We Played A Total War: Warhammer 3 Demo And It’s Daemonically Delicious
We got our hands on the Chaos Undivided/Cathay demo and played around with the build-a-daemon prince. Plus we talked to the devs!
By now you’ve probably seen the Chaos Undivided trailer for Total War: Warhammer 3. On the off chance you haven’t, here it is, watch it, it’s amazing.
That looks amazing. And from personal experience, I can say the game plays pretty fantastically too. We had a chance to test out an early build of the game, thanks to Creative Assembly. If you want to know in general what we thought, here’s our first impressions:
But we also had a chance to talk with the developers about the process of making the game, the changes they hoped to see, and what the future holds for Total War: Warhammer 3.
Talking to the Devs
We had a chance to speak to Jim Whitson (Lead Battle Designer) and Mark Sinclair (Lead Campaign Designer) at Creative Assembly. And right away the first thing that cropped up was how strong the narrative in this game is. Both in terms of the plot–which twists the campaign into new territory for Total War–and the way you play the game.
Specifically they spoke about building your own Daemon Prince. As you might imagine, that was one of the standout hits for many people at the preview event, and Sinclair explained:
“We wanted to bring in RPG elements. Games like Skyrim and Diablo where you’ve got this long campaign that you build your own character on captivate us. And we wanted to bring that to [Total War: Warhammer 3].”
And you get the chance to in spades. This image encapsulates only a small fraction of what the game has to offer.
As you build your own Daemon Prince you’ll be able to select from the parts of the four different Chaos gods or from “Undivided” and you really do get to customize what you do. Each option not only unlocks new body parts–so you might have Nurgle Wings and a Tzeentchy beak–but new units as well. On every playthrough, you could have a radically different style of game.
Replayability
Replayability was one of the main things the devs were looking at. Especially since the game has such an epic scale. As Whitson put it:
“You could be playing for hundreds of hours in a campaign, and we want to constantly provide you with new challenges, new interesting stuff to tinker with, and challenges within the short term, the medium term, the long term, just to keep constantly refreshing the player’s palette.”
Sinclair remarked on just how wide the buffet of options are:
“You can play all the races, but even just as the Daemon Prince, there are so many ways to customize your game. I love starting out as Slaanesh but that plays so different from Nurgle. My favorite is always whatever I’m currently playing.”\
Which honestly says a lot for the game. All the major factions are in, including the new Cathay and Kislev factions, which haven’t existed before in Warhammer Fantasy. Creative Assembly had a unique perspective on the two as part of the development cycle, working with Games Workshop closely to nab that “tabletop feel” for the game.
This game is so rich, and so chunky you could play it for hours. We did. We spent so much time browsing through the tech trees and making plans for future turns that when the demo access period came to an end we couldn’t stop thinking about it.
That’s what makes this game feel so sticky. It’ll stay with you long past the point when you should have gone to bed.
Total War: Warhammer III is due out Feb. 17th, 2022
