Creative Assembly is looking forward to the future of Total War Warhammer 3 now that it’s largely regained its footing as one of the best strategy games on PC. With some rather dramatic wobbles behind it and a positive response to the most recent add-on, the developer is now looking forward to what’s coming next. In a new blog, the team outlines its plans for TWW3 update 5.2, which will see the Dwarfs dive deeper and grow taller than ever before.
Reassuringly, Total War Warhammer 3 feels like it’s in a pretty good place right now. We’re almost exactly one year on from the controversy around its Shadows of Change DLC. A run of apologies, improvements, and pricing reworks later – along with the recent and very well-received Thrones of Decay DLC – and things look much rosier again. While overall Steam reviews for the strategy game remain mixed, its recent score is back up to 80% and the community sentiment feels much more positive than a few months prior.
Next on the cards, then, is Total War Warhammer 3 patch 5.2. Design director Mitchell Heastie showcases the meat of what we can expect from the next update in a new developer blog, where he emphasizes that the team remains eager to hear players’ thoughts. “We will continue looking to action the feedback that you present us with, through our updates, fixes, and improvements,” he explains, “but of course with the caveat of development feasibility.”
There are three main focus points discussed here – an additional feature for Dwarfs that should improve their ability to play more in line with the traditional Dwarven fantasy, a rework to Chaos cults, and an all-new set of locations. The update will also see some tweaks made to Cathay’s Ivory Road, but Heastie says this is just aimed to “bring it more in line with the Chaos Dwarfs’ convoys feature.”
All Dwarf factions will now have access to The Deeps – after all, what’s more iconic than digging too greedily and too deep? You can access these new underground locations in any settlement you own through construction of a Great Gate, which allows you to access more regions that can be used as additional expansion space.
These zones require heavy time and resource investment, but will offer some new features that you can’t achieve otherwise and should allow Dwarf players to adopt a more ‘tall’ playstyle of holding fewer settlements that are each more thoroughly developed. “There was a fair amount of feedback for Dwarfs that some consider their overall playstyle to be fairly aggressive and focused on an expansionist or ‘wide’ playstyle,” Heastie says, which he notes feels less akin to the traditional Dwarven fantasy of more defensive setups.
Alongside this addition is the rework to Chaos cults. “We’ve seen a lot of feedback on cults since their inception,” Heastie says, “and in truth they never really hit the mark.” As such, the team has focused on the aspects that work well in an attempt to more smoothly apply cults across all four of the Chaos Gods that use them. This starts with the removal of the corruption trigger; instead, all factions will now use the Cultist agent to spread their cults around.
In addition to this is a new Cult Magus. Seen only in the campaign, these units can create special cult locations that offer additional bonuses and building options. Setting one up will effectively ‘consume’ the Magus, who is considered to be running the new location.
Beyond this, the number of cult building options has “more than doubled,” and you’ll have more slots to make use of than before. Every cult will also now be able to use the teleportation ritual – previously exclusive to Khorne, “it was one of the few people really enjoyed, so now it’s available for everyone.”
Rounding out the developer update is a quick dip into a new feature dubbed Unusual Locations. These are a more interactive equivalent to landmarks that are designed “to make the world feel a bit more alive,” and will cause a selection of unique or strange locations to appear in your settlements. “Some will be cults, some various orders, or perhaps something entirely different – and none of them linked to any existing factions,” Heastie concludes.
While we wait for the arrival of update 5.2, you might want to look through the best Total War Warhammer 3 mods for more ways to mix up your game. Alternatively, here are the best Warhammer games on PC right now, so take your pick.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.