Gameplanet Review: Total War: Warhammer

In the beginning, there was war. So says Sigmar Heldenhammer, the patron god of the humans in the Warhammer universe. So too says Creative Assembly, which since the year 2000 has been revolutionising war gaming on PC gamer’s screens. Merging tabletop gaming’s most iconic franchise with the inventor of the battle simulator genre was an inspired decision. But it was not a surefire one. Warhammer and Total War share many obvious similarities, but also they also have crucial differences. Exposing Total War to the myth and majesty of the Warhammer world offers hardcore fans something new and exciting, but it also misses a golden opportunity to fix some of the systematic problems plaguing the series as a whole, and the opportunity to push the game’s real time battles in a more radical and inventive direction.

Total War: Warhammer fits the Total War mold. It is two games in one; a turn based meta-strategy game – in the tradition of Civilization or Crusader Kings – and a real time battle simulator, where you physically control the units and characters in your armies in order to outsmart, outwit and ultimately crush your foes. It’s a format that’s worked incredibly well for Total War’s previous incarnations as historical epics. But Creative Assembly was rapidly running out of history books to build their games around. Turning to Warhammer was a welcome move. Bringing in new characters, new threats, and new armies injects new life into a series that was starting to flag. But it is also locates a Total War game, for the first time, wholly in the realm of fiction, pushing the series further away from the realism that is its raison d'être.

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