Total War: Warhammer III, our impressions of the episode that closes the saga


Fans of the Warhammer and Total War license can rejoice, since the episode that closes the trilogy will arrive this year. The opportunity to conclude the trilogy well? That’s what we’re going to see.

Presented for about twenty minutes, we were able to play this new episode of the Total War saga for three hours. It was therefore a great opportunity to discover the new campaigns and the new factions on offer. In total we can count on eight new playable factions including Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Grand Cathay, Kislev, Ogres and Demons of Chaos. In terms of geography, the action takes place in the Kingdom of Chaos, a playing surface that offers almost twice the space of the map of the second episode.

Fight against or for Chaos

For the sake of this preview, we have chosen to embody the Grand Cathay faction, which is largely inspired by Imperial China and which, like it, also has a great wall to defend its territory. The Kingdom of Greater Cathay is itself subdivided into two sub-factions, including The Dragon of Storms. Because yes: the subtlety of this faction is that the leaders are dragons, and can therefore take human or “animal” form on the fly.

total harmony

Screenshot of Total War Warhammer III.

The Creative Assembly has decided to add a system of Yin and Yang, a kind of balance between good and evil, a classic idea but which works very well in game. Each decision, each recruitment, each mission tilts the balance one way or the other. And of course, this will affect your bonuses and penalties, affecting both your armies and your economy. The goal is to achieve total harmony – just that – which allows you to earn quite colossal bonuses such as accelerated growth of 40% and income from buildings which increase by 25%. What bring a nice economic boost.

A well-crafted final Total War episode

Screenshot of Total War Warhammer III.

In terms of visuals, the game has taken a step up from Warhammer II, with more detailed units and a very nice campaign map. The artistic direction, which totally respects the Warhammer universe, is also to be welcomed. Because each faction really has its own atmosphere and its own universe, which makes it possible to completely renew the gameplay.

When we have little affinity with Warhammer, we can legitimately wonder if this new Total War can really correspond to us, and this is where the British studio is strong. Because even being allergic to this universe, The Creative Assembly had the genius to make its game very pleasant by gradually revolutionizing the way of playing an episode of the Total War saga.

War yes, but with diplomacy

Screenshot of Total War Warhammer III.

Highly requested by players, we will note, for example, beautiful developments on the side of diplomacy with mechanics that fans of Paradox Interactive games know well: diplomatic balance, allowing the game to directly propose an offer that the AI ​​is likely to to accept during the negotiation phases. The game also now offers the possibility of establishing outposts in opposing territories to undermine the enemy, by recruiting troops directly from home. Treacherous, and effective.

Let’s be clear: we are not on a “new game” either, strictly speaking, insofar as it is the logical continuation of the first two episodes. We will now have to wait for the next historic episode to really have something totally innovative to put in our mouths. In the meantime, Total War Warhammer III seems like a good conclusion to the board started in 2016.

WE WAIT… WITH IMPATIENCE!

This Total War Warhammer III looks quite convincing. We were able to play it for 50 rounds, enough to realize that there are enough new features to feel like we’re holding a really worthwhile episode in our hands. The Creative Assembly has refined its copy enough to offer content rich enough to get us back to sorting. It will now be necessary to wait for February 17 on PC before making a final opinion.



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