
- Still a bit overwhelming
- Tone will not suit everyone
This page was translated using AI and machine learning.
(Pocket-lint) - The Total War franchise struck a real chord when it first branched out of its historic settings into more fantastical lands, and its continued partnership with Warhammer has been a real highlight in recent times. years. Now the third game in this series is upon us - and it's still going strong.
It brings all the goofy dark fantasy touches you've come to expect from Warhammer, with delicious new mechanics layered in to ensure veterans still have plenty to dig into, while the fact that it's coming to PC Game Pass on Game Day outlet makes it an even easier sale.
Some new faces
The story behind Warhammer 3 is quite simple - and we mean it in a good way. A thrilling prologue campaign will take you deep into the frozen North as the Prince of Kislev, in search of your missing bear god, Ursun.
The prologue serves as a great tutorial, telling you most of what you need to know to play the full game in a matter of hours, telling a tale of corruption that ends with Ursun captive in the Realms of Chaos and a whole bunch of factions simultaneously s realize it. This means the main campaign is a bit of a race to get to Ursun, but with the same all-encompassing approach to conquering the lands in front of you.
This time, however, you'll need to seize opportunities to fight against the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, in the form of Slaanesh, Khorn, Tzeentch, and Nurgle. Each must be defeated to stand a chance of fully winning the campaign.
This is achieved by finding and taking portals into Chaos for shorter campaigns against each opponent, and it provides a nice set of short-term goals that contribute to your longer-term goals.
You can choose to play with a few factions - Grand Cathay, Daemons of Chaos, Kislev, Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, and the Ogre Kingdoms - giving you more ways to make each of your saves unique.
Each has its own bonuses and recommended approaches, as well as unique gameplay twists. Take Grand Cathay and Daemons of Choas as examples, two forces that play in completely different ways.
Cathay focuses on maintaining her immense wall of enclosure and manipulating the winds of magic to achieve favorable results, while in battle her unit synergies make your disposition a constant background concern. It's a literal balancing act that requires more adjustment and attention while you fight than some alternatives.
Daemons of Chaos, meanwhile, saw us build a central villain tearing up the world by pleasing the Chaos Gods to unlock perks and gear, giving it an almost role-playing game (RPG) flavor with huge strategy game wrapped around our demon prince. We would swap gear and customize their appearance to our liking, acquiring more and more skills and tools as we destroyed more armies and settlements.
Same old strategy
Of course, as playable factions come and go, the sheer core of a Total War game rarely changes too drastically, and you'll always be spending your split time between the lush campaign map and actual battles.
The first phase is relaxing and fairly streamlined, allowing you to easily move units, build your settlements, and enter into diplomatic discussions with other powers you encounter - although if you're new to the series you'll You'll still find yourself browsing through its many help boxes quite often.
In combat, it's much the same: deploying to the field for a frozen phase in which to organize your troops as you wish, then take control of them like a classic real-time strategy (RTS) game, give commands and zoom around the battlefield trying to get everything right.
With Warhammer's messy lore to call upon, there's a seemingly limitless pool of varied and often gruesome troops to command and battle, so zooming in for this specialty of Total War every now and then to see a few individual units do battle is still rewarding.
You'll also use magic a lot in various forms, with powerful units you can recruit featuring powers that need to be managed on cooldowns, allowing you to take advantage of huge power spikes to turn the tide of a battle. difficult .
A visual powerhouse
Of course, Total War games also have a historical reputation for being absolutely meaty games for any PC, but their performance has actually improved dramatically over the bad old days of Empire: Total War and the like.
Our mid-range gaming PC ran through the game on Ultra settings, suggesting it scales impressively even with hardware limitations, and the whole package is just lovely.
From the detailed campaign map with lots of animated elements and effects, to the ever-engaging battle scenes, in which units are incredibly detailed once you get close to them, there's a lot to love here.
The wide variety of unit types means you'll find yourself constantly pausing a battle to get into position and watching your troops fight for a while in slow motion just to get a feel for how the game matches them up. on an individual basis.
The voice acting, meanwhile, is pleasantly engaging, while the story beats that often occur in the campaign give you a good idea of what you're fighting for and aiming for - although some of the factions have goals too. simple as plunder or corrupt the whole world.
We've already fallen down the rabbit hole offered by Total War: Warhammer 3, which is everything you'd expect from a Total War game, but it's not a totally familiar maze of tunnels. There are enough new twists to make it enjoyable and fresh too.
Whether it's equipping a Demon Prince or trying to balance Yin and Yang on the battlefield of Cathay, the will to push forward and claim Ursun's power is strong. It has the tactical rigor that Total War fans crave, and best of all for those counting their pennies, it's on PC Game Pass.
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