Developer: Creative Assembly
Publisher: SEGA
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Total War: WARHAMMER – Review
Total War is a series that has been along for quite some time. It usually revolves around a historical period but this time, Total War is hosting the WARHAMMER universe. Take control of the most iconic leaders from the tabletop game and crush everyone that stands in your path.
Story
Total War: WARHAMMER follows the story of one of five different factions, depending on which is chosen. There is The Empire, Dwarfs, Greenskins, Vampire Counts and Warriors of Chaos. Every faction has a short description, giving a brief story description and place inside the WARHAMMER universe. Once the campaign gets started, a cinematic plays giving some more information about the faction that has been chosen. The units themselves also have descriptions which can be quite interesting to read if you’re interested in the WARHAMMER universe.
That’s pretty much most of the story there is. There is little actual story given in the game itself without digging for it yourself by reading descriptions and other information that gets given to you indirectly. The game doesn’t go out of its way to actually provide story to you. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though because the player can decide to dig into the universe or just keep on playing.
Graphics
The graphics in Total War are very good, as expected from a Total War game. Everything is greatly detailed and looks awesome on top, like the areas, units, battlefields, map, everything has been paid attention to. Everything looks like it fits together perfectly and it simply looks awesome to take control of hundreds of units on a huge battlefield with fully equipped armies.
However, this does mean that Total War needs a fairly good PC to run. Since the map is so huge with many things going on at once, and a battle easily spanning over 200 units, it takes quite a bit of power to run all of that smoothly. Luckily the game features quite a bit of graphical settings to fine tune it in order to get the best performance.
Sound
Sound wise, Total War: WARHAMMER is spot on. The music is very subtle and mostly atmospheric, which fits perfectly with the rest of the game. All of the other sounds are awesome as well, from the battle cries to the actual battles with hundreds of units clashing against one another. It sounds like everything is very well balanced and fits nicely with the game in its whole, which is always a big plus.
Gameplay
Total War: WARHAMMER is a turn-based strategy game with real-time battles mixed in between. People who have played Total War games before will recognize most elements in the game, as it’s still a Total War product after all, but just set in the WARHAMMER universe. The principle of the game is pretty simple, but it’s very hard to master and do things correctly as the battlefield will constantly shift with every turn.
The battlefield is divided into provinces, which each have a couple of settlements. A faction can control as many provinces as it can, but controlling all settlements in a province grants special bonuses to the whole province. Each faction has a main settlement, which has more space to place buildings and can also house some buildings that smaller settlements can’t. The settlements also feature some other neat gameplay features like growth, tax,public order and corruption. Growth grows over time but can be increased by making farms, allowing more people to settle in the town. Getting more growth means that the town hall can be upgraded once the requirements have been reached. This makes room for more advanced buildings and more building spots. Public Order is the state your villagers are in and can range from plus 100 to minus 100, minus 100 will cause an uprising, potentially damaging buildings. Corruption comes into play when Vampires or the Chaos Soldiers enter your grounds, wreaking havoc on Public Order.
A lord is the commander of an army, and multiple armies can be built if you can pay for its upkeep. These armies can move across the battlefield and build settlements if nothing is there or conquer existing ones by either attacking directly or circling the village until it runs out of supplies. The battles can be played either manually or can be auto-resolved, but of course a good player will get more advantage when doing the battles manually.
Another big part of the game is of course the different factions. Factions can be in numerous states towards each other, such as non aggression pact, defensive alliance, military alliance, war and more. Managing your relationships with other factions can be vital as forming alliances can be very interesting. You can even request a faction to completely merge with yours, giving you all of its buildings, units but also comes with a penalty to Public Order in that province. Trade routes can also be opened between different factions, giving access to resources and extra income.
There are a lot more aspects to the game, such as technology trees. These technology trees can give some passive bonuses when it comes to forming alliances, recovering lost troops, gaining income and more. The lord of each army can also level up and equip gear, giving it and its army some much needed bonuses. Furthermore there’s also magic winds, causing magical power across the battlefield but in one place it will be stronger than the rest, making for some interesting battles.
Total War: WARHAMMER is so huge it’s impossible to talk about everything in detail, hence why the game has a huge guide which will literally take hours to go through if you want to read and see everything in detail. The campaign alone features hundreds of hours of game time, let alone the multiplayer…
Conclusion
Total War: WARHAMMER is a game that will definitely not disappoint. It features a huge campaign with 4 (or 5 if you have the Chaos Warrior DLC) different factions to play, each taking tens of hours to complete depending on how you play. The sheer scale of the game combined with the awesome gameplay, great graphics, fitting sounds and tons of variety will keep any fan playing for over 100 hours.
Total War: WARHAMMER - Review,
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