Total War: Warhammer 40,000 will have destructible terrain elements: 'That forest, if you don't like it, you don't have to keep it'

Total War: SHOW & TELL - YouTube

One of the things on our wishlist for Total War: Warhammer 40,000 is a cover system, and the Total War: Show & Tell makes it clear that we're going to get our wish. And also, if we don't like that cover, we'll be able to blow it up.

"You've got all of these tactical options and then strategic elements that can come out of it," battle product owner Dave Petry says during a map flyover. "One of the really big and exciting things that we're doing here is that destruction is going to come into play. That forest, if you don't like it, you don't have to keep it. If you find that pesky forest is getting in your way and you can't see around it then you can get rid of that thing. Or you can use it to hide in."

The developer roundtable four months ago mentioned there would be destructible buildings, but it's nice to have it clearly stated that we can just delete other stuff off the map if it's in the way.

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"Being completely clear, not absolutely everything is destructible, right?" Petry clarifies. "We've kept it to areas where it really works and it makes sense and it feels like it can add to that depth." As the camera pans over a hive-city warzone with plenty of steep angles and gothic architecture, he says, "We are dealing with a universe which is full of really powerful but flat-firing weapons, so cover becomes incredibly, incredibly important."

One way to blow up that cover will be with orbital bombardments, and the showcase takes a few minutes to spin around a hive world as seen from space. It looks like something right out of the last stage of Spore, only covered in toxic gas and cities so big they cover entire countries. It's 40K as heck, and does assuage some of my concerns.

Sure, the Astra Militarum troopers we see are lined up like Napoleonic regiments, but they're the faction where that's probably most apt. Total War: Warhammer 40,000 still has a release date of "to be announced" on Steam, so there's plenty of time for stuff to change too.

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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. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.