Mysterious Total War: Warhammer teaser hints at something, honestly your guess is as good as ours

A 50-second teaser video was posted across Total War: Warhammer social media late yesterday, and the speculation engines have begun revving up to speed. It shows a wizard of the Celestial College—the Empire's astrologers, who manipulate a wind of magic called Azyr—watching as a comet flies across the night sky. The comet then becomes the head of a constellation called Grungi's Baldric, "Revered by soldiers, dwarfs, and dimwits aplenty," the wizard sneers.

And that's it. It's a more enigmatic trailer than we're used to getting, especially compared to the bombastic announcements each DLC for Warhammer 2 has received. That might mean it's hinting at something smaller, like an update for another of the first game's factions in the second game's Mortal Empires campaign. The wood elves were the last to receive such an update, perhaps the constellation favored by dwarfs suggests they'll receive another update? (They were reworked in 2018, but could be due for more tweaking.) Given that the teaser focuses on one of the Empire's Celestial wizards, perhaps it's an update involving their particular lore of magic? And what's up with the creepy wizard in the background?

Of course, it could also be the first hint at something much bigger. Total War players are already guessing at how this might be the start of a marketing campaign for the long-awaited third and final Total War: Warhammer game. After all, twin-tailed comets are an omen of tumultuous events in Warhammer, and have heralded invasions of Chaos, who are predicted to return as the antagonists of Total War: Warhammer 3.

The constellation of Grungi's Baldric is ascendant in late spring and early summer. Perhaps that's a hint we'll be hearing more then.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.