Hey there Total War: WARHAMMER fans. Today we’re excited to provide a window into what lies ahead for WARHAMMER III and the rest of 2022. The roadmap outlines the brand-new content and updates coming your way over the course of the year: including new DLC packs, Old World Updates, and more releasing alongside a steady cadence of bug fixes and patches to the game.

As with any timeline, projects may shift in scope or timing; so, to keep you in-the-know, we will be working to deliver a regular development update at least once every quarter: a STATE OF THE GAME post that will let us revisit what we’re working on, update you with any changes to the content or schedule, and look further forward to future releases.

And a final note: the launch of Total War: WARHAMMER III is only the beginning of the journey; you can expect to see this latest instalment evolve, improve, and continue to grow in both scale and content in the years to come. We appreciate all of you who supported us over the past six years—since the first Total War: WARHAMMER released—and to everyone just now joining us as we create our most expansive game to date. Thank you!

But for now, let’s take a look at Total War: WARHAMMER III in 2022—starting with what’s on the way next month!

Following our massive 1.1 update, we have a steady cadence of releases planned to deliver continuous change to the game. These releases not only aim to include key fixes based on the priorities of our players, but also introduce new features and tools to continue expanding your battlefield arsenal over time.

UPDATE 1.2 (MAY)

Later next month, we will be delivering UPDATE 1.2. As we’re still in the early months since the game’s launch, May’s release will continue the focus on implementing fixes for community-reported issues while improving areas of the game where both the players and dev team would like to see tweaks. This will be a common theme with the regular releases following a major milestone (i.e. builds which update the first version number of the game) as we work to make the game better and better. 

With May rapidly approaching, we are working hard on several key issues that we’re looking to include with this release: 

AI FACTIONS REBUILD TOWERS TOO QUICKLY

An important complaint about the settlement battles is the rate at which the computer players can build (and rebuild) their towers to defend against the player’s army.

ISSUES WHEN FLYING UNITS ATTACK GROUND UNITS

Flying units can encounter a few different issues when engaging with land-based units—the worst of which can result in them getting stuck and unresponsive for the remainder of the battle.

RANGED UNITS FAIL TO ENGAGE VALID ENEMY TARGETS

Another issue noted is that ranged units will sometimes go idle despite having a clear shot on their enemies; we’ll be sending all ranged units through boot camp to teach them how and when to engage.

DAEMON FACTIONS AUTOMATICALLY DECLARE WAR ON SLAANESH VASSALS

This causes a diplomacy imbalance in the game that affects both the AI and player, and is something we’re working to resolve.

FIX FOR ISSUES THAT RESULT IN PLAYERS GETTING STUCK IN THE SLAANESH REALM

In certain circumstances, the player can get trapped in the Slaanesh realm: something we’re working to fix.

AI FACTIONS WITH AN ANTI-PLAYER BIAS

As has been reported widely, the AI will often focus on the player despite having more dangerous foes to deal with. We hope to implement the first fixes for this issue in the release.

SNOW IS TOO BRIGHT

The visual glow of snow is far too intense when running the game using certain settings. We’ve made some adjustments and will be watching for feedback following the update.

In addition to bug fixes, there are also several gameplay changes in the works that will change the way the game is played. These are aimed at improving the game experience based on feedback collected in these first few months of play:

AUTO-RESOLVE IMPROVEMENTS

The difficulty scaling of auto-resolve has been reduced on the harder difficulty settings and will now be determined by the Battle difficulty setting rather than the Campaign difficulty setting.

IMPROVEMENTS TO UNIT RESPONSIVENESS

This will be a long-term project, but we hope to make further improvements to the reactivity of units when they are issued orders and engaging with enemy units. This includes ensuring that units don’t go to sleep when they should be contributing to a very ongoing battle.

IMPROVEMENTS TO SINGLE-ENTITY UNITS DUELING WITH OTHER SINGLE-ENTITY UNITS

Many players have noted issues when their large/hero units engage with other heroes on the battlefield. We’re aiming to improve their behavior to ensure that they properly engage with enemies and make their presence truly felt.

TECHNOLOGY TREE REWORKS

There has been a good deal of feedback about both the tech and skill trees, so we’re focusing on improving the impact and power of the technology trees first.

LEADERBOARD RESET

To address an issue which resulted in a handful of players shooting to the top of the leaderboards through unintended means—and to account for the significant balance changes made in 1.1 and 1.2—we will be resetting the leaderboard alongside Update 1.2. (Get your practice in for a fresh start!) 

The release will also give us an opportunity to add our first selection of Regiments of Renown units to the game—free for owners of Total War: WARHAMMER III:

REGIMENTS OF RENOWN I 

Regiments of Renown add elite, recruitable troops to the game with improved stats and special abilities for use in campaign and battle. 

We know that players will have a lot of questions about the details of these new Regiments of Renown and we’ll look to provide answers to those questions next month!

UPDATE 1.3

Following Update 1.2, we have one last regular update before moving on to our next major game release. UPDATE 1.3 will give us another opportunity to address and include fixes for player-reported issues while also introducing the second REGIMENTS OF RENOWN unit pack to the roster.

As 1.3 is still a ways out, we’re still working out the specific list of changes that will be included; that said, here’s a few things already being worked on for the release:

REGIMENTS OF RENOWN II
 

IMPROVED CATHAY FORMATION ATTACK

The formation attack ability for Cathay units should now be stronger in frontal engagements, which means that more entities should get involved in the fight when the unit is in battle.

SKILL TREE REWORKS

Following up on the Tech Tree reworks in Update 1.2, we’ll begin digging into a variety of skill tree updates for the various characters and races in 1.3.

TZEENTCH AND SLAANESH REPLENISHMENT RATES

It’s been noted that Tzeentch and Slaanesh have a much more challenging time replenishing their armies when compared to other factions in the game. On top of other factors which can lead to consistent losses for the two factions, we’re looking to make some adjustments to help them out.

INCREASING THE FREQUENCY OF FIELD BATTLES

As a cornerstone of the Total War: WARHAMMER experience, we’d like to see more field battles represented throughout the campaigns. As such, we’re working to increase their frequency and create healthy mix of land, siege, and minor settlement battles as you play.

BATTLE-RELATED FIXES

A continued focus will be on battle encounters in the game as we continue to improve unit responsiveness and interactions in battle. Watch for more specifics as we get closer to 1.3!

THE TOTAL WAR ASSEMBLY KIT

The last piece of the puzzle to empower our amazing modding community involves the release of the TOTAL WAR ASSEMBLY KIT: the tools that allow the easy creation of new mods in the Total War: WARHAMMER games. We’re aiming to release the Assembly Kit in Q3 of this year and will provide more details as we get closer to its arrival.

UPDATE 2.0

The next major content milestone is UPDATE 2.0. Any major release not only comes with continued improvements to the game (i.e. bug fixes, balance tweaks, systems adjustments, etc.), but includes major new content additions to change the landscape of Total War: WARHAMMER III. In this case…

IMMORTAL EMPIRES [BETA]

Mortal Empires was a much-loved addition to Total War: WARHAMMER II, and Update 2.0 will introduce the first iteration of the game mode to WARHAMMER III. Officially known as Immortal Empires, the mode will merge the maps and factions from all three WARHAMMER games (for those who own them) into one: allowing you to deploy the faction(s) you love across a massive combined battlefield.

Immortal Empires is a monumental undertaking that will continue to grow and evolve from the moment it lands in the game. So, to highlight the ongoing focus on its development, we will initially be making it available as an integrated open beta across all platforms.

This initial phase will allow us to focus on updating the balance, map, races, and other areas where we can continue to make adjustments based on player feedback—ensuring that it will meet (and exceed) expectations as it develops over the long-term. The plan is to continue updating the mode over several years, and we want to ensure that those of you who are *most* excited to play it have the chance to participate and share in its success.

There is a ton to unpack about Immortal Empires, so you can also expect more news about it as we get closer to its beta release. In the next few months, we’ll be sitting down with the game’s DLC Game Director , Richard Aldridge, so we can share his insight about the project. We’d also like to set up some AMA’s with the team leading up to the beta (if they’re not too busy), so stay tuned for more news later!

OLD WORLD UPDATE I: WARRIORS OF CHAOS

Starting with Update 2.0, we’ll be looking to overhaul some of the last remaining races not previously spruced up from WARHAMMER I or II; the goal: to bring them “up-to-date” with the newer mechanics implemented in WARHAMMER III. These “Old World Updates” can include the introduction of new systems, units, features, and balance to make them a more formidable force on the battlefield; and in Update 2.0, this initiative begins with the Warriors of Chaos.

BLOOD PACK III

The Blood Pack for Total War: WARHAMMER III adds a *ton* of new particle and visual effects to the game. Owners of previous Blood Packs (for WARHAMMER I or II) will have it automatically unlocked; likewise, unlocking the new pack will also unlock it for the previous two games.

LORD PACK I

Our first DLC pack also releases alongside Update 2.0. Lord Packs introduce several new Legendary Lords, Lords, Heroes, and a variety of units to deploy across the Grand Campaign and multiplayer settings. Watch out for more information—including more about the four Champions joining the roster—as we get closer to its release.

UPDATE 2.1

As we enter the final quarter of 2022, we’ve planned our first regular update following all the new content coming in Q3. UPDATE 2.1 gives us the opportunity to follow its parent update with additional adjustments, continue to expand the Immortal Empires battlefield as players experience it for the first time, and the chance to react and respond to community feedback following the release. While the exact details are TBD, here’s a soft outline of what you can expect:

UPDATE 2.1
 

REGIMENTS OF RENOWN III

UPDATE 2.2 -or- 3.0

With so many big beats dropping in 2022, we’re aiming to pull together one final release to wrap up the year in Q4! This will either be a major release—UPDATE 3.0—or a smaller UPDATE 2.2 release with its own set of content and fixes. Regardless of which path we choose, one major focus of either will be the Immortal Empires game mode, which will be seeing *big* improvements in the last build of the year.

We’ll obviously have more to share as we get closer to Q4 and will ensure we highlight more of what’s on the way in our State of the Game posts later this year!

It’s too early to talk about 2023, but we can see plenty of projects on the schedule that stretch into 2023 and beyond. Don’t worry; we’ll revisit this timeline several times throughout the year: both to highlight the projects that have been shifted or added to the schedule, and to highlight different areas where the game (and, inevitably, *other* Total War games) continues to grow.

There are a few other things we want to highlight that we’re looking to work into Total War: WARHAMMER III—items that don’t have a specific timeline, yet, but are in the works to be included in one of our upcoming releases:

• The CHAT systems in Total War have remained largely unchanged for years and (by today’s standards) are no longer suitable for a modern online world. The shortcomings are many: they lack the front-end tools to report harassment or abuse, the back-end systems to monitor and moderate a 24/7 chat service, and the structure to provide a safe space in which players can communicate. These are all essential facets to a chat system, and we feel strongly that they are aspects we MUST provide by supporting in-game chat: both to empower players to create their own safe spaces, and to remove those players who would utilize the space as a vector for abuse.
• The new DOMINATION mode has been a popular addition, and we’re excited to continue expanding the mode with new maps, increased faction balance, and more. Again: your feedback will help us hone this into the best experience it can be, and we’ll be closely monitoring our official feedback channels for your suggestions.
• The multiplayer team is continuing to work with the WARHAMMER I and II LAND BATTLE maps to bring them to WARHAMMER III. There’s no timeline on when these will return, but we’ll announce them alongside a future update when we know more.
• The multiplayer team is also investigating how to share the MATCHMAKING QUEUE and RATING between the Domination and Land Battle modes, so stay tuned for more news.

Hopefully we’ll be able to add these to a milestone in one of our future State of the Game posts, so be sure to stay tuned with the Total War blog and official channels for those news drops.

While we’ve covered a lot today, we want to leave you with a final thought from Richard Aldridge, the DLC Game Director for Total War: WARHAMMER III:

We hope this has all been useful! We look forward to sharing more of what we have in store as we continue making the game better and better for everyone.

—The Total War Team