Total War: Warhammer 2 got right into the action at The PC Gamer show. The Creative Assembly's Al Bickham got on stage to talk about the sequel to one of our favorite strategy games of last year, and the footage he brought along shows the Lizardmen charging against some High Elves. With dinosaurs, which hardly seems fair. The video is actually depicting a specific quest battle, The Battle of the Fallen Gates, which will be playable on the show floor at E3.
Our favorite thing about the original Total War: Warhammer was how much fun The Creative Assembly was able to have with the setting. Instead of the usual true-to-life historical combat units, the artists and animators got to go nuts with spider-riding goblins and undead dragons and flamethrower Dwarfs. The Lizardmen's units—which include a lizard on a throne riding a bigger lizard, which I've been told is technically a carnosaur—look like a damn blast.
Back in April we wrote about what we want from Total War: Warhammer 2, with the hopes of seeing some changes to the Total War formula rather than just new factions. And while Warhammer 2 does have new factions and a new campaign map that will sync up with the first game's, it also has a new win condition that should shake things up.
As Chris Thursten wrote in our recent hands-on: "In a standard Warhammer 2 campaign, victory is achieved by winning the 'race' to the vortex—a race that involves performing rituals, gathering specific resources, and capturing specific parts of the map. Although it'll still be possible to win through old-fashioned conquest, this shared victory condition is intended to provide drama and challenge all the way to the end of a playthrough.
It'll be possible to both win and lose a campaign at the 11th hour, as even a small force in the right place at the right time has the potential to interrupt a key ritual or intercept a force on its way to victory."
Granted, the video above is mostly about giant lizards beating the snot out of elves, but it's nice to know there are some shakeups coming in Warhammer 2. You can watch the entire presentation from the PC Gaming Show, including our interview with Bickham, right here.
As announced this morning, Warhammer 2 is due out on September 28th. We'll have footage of the entire Battle of the Fallen Gates later this week.
Check out this post for more from The PC Gaming Show at E3 2017. You can watch the show live on Twitch, and catch up on all the news from this year's show right here.
