HomeNewsTotal War: Warhammer III - Immortal Empires
We could be seeing Total War: Warhammer 3’s redemption after months of backlashSales for the sale throne, reviews for the review god
Sales for the sale throne, reviews for the review god
On the Twarhammer side, the deterioration of Creative Assembly’s relationship with their fans started with the announcement of Shadows of Change. Specifically, its price.
DLC prices had been rising before then. The Forge Of The Chaos Dwarfs, for example, was around 25% higher than comparable releases, although the quality and size of this expansion meant that a few rumblings never transformed into the full blown revolt that occurred when it was announced that Shadows of Change would cost the same amount. Particularly irksome to the community here was the explanation that the increase from the standard two updated factions to three precipitated the mark up, but that the customary accompanying free lord wouldn’t be happening.
Throughout all of this, CA were still reeling from thecancellation of Sega’s most expensive game to date, Hyenas, just as it was about to release, and thesubsequent layoffs.
Phew. And that’s where we are now. For what it’s worth,I loved Thrones of Decay, and believe it deserves this success, although it’s clear that most of these reviews are coming from a place of emotion rather than experience, since the content has been in the wild for less than a day.
That said, CA did take a different approach with pre-release marketing this time around, showing off all the content in detail before players could access pre-orders, so this positive reception isn’t coming from blind faith - if you’ve played the game for any amount of time, you’ve generally got a solid idea of what the DLC entails.
Total War: WARHAMMER III - Immortal Empires teaser trailerWatch on YouTube
Total War: WARHAMMER III - Immortal Empires teaser trailer
Still, it’s a fair indicator that this perhaps slightly premature jubilation is as much a review of CA’s approach to this content as the content itself. A gauge of how happy the fanbase is with the company - as Steam reviews often are, for good or ill. Notable changes during this marketing cycle include the aforementioned holding back on pre-order links, as well as having the developers feature as talking heads in the trailers injecting commentary on the content.
A nice little detail I noticed was that the devs would often talk about the weaknesses of the new units and lords as much as they hyped them up. This said a lot, I think, about how in tune they were with a player base that’s much more enthusiastic about interesting new additions than purely powerfully ones. Also, savvy revenue-minded change or not, splitting the DLC into three cheaper packs this time surely didn’t hurt.
There’s also just the simple fact that the fanbase, myself included, love the Empire, with the Dwarfs and Nurgle being fan favourites too, all of which feature in Thrones of Decay. As Sean Martin pointed out for Wargamer a good while back, the essence of the setting is never felt more keenly that in the image of ranks of conscripted bakers with spears, braced to hold off the multitude of horrors of the Warhammer world.
Whatever the reason, it’s great as a fan - and, I imagine, anyonewho’s been following the CA layoffs and cancellations- to see so much positivity around the game again. Whether or not this marks a run of wins for the title, as some have speculated, like Warhammer 2’s game-changing ‘Potion of Speed’ update, it’s definitely exciting to see the corrector counts answering CA’s summons.
