Total War: Warhammer 3's Tides of Torment DLC will be out on the same day as 'a special showcase event where the future of the franchise will be revealed'

Total War: WARHAMMER III - Tides of Torment Announce Trailer - YouTube Total War: WARHAMMER III - Tides of Torment Announce Trailer - YouTube
Watch On

When Creative Assembly announced it was ending support for Total War: Three Kingdoms it did so by saying "we are now looking at the future of Three Kingdoms", so when it announced that Warhammer 3's next DLC will be released on the same day as a 25th anniversary celebration where "the future of the franchise will be revealed", you can be forgiven for flinching.

But it doesn't seem like this is the death knell for Total War: Warhammer 3. If anything, it's a reason to hope it can be dragged out of the Slough of Despond that led to its recent review-bombing. At least we got a cinematic trailer for Tides of Torment that looks sick as hell.

The upcoming expansion adds a High Elf faction led by Sea Lord Aislinn, complete with Merwyrms and Skycutters—eagle-powered flying chariots that look great in motion—as well as a Norsca faction led by Sayl the Faithless, who gets a two-headed giant troop called the Curs'd Ettin, and a Slaanesh faction led by Dechala the Denied One, a six-armed snake lady who gets a flying chimerical mutant called the Preyton. A surprising choice of monster, Preytons were expected to show up in the Beastmen roster instead, though they do fill a flying-beast niche in the Slaanesh army.

Those who don't buy the expansion will still be able to enjoy update 7.0, which will revise all three of the factions represented in the DLC. All High Elf armies will now get to compete to add their members to the Patrons of the Realm, while Norscans will have a new Pillaging feature. Slaanesh is getting a free Legendary Lord in the Masque of Slaanesh, the four-armed daemon lady who can briefly be seen leaping into battle a couple of minutes into the trailer, and who has a campaign mechanic called the Eternal Dance that lets you ballet your way across the map, with different Dances earning different bonuses.

Update 7.0 and Tides of Torment will be available on December 4. At the same time, the Total War launcher is being removed to be replaced by a Total War Mod Manager, which seems like a win for people who hate having to launch an extra launcher to launch a game. Details on how to watch the 25th Anniversary Showcase will be coming on December 1, and next week we can expect to hear more about hotfix 6.3.3, about which Creative Assembly says, "Campaign AI will remain a focus."

Best Warhammer games: Best Warhammer 40K games:Best Warhammer TTRPGs:Best Warhammer 40K books:

Best Warhammer games: Fantasy epics
Best Warhammer 40K games: The complete ranking
Best Warhammer TTRPGs: Across all three settings
Best Warhammer 40K books: Grimdark novels

TOPICS
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.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.