Total War: Warhammer 3 fans have been clamoring for half a year, now there is finally peace. Ever since Immortal Empires was playable as part of the major update 2.0, the game has been praised across the board. On Steam, for example, player counts and positive ratings are skyrocketing.
Nevertheless, of course we have to talk about what went wrong with the release. Because Warhammer 3 wasn’t bad at all (that is what our test shows). However, it still didn’t completely fulfill the wishes of the fans. At gamescom we were able to chat with lead Total War designer Mitchell Heastie.
Heastie shared what the team learned from the criticism and hinted at a new update that could improve the main game’s beleaguered Mayhem campaign in hindsight.
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Total War: Warhammer 3 – Conclusion video for the mega update Immortal Empires
That’s why we had to wait so long for Immortal Empires
For five years, Total War fans played a big sandbox campaign thanks to Mortal Empires for Warhammer 2. The fact that there was only one story campaign for Warhammer 3 at the time of release caused a lot of bad air. And then it took six times longer than with Warhammer 2 before the predecessors were connected to the new part with Immortal Empires.
The fact that the development of Immortal Empires took so much longer is definitely due to the size and complexity of the project. In addition, people should now benefit from the fact that general feedback on Warhammer 3 has been collected in recent months:
Immortal Empires is the biggest project we’ve ever done. Of course that takes time. There are many development complexities, probably many that people don’t anticipate. Much of the content for Immortal Empires was made for older games. This is not easy.
We could have tried to release it at the same time as Warhammer 3. But what you’re getting now is an update for Warhammer 3. So the problems that were there at release are no longer there. We directly implemented lessons learned from the Warhammer 3 release. That makes Immortal Empires significantly better.
Unlike Mortal Empires for Warhammer 2, the implementation of the new multiplayer for eight players caused problems:
Mortal Empires was a little easier to make. Some Warhammer 3 changes, like multiplayer, were really technologically complicated. Some faction abilities, like Dwarves, weren’t designed for eight-player campaigns with synchronous turns.
Immortal Empires offers a huge campaign map with many factions, in multiplayer up to 8 players can romp here.
The developers have learned this from the criticism
But there might have been other ways than releasing Immortal Empires prematurely. For example, it would certainly have been an option to offer a small sandbox without chaos portals. We asked Heastie about this too:
We always knew Mortal Empires, and now Immortal Empires, would be our sandbox campaign. But we also know that some players want these story campaigns. I think it’s just a little nicer to release the game with, especially to introduce new people to the story. That’s why we started it. Knowing that Immortal Empires is coming.
The one big lesson we learned is that we could have offered more customization options to the Realms of Chaos campaign. There were certain mechanics that people didn’t like. For example, you could turn off the portals. So the lesson is to provide such options from the start.
When such an update will come is not yet known. So far it is still not possible to customize the campaign with such options. However, CA recognizes the need for it and is considering it. If you don’t own Warhammer 1 and 2 and can’t play Immortal Empires, you would still be able to enjoy a sandbox.
You can read how much we like Immortal Empires in the test for the big update. And if you need help getting started, we recommend checking out our faction guide.
What do you think? Do you want such customization options, or will it not matter after the release of Immortal Empires anyway? Write us your opinion in the comments!
