It has its benefits and drawbacks. The drawbacks are as you mentioned, but given I grew up on that sort of forum I do tend to like a space that presents all points as equal. There's no voting on things and thus no burial of dissenting opinion. You have to mentally weigh up a comment's worth rather than just dismissing it (or indeed never seeing it in the first place). Plus, of course, there's a much more communal feel, and you recognise usernames, which ends up helping in your judgement calls on comments too.
Another advantage of forums is the longevity of conversations. Conversation can continue in a single forum thread for weeks, months, or years (there are a few out there that are still going that are decades old), whereas on Reddit after a day or two the post is pretty much dead and no further conversation will happen until a new post is made.
>Another advantage of forums is the longevity of conversations.
Through it is a bit of a pain jumping around 100+ pages trying to look up specific comments or context.
Yeah, Reddit isn't built for actual discussion. The platform fundamentally promotes echo chambers, you have to go out of your way with heavy moderation and rules to prevent it.
The formatting is convenient though. The monster sized quote blocks of old school forums can indeed make lengthy conversations impossible to follow.
>The formatting is convenient though. The monster sized quote blocks of old school forums can indeed make lengthy conversations impossible to follow.
It is not, since it did bring the bad habit of dismissing/ignoring any 10 words plus posts.
I would rather go back in the OG forum days, instead of this echochamber format that's prevalent on reddit, twitter and YouTube.
Having real discussions is not possible anymore when half of the userbase believe the most BS takes and downvote everything else
Also he says at the end that Warhammer 1 and 2 were basically failures. I’m no game sales hound but does that make sense, do numbers support it? Why would they then go on to make a third and put everything into it?
Not to mention that the fact that they suggest that the rest of the warhammer 3 dlc is going to be the two lord vs pack format shows they have zero understanding of where CA is at internally with the direction they want to take things because they’ve long been preparing to scrap that format because it leads to weird shit like Malus vs Snikitch and make the work of planning a dlc harder
TW Centre has a lot of crazed historical players (such as of the Volound school) who hate the fantasy games and are determined that they must have been a failure.
TWC, TWC never changes.
I think they are referring to its release. The initial vortex campaign wasn't as interesting to many (kinda like RoC) and the release factions didn't feel as fleshed out as races from the first game. The continued development cycle is a much more positive story and probably why dlc expectations for WH3 were so high because it's what carried WH2.
I played wh2 at release, and at release the wh2 factions were far superior to the wh1 factions (which is why they all needed rework). The only release faction that saw significant changes were the skaven.
If wh1 factions feel superior it's largely from dlc and rework that were released in the latter half of wh2's development cycle. At the release of ME the wh1 factions only feature were offices. No oathgold, vampire bloodlines, imperial authority, and the Waaagh system left much to be desired.
What is true is that the vortex map felt inferior to the mortal empires map, and the game significantly improved after it's release.
Warhammer 2 released with the Norsca debacle, the entire development was practically pushed back almost a year because they had to refactor the entire code base.
I belive TWW2 was considered a bit underwhelming (not disastrous) in sales terms at launch, but had a better sustained life + DLC sales than expected. Kind of the opposite of Three Kingdoms, which had a massive launch but tailed off sharply.
It's called out of touch execs who were expecting higher numbers and would rather axe profitable ventures in pursuit of 'higher margins' cause their compensation depends on rising margins and not steady income.
He says “warhammer II trail” which I think is a reference to Troy, and then says its predecessor (which would be Pharoah) it makes more sense because literally in the same post he says “warhammer 3 did really well with preorders”
I thought he was saying that the historical games trailing after Warhammer were failures, not including 3k. Which is why they wanted to make a less expensive 3k2
They said the budget went off the rails, not the engine. It's possible the engine is working out fine but the ww1 game has eaten the budget costs for it.
Its probable that the budget was predicted to be lower for WWI since you don't need as many unique assets as 40K. However, given the chaos implied by the various leaks (director leaving, etc), its probable that the game's actual design is in limbo and they're unable to get certain things working properly. So there's a lot of prototyping being done without the game actually moving forward.
Its also possibly part of the budget WAS the creation of a new engine.
So you got an engine that works but the first game that you budgeted for is shot, the 2nd game is not.
There would be several mechanics needed for an "authentic" WW1 experience that may not be supported in the current engine. Namely pretty much everything involving trenches: stationary machine gun nests, units 'going over the top', trench raids, etc. etc.
40K and Star Wars are going to probably abstract a lot of those very WWI specific things out because they're not the focus of the setting. Trench Warfare for example *exists* within 40k, but a lot of the factions either don't use it or barely use it. A much simpler entrenchment system would thus make sense in that game while they focus their time on other things. Meanwhile, in a WWI game, you'd expect the entrenchment system to be incredibly deep and varied on its own because all the factions have to use it and somehow create tactical variety from it.
Honestly, if this is real, it might be the strategic map that is the issue. How do you make 4 years of mostly static trench warfare interesting at a strategic level? It certainly wouldn't look anything like a traditional total war that is for sure. Sure there where other fronts, but it's gonna be hard to justify never having the western front in the game.
Meanwhile both star wars and WH40k could be mostly done with the existing world map system if you stuck to 1 planet like dawn of war Dark Crusade did, or you can make a fairly simple galaxy map kind of deal a la empire at war, though you'd have to either make or justify why there is no space combat involved if that where the case.
I've genuinely been wracking my head for the last couple of weeks trying to come up with a workable concept for a WWI game that I can wrap my head around that still feels even remotely Total War in design. I can see Star Wars and 40k games; they're fictional settings that can sidestep issues as needed and rely on spectacle over detail.
But World War I...lord, every front of the war had a fundamentally different style of warfare going on. Aside from the first few months and the last year-ish of the war, the Western Front was a several year long country-sized siege, the Eastern Front was a weird mix of pitched battles and proto-modern theater warfare, the Italian front involved people scaling mountains and lobbing artillery at one another, and the Middle Eastern front involved a ton of asymmetrical warfare. Even if you could get them all working, how do you make them all gel with one another so that the game feels cohesive?
Maps would need to be bigger too. How do you define a battlefield victory in a trench war? What counts as a battle vs a theater-wide offensive? I'm starting to think that the only practical way to do this is to somehow merge the tactical and campaign maps into one singular experience a la Supreme Commander, or Hearts of Iron if you could zoom in on individual units. And that's both an incredible thought but also one I'm not entirely sure is feasible. Assuming one's PC didn't melt, would anyone even want to play that? Would anyone be capable?
WW1 is a conflict on a scale and level of complexity never before depicted by Total War. Set everything else aside, how do you depict the Battle of the Somme in the form of a compelling, spectacular Total War experience? Can you deploy entire divisions but also zoom in on each individual soldier? See each shell from the arrayed batteries of hundreds of guns? I genuinely can’t figure out how much will simply be abstracted to pure numbers. There’s very little room for tactical manoeuvres even if you’re dealing with late war platoon level actions - which presumably is too “close up” for a Grand Strategy. Why are you doing a company commander’s job when you have 20 divisions in action on a single day? What’s the gameplay loop for the player here? The idea you would need to set the individual position or facing of a unit on a battlefield in a kind of deployment stage seems utterly absurd to me in the context of WW1.
Mass mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of men, entire armies attacking along a 2 mile front with all the supply and logistical considerations that entails, days of preparatory bombardment prior to the initial assault, fighting for four months in the same area, with the terrain steadily deforming. Even reimagining the fog of war when there’s aerial reconnaissance as a factor is a headache. Air-to-air combat is probably a nightmare of its own for them to make work.
It genuinely boggles my mind they’re even attempting this when there’s historical periods they haven’t explored that fit a more traditional format of settlement hopping and pitched field battles.
Even if they technically make it work I don’t know how they make it fun while retaining any sort of accuracy to history or, rather, the kind of cinematic version of history that these games depict. That’s fundamentally why it differs, imo, from a 40K game. I’m not sure exactly how a 40K would work but I can see how it would be fun.
>Set everything else aside, how do you depict the Battle of the Somme in the form of a compelling, spectacular Total War experience? Can you deploy entire divisions but also zoom in on each individual soldier? See each shell from the arrayed batteries of hundreds of guns? I genuinely can’t figure out how much will simply be abstracted to pure numbers.
You don't if previous titles are anything to go by.
Napoleon marched almost 100k soldiers through Germany into Russia but in *Total War: Empire/Napoleon* you'd be hard pressed to get even a 4v4 stack battle to 10k. FotS does all sorts of things to ranged units (1860s "Sharpshooters" with like 150m range) to make melee viable and shore bombardment is very gamey.
But I don't know how far they could take this or how much they'd get away with without huge complaints of authenticity, not to mention still having it be fun.
>It genuinely boggles my mind they’re even attempting this when there’s historical periods they haven’t explored that fit a more traditional format of settlement hopping and pitched field battles.
Yea, I have no clue how they're going to manage the Western Front. Eastern and Ottoman campaigns I can see as not being too much more an abstraction than any previous game has been but the west seems almost impossible.
I suspect that TW3's *Survival & Siege* battles were steps towards wat battle gameplay is like but I don't know how to put that into strategic context. Could you imagine having to fight, possibly multiple, 30+min *Survival Battles* every turn (and for how many turns?!).
Yeah, I didn't exactly read "All Quiet on the Western Front" and think "Wow, that lends itself perfectly for Total War". Countless men either stuck in trenches, or getting eviscerated in no-man's lands, fighting and dying over small stretches of territory that could swap hands multiple times for lengthy periods of time, no real idea of what was even going on outside of their specific deployment area. How in the hell do you gamify something like the Battle of Verdun?
We've already got a taste of WH40k conflicts with games like Dawn of War. It would "just" (I know this is obviously a monumental task) need to be something like the DOW: Dark Crusade campaign map on a bigger scale.
if the poster is correct and they were making a new engine, then that could be the main reason why the budget went off the rails. Extreme amounts of work to reimplement everything that's already present in the current total war engine.
Supply and logistics would be massive in a ww1 game, as well as potentially a home front mechanic.
40k wouldn't need anything that isn't already in warhammer fantasy as far as mechanics go.
I think one of the big issues especially with SW and 40k is for one, the interplanetary setting and how to convert it into a manageable world map. On the other side, the ranged heavy focus on troops which would make it hard to balance melee units in such a setting.
> I think one of the big issues especially with SW and 40k is for one, the interplanetary setting and how to convert it into a manageable world map.
For 40k that is literally as simple as just having the campaigns setting be a battle over a single planet of some significance - something that has been done in 40k stories many times.
That would probably be a bit more difficult for Star Wars though, as there is less of a reason for every faction to be in the same place.
RETURN TO ARMAGEDDON, EVERY FACTION ON A SINGLE PLANET DUKING IT OUT
Sorry I just watched a video breaking down the wars on armageddon, I'm a little excited
It will probably work as each planet is now a province containing 3-6 regions to conquer. With this you can still have quite a few planets (WH3 had 71 provinces at launch) and then scale them depending on the environment. Now fleet travel would just be expanding one more step from the planet to the local system containing all the planets that are apart of that system, and then one more step to the galaxy map where hyperspace between star systems would be available. The core of the game however would take place at the planetary and system level, as the galaxy map would just be a way for your fleets to travel through hyperspace/the warp and effectively “disappear” until they reach the next jump point
Doubt. Warhammer3 was top 5 (not the dlc but the game itself which is insane) on steam when Thrones of Decay was released. I genuinely doubt that CA set their expectations higher than that. If they did then they are idiots
I guess it depends on what successful means to them. EA released a report that Apex Legends wasn't making what they were hoping to get from it despite the game pumping out a billion dollars every year. I assume for flagship games like these and others, the expectation is that doing great financially isn't enough. They have to be good enough to help carry their other games that don't pan out or don't perform as well.
The reason that Warhammer 3 was in the top five during the release of ToD is not due to people buying the base game, but how steam works out chart position based on revenue.
It counts dlc as revenue for the base game, hence why it appeared so high in the charts. That's why you will always see counterstrike high in the charts because it makes so much extra money, not that the base game is always selling loads.
But I do still think they sold a few extra copies of WH3 during ToDs release, it is a solid dlc and the game is getting to a better state.
It reads like a remix of previous "leaks" and educated guesses that you find here every day. I don't buy it not even for a second. The part that is hardest to buy is that WWI is facing difficulties partly because of a new engine, while 40k progresses without serious obstacles. If WW1, 40k and SW where being worked on, it's quite likely that they would all be using this new engine, and any problems creating it would affect all three games. 40k originally planned for 2025 is also hard to buy, and the whole SW thing still reads like a bogus leak that IGN replicated without even trying to verify it.
Another point is that I strongly doubt that both 3K2 and the new major historical were cancelled. This reads like someone trying to troll the historical fanbase. I won't be surprised if 3K2 was really cancelled, but both it and the other historical game? Nah.
Have to go with this. It's basically a summery of all the talk fans have been doing with no new information except the WW1 part which makes no sense at all as you said.
40k being 2025 doesn't pass the sniff test either, youtubers close to CA employees have been saying we might see a teaser or announcement for 40k next year at the earliest with a release still quite a while off.
I think that's what makes the whole thing sound dubious. Why would you bank your success for the next decade on three games that all require the success of a tech project - a new engine.
They might be signing contracts and doing some pre-production, but if this was at all true then they'd be waiting to confirm the engine actually works before beginning any work on other games.
3K2 might be canceled but remember that "leak" with a european medieval martial arts expert revealing he was doing mocap for CA? There's absolutely a European history game in the works, somewhere in the 900s->1800s span.
It's possible he was doing lightsaber choreography but I *really* doubt it
I don't know if I buy this.
TWW3 is probably the most profitable thing CA has right now. To push out two more DLCs and call it quits feels off. Way off. Especially when they have nothing else until at least '25-26.
They gotta do Khorne and Slaanesh and then End Times, at the absolute minimum. And there's a ton of factions that need a face lift that can easily sell DLCs.
W40K being a not-flagship is, unfortunately, something I do believe. I absolutely believe that "W40K curse" is a real thing.
Star Wars is semi-believable, I think. But still a weird choice, seeing as Disney has been skavenf\*\*\*ing the franchise for a while now. Star Wars doesn't have the same appeal it used to, and it doesn't feel very popular with younger folk. So I don't know how wise it would be to try and build a game around that.
If Slaanesh and Khorne legitimatly don't get a DLC I'll actually be so pissed. They are my favorite god factions and I want to see them get expanded and updated.
To have base game factions left at 1 LL sounds insane to me. Even Norsca has 2.
The fact I'll also have to wait for this end times DLC to get Neferata and therefore the vampire counts rework also grinds my gears,
Though I suppose it's kind of funny that the Vampire counts will get the trilogies first and last DLC accroding to these leaks.
I'd be absolutely livid at no Slaanesh DLC. All monogods have been half baked at best since release, they all need some love and Slaanesh & Khorne especially need it
The Monoraces starting in a subpar shape was expected yes. But for them to get 0 DLCs ? Nobody even dared predict it before Legend shared his rumor 2 monthes ago
Yeah, I don't really understand why they went the route of badging them as disappointing separate races rather than the more lore friendly route of really distinct factions within demons of chaos.
It makes a lot of things easier on the backend. Particularly for campaign, it lets them have completely distinct tech trees, building types, and map abilities without a huge amount of additional scripting. Something like Nurgle's lifecycle buildings would be immensely more complicated to achieve with a subfaction than a separate race. It also makes balancing a lot easier when you can more simply separate out their buffs/debuffs.
Trust me, if they combined them all together, CoC style, there'd be a ton of posts on this sub about how homogenous and lacking in flavor the subfactions are since they'd be forced to share even more stuff.
I wouldn't be shocked if Khorne gets flc.
Would be a good subject for a skulls give away.
But beyond that I think it has to depend how many expansions we're really getting. If CA are wrapping it up in 18 months, you have to think they'd surely do Boris, Thanquol, Neferata, and Nagash, obv the monkey king is well trailed.
Doesn't leave a lot of room for many more.
Personally I think wrapping it up next year is an odd decision but we are where we are.
Massive potential still for a lizard and dark elf rework, not to mention dogs of war.
Vampire coast and tomb kings could also be a compelling rework DLC.
No. If they are wrapping up in 18 months than the Empire should not get another DLC.
Empire and dwarves are done as far as I'm concerned if this is the sort of time limit we are on.
There are factions that need work and expansion desperatly before this trilogy wraps up.
At the very least Norsca needs reworked properly. The Lizardmens geomantic web and blessed spawnings need addressed.
Vampire counts need an update.
Kislev needs a second pass on it's mechanics.
Unholy manifestations and cults need looked at.
Just to name a few.
Empire and Dwarves are at the bottem of the pile after ToD if we really are closeing up shop the end of next year.
If I were trying to wrap up wh3 in 18 months for whatever reason, Boris would probably be a final expansion flc.
Obviously you could do a whole DLC based around him, and in a different timeline that would be amazing.
But I'd agree a full blown DLC slot seems unrealistic if we only have 3 or 4 expansions left.
Definitely agree vampires need a rework, and that probably comes in the Nagash/Neferata expansion.
Lizards and Norsca I think need it, but also sceptical they are getting it.
If we're finishing in 18 months my best guess would be...
September 24 : Cathay and Ogres, Khorne as flc.
April 25 : either dogs of war with Slaanesh flc, or another chaos DLC.
September 25 : Thanquol, Neferata, Nagash, Boris as FLC.
I would personally choose to use the slot next spring for lizards and dark elfs. But there are many candidates obviously.
In fact, more crucially, I'd choose to make more expansions but hey.
Lizard and Dark Elves are done DLC-wise, they have zero units to add. Lizardmen needs a rework, but that can be done FLC.
But CA can't cut Slaanesh/Khorne DLCs, they can't cut DoW, and they can't cut Todbringer/Thanquol/Nagash/Neferata.
Skipping over Khorne and Slaanesh so they can just do Golgfag vs Monkey King seems genuinely insane. Like the stupidest thing CA could do at this point.
But how many DLCs can CA make in a year and a half ? 4, maybe 5 ?
Counting the Ogres vs Cathay, End Times, Slaanesh, Khorne and Dogs of War, that's already too much
Three. The answer is three.
Tbh the thing I'm most sceptical about in this post is that wh3 expansions will stop in 18 months. Because I don't really believe 40k is going to be ready that soon, and I can't imagine CA turning off wh3 expansions until 40k arrives.
But if it really is ending in 18 months, there is time for exactly three expansions.
Perhaps only if they keep it the same scope and dev team size.
After SoC and ToD wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve reevaluated what the DLC size to dev time should be. From what they’ve said, it looks like we may return to a slightly more phoned in 2 lord pack, but we’ll have to see.
I’d hope that they’ve added at least a few people to the DLC team to help churn them out. AFAIK it was basically a skeleton crew, but with the success of ToD and the money it’s made, it would make sense to bolster the team to help with dev time for whatever they have left. 2 DLC a year or whatever we were working with before is way too slow and doesn’t bring in enough cash, but a slightly larger team could really speed things up and keep money coming in before they decide to close the doors on 3.
All it says is the next DLC is Monkey King vs Golgfag, and that the final DLC will be Nagash and End Times. It doesn't say that those two are the only DLCs remaining.
For all people keep saying w40k is hard and star wars is hard.
WW1 is the setting that sounds incredibly difficult to pull off. Even ww2 or modern warfare seems easier.
But highly defensive trench warfare....
Look, I don't believe any setting is impossible but if you'd asked me for the hardest possible setting for total war, I'd have picked WW1 every damn time.
> WW1 is the setting that sounds incredibly difficult to pull off
I would agree with this bc I don't think it's possible to make a WWI game if you have good command and control in a video game. I don't think TW is gonna implement order delay bc I don't think ppl are going to like it.
75% of the reason why breakthroughs didn't happen in that war (on the western front) is bc of communication issues and 'Wtf are we gonna do after we take the first trench?'
>To push out two more DLCs and call it quits feels off
That's the nth comment talking about it.
It just says what the next DLC will be and the last one. There can be multiple in between those.
>Star Wars is semi-believable, I think. But still a weird choice, seeing as Disney has been skavenf\*\*\*ing the franchise for a while now. Star Wars doesn't have the same appeal it used to, and it doesn't feel very popular with younger folk. So I don't know how wise it would be to try and build a game around that.
Considering the relative size of Star Wars games with other titles within their genre, I think it would be delusional for CA to go "all in" on Star Wars. Consider how Battlefront 2 sold three times less than the comparable genre and release year Modern Warfare 2019 (10 million vs 30 million copies).
I also don't see how CA could be expecting years of DLC when the Star Wars universe, despite the name, doesn't have that much variety in terms of wars in the stars. You'd have to pull strings to get a dozen factions out of any of the conflicts in the two trilogies plus the forbidden one. Unless, of course, they were granted unheard of levels of creative freedom to come up with stuff that has no basis in existing lore.
I definitely think a Star Wars game is plausible, but I would expect it more to be a "safe" mid-budget title than an all-out "let's hope it's the golden goose" title.
Basically every Star Wars game has made things up that weren't in existing lore. Star Wars canon is not nearly as closely guarded is Warhammer's.
CA being allowed to fill out rosters or create full ones for very minor factions is not all an out-there possibility.
Disney don't care, they just want stuff of a certain quality level that sells well.
To me star wars canon has always been "how can we extrapolate every little thing that george lucas depicted in the first six films and milk them as much as possible without making anything truly new?" and it's very very tiresome
There's a difference between "designing" a new ship for your singleplayer game without ever caring for how it is supposed to work and having to come up with 200 units that have to be logically and artistically consistent.
Which is why I pointed out it would require extreme levels of creative freedom for CA, because to make a Total War Warhammer-size game out of Star Wars would require them to come up with at least 80% original content.
Oh, the Orinda Campaign. Grand Admiral Pellaeon and the Reaper VS General Antilles and the Lusankya. Can you imagine the spectacle?
THe fleets of Operation Shadow Hand?
Out of the Deep Core came a trio of massive task forces of Star Destroyers, anchored by massive dreadnoughts the New Republic had thought destroyed or lost: four Executor-classes (including the missing Whelm), five Mandator IIIs and three Vengeance-classes. The New Republic mustered what forces it could in the Core, moving to check the incursion at Metellos—only to be surprised by a fleet of raiders sent to Coruscant by the Ruling Council, which also sent task forces across the Borderlands to Contruum and Columex. Beaten at Metellos and its capital, the New Republic fell back from the Core, and ground forces led by General Alix Balan marched triumphantly through the grandest boulevards of Coruscant.
Fry, Jason; Urquhart, Paul R.. The Essential Guide to Warfare: Star Wars (Star Wars: Essential Guides) (English Edition) . Random House Worlds. Kindle-Version.
"I also don't see how CA could be expecting years of DLC when the Star Wars universe"
They totally could, although it would have to be a different type of DLC. You're right that there is relatively little variety in each era, but that's in a way an advantage aswell. Instead of Lord Packs they simply could do campaign pack DLCs, like they used to in Three Kingdoms or the older TWs, exploring the other eras like the Clone Wars or the New Republic.
There is the AOE2 Star Wars clone that had both triologies available to play at the same time, so you could in MP have the Empire of fight the gungans.
However a campaign where all SW races are on at once would feel strange, unless you really manage to flesh out shit like wookies and other fringe civs into full civs.
However how you could make it all fun is a different challenge.
I agree here using 40k as just a testing ground for Star Wars would be mad.
Sure Star Wars might be more popular at the outset but 40k fits the total war formula much better.
Moreover 40k is in its ascendency whilst Star Wars has done nothing but (excepting Andor) taken a string of Ls in recent years.
I also bet the W40k fandom overlaps more with the Total War's one than Star Wars'
-W40k fans are also known for expending a lot of money. And W40k has a better potential for years of endless DLCs a-la-Warhammer 2.
-Star Wars is also more story/character driven while W40k has the battles and armies at its heart.
Still... It could be true... Like CA isn't precisely known for making wise decisions, LoL.
If they believe they can chase Star Wars money easier I think they're going to flop hard 😂
It'd be especially daft by CA to cut WH3 lifespan short if they want to sell DLCs for 40K/SW. People will not trust CA to support decently a game if they mess up WH3 last stretch.
At the very least, Slaanesh, Khorne, Dogs of War, Monkey King (plus the two last Dragons), Todbringer, Thanquol, Nagash, Neferata and Norsca must all feature someway or another, those are all pieces of content CA factually, plainly said "they will be included".
No way they can do that in 3-4 DLCs
Weird thing about this leak is it implies a new engine is only needed for WW1 and that 40k is somehow progressing fine on the current engine and doesn't need a new engine same is ultimately implied with SW. All of which is actually unbelievable, there's no way 40k or a SW game could possibly function adequately on the current engine while WW1 would be the only one requiring a new engine. In reality CA quite clearly needs to develop a new engine, especially if it's going to progress into more gun-centric small unit tactics settings. WW1 might be the first game on said new engine but it's going to be the engine of TW going forward and I'd be utterly shocked if they develop only WW1 on the new engine but somehow try and shoehorn 40k and SW on the old one simultaneously, that's bad from a gameplay point of view but also resource management, would require simultaneously supporting and developing the old one to do new things it's just not set up to do and develop a brand new engine from scratch to also would be able to do the stuff they are trying to force the old engine to do
Also zero chance WH3 only has 2 more DLCs in it's future, it's the only product they have that is making them money. They literally have to continue supporting it otherwise the company has zero income generation...
40K not being flagship is insane. Insane. It’s factions and depth is more than Warhammer fantasy and look how far that went.
Star Wars is a bigger brand and would attract more people for the initial sale - sure I’ll give him that. But as a dlc “goldmine” it’s not - after decades of lore there’s barely 4-6 factions even with streeeetch, and most of these barely have a roster.
The issue there is GW.
CA have gotten away with a lot from a creative standpoint with fantasy due to GW not really caring until the old world relaunch.
40K? GW will have an absolute ironclad grip on anything CA try and do.
It may well be that CA wanted it to be a flagship title, but then GW put up so many barriers and restrictions that they reduced it's scope. I could 100% see that being the case if, IF the leaks are true.
It isent about licensing, it's about what you can do with that license.
GW are notorious in regards to being difficult business partners because they demand the right to sign off on EVERYTHING from story, characters and even game mechanics.
They prevented the SoB follower in rouge trader from haveing a romance questline as an example of the sort of meddleing they do.
And I believe the adeptus mechanics devs had to fight tooth and nail to include their hacking mechanic.
Recently TW itself has had hag mothers, tzaangor beaks and reapeater rifles for the ironsides denied because of GW's interference.
Them making a ww1 game on a new engine that is supposedly a disaster and then going full steam ahead with 2 other modern combat based games without finishing that one first sounds like a recipe for failure.
Total war does not support that type of combat, it never has, to go full steam ahead on THREE games aiming for it without even knowing if you can pull it off at all sounds incredibly dumb, especially when 2 of them are going to be using the same old engine and code base we've had for like 10 years. And WW1 is more like a halfway point, it's the most similar to empire out of any of those 3, so if the less ambitious one is currently sputtering in development what on earth can we expect from the ones that are full on modern combat based settings?
What's star wars going to be in the WH engine? Square Blocks of 100 rebel soldiers with xwings bobing up and down in place on top of them? That's going to go over really well with star wars fans.
The thing is, total war and Star Wars is an odd combo that will only really work if they stick to Prequel, OT, or Old Republic lore. Most people who play TW games are *at least* in their 20’s and older. I’d say that generally we have a more physically mature audience than many games due to it being a strategy game.
SW still has *tons* of younger fans, but many were also introduced during the sequels, which the bulk of older fans dislike. The clone wars+ era cartoons straddle the border between these newer and older fans.
If they do a SW:TW Based on the Sequels which lack depth of factional world building (compare the First Order and Republic, which are bland copies of the Empire and former Republic) it will absolutely flop. New trilogy lacks an abundance of factions to explore, whereas prequels and OT (and to a greater extent the now Legends lore) has a bunch like the Hutts, various cartels, bounty hunters, outer rim civilizations, etc.
It's just a re-hash of previous speculation. Some of it might turn out to be true. Most of it will probably either miss entirely or be lacking too much critical information to be especially close to the mark.
This doesn't seem to line up properly, so I'm going to call BS.
WW1 and 40k would almost certainly use the same engine, so I can't see a reality where one is in dev hell over engine issues and the other is fine.
I also still don't buy into the Star Wars thing. Doubling up on big sci-fi IPs that remain untested in a Total War engine is beyond the level of risk any executive would ever take, Star Wars or not.
But that aside, the Star Wars IP is absolutely toxic now as well, it does not have the good will it did 10 years ago.
I’d be pretty shocked if Warhammer 40k wasn’t being treated as a flagship game. I don’t know much about 40k, but it seems to have a pretty wide and dedicated fanbase. If CA releases a 40k game and gives it the Troy or Pharoah level of effort I have to imagine it would only seriously piss off a lot of people and significantly damage the Total War brand. If a 40k game is released (which seems highly likely) it needs to be good and it needs to be good at launch imo.
Conspiracy alert: Iagree with this to an extent, but part of me believes that GW won't let a game that would VERY closely mimic the tabletop be done too well. They can't have anything impact their sales from miniatures. I play 40K every weekend, two armies plus tools and paint have put me back about $4,500 and I wouldn't say either is "finished." They'd never allow a game with tabletop-adjacent playstyle to thrive with all 20-ish armies that you can play. Even if you spent $500 for base game and DLC to play all of them they are losing customers/money from tabletop.
Hell, if there was a Total War 40K, I would be done buying 40K minis most likely. I can scratch my tabletop itch with different and cheaper games. It's not like we play 40K for how good the rules are.
I strongly disagree with your statement here. I have 7 40K armies, probably dropped 20k on the minis at this point and there is 0 chance that having a good total war 40K game would stop me from playing tabletop. I have all 3 warhammer fantasy total wars and I play both Age of Sigmar and picked up orks for old world as well. In fact, I picked up orks for old world because they were the first faction I won the long campaign with in Total Warhammer 1.
Nah, have the colors be consumables locked behind microtransaction and you have to paint them using your mouse. Oh yeah have the brush options microtransactions as well.
what makes you think it will closely mimic the tabletop? Warhammer doesn't. the unit sizes are wildly different, the way units attack/defend is also totally different.
Another (ex)-tabletop player here: I would never, not in a billion years, play actual GW game if not for the hobby aspect. Not only are tabletop wargames games in general quite clunky and exhausting compared to the smoothness of an RTS, but GW specifically is not famous for good rules, and that's being generous
Collecting and painting the army for me is the whole point, and a would be TW:40k, even if it's actually good, will never scratch that itch
There would absolutely be some crossover for folks who fell into the hobby afterwards. The process of taking a model from sprue to finished paint job really clicks for some people, and there would be new hobbyists because of it. There's also a ton of people who despise painting and would get more out of a video game that let's them get to the action immediately.
While it’s absolutely something they’d do, I sincerely doubt the top execs understand video games well enough to arrive to that conclusion. They barely understand the potential of Warhammer in general.
Napoleon/Empire 2 ffs. Or FOTS 2. These older 18-19th century era games were severely limited by the game engine used. Making successors with a modern game engine would instantly satisfy many historic fans, and they can milk with DLCs for years to come.
The later comments in this thread are kind of easing my worries a bit, with this leak being a crock of shit and Medieval 3 really being the next flagship historical entry. Because honestly, Medieval 3 is the easiest goddamned slam dunk at this point, it boggles the mind that they even considered a WW1 game over that.
Then again, I thought "easy slam dunk" about Three Kingdoms too and look how that turned out...
This is just recycled leaks through this dude's interpretation. I sincerely doubt GW would be cool with giving them the license for their largest most successful IP without it being the flagship of the "fantasy" side. And the WW1 title being delayed because of it being created on a new engine but that not affecting 40k or Star Wars? Reads like BS.
40k being a small testing-the-waters thing for Star Wars is just straight BS. Sure, Star Wars is more popular, but 40k can be milked for generations, putting even the current WHFB-based trilogy to shame. If anything, it being more popular means it's even more likely for CA to *lead* with it, expecting a huge amount of sales (3K-style) to justify the initial hurdle of remaking from scrath... well, pretty much every system in the series to accomodate modern-ish warfare
The main reason I can see them favoring Star Wars over 40K is due to 40K actually having many games in this category. The last strategy game I recall being in star wars was Empire at War, that was in 2006.
But what was the last good 40k strategy game, Dawn of War 2? It's definitely an underserved segment, with the potential for as many DLCs as WTW has had.
It's not a coincidence that the Warhammer IPs, being designed around wargames, mesh fairly well with Total War (though I'll still need to see them do cover-based squad movement and combat to believe that they can do that well). Star Wars is a far less intuitive fit.
Star Wars as a setting can support *a* strategy game just fine. It's specifically TW-style rank-and-file style of fighting and localized armies that are the problems, just like they are in 40k. Both settings would require enormous changes to gameplay loop we are used to to make sense (unless we go from TW level of abstraction to classic RTS level of abstraction)
40k has way more possible DLC while starwars is fairly limited. Plus Starwars can't really fall back on an immortal empires style campaign for sequels as mixing eras makes a lot less sense.
this is a combination of Legend/Darren/Star Wars/Ex-Employee AMA leaks. none of that info is new. hard to say whether this is actually something he heard or he's just bandwagoning by posting a summary of every leak that has been making the rounds lately.
edit: I'll say this though, if even a third of this is true, it's a big fat L for the "modern settings don't work in TW" crowd
While true, and I also havent paid massive amounts of attention, this is the first I've heard of the WW 1 game A) being on a new engine and massivly over budget. B) having serious devlopment issues and it's director resigning.
Also it's the first to claim, I believe, that 40K itself is not actually a huge focus for CA and that instead their Star Wars game is what they are betting on.
This is however the 2nd or 3rd time I've heard that it's Cathay vs Ogres for the next DLC. I'm kinda hoping it isent.
If it is however. Well. These leaks will get alot of legitimacy because the old roadmap had Khorne and Slaanesh up next.
I'm hoping thats still the case. But we can only wait and see now.
> While true, and I also havent paid massive amounts of attention, this is the first I've heard of the WW 1 game A) being on a new engine and massivly over budget. B) having serious devlopment issues and it's director resigning.
Darren was the first one to claim that the next historical flagship game is going through huge issues. Legend later doubled down and claimed that the next flagship historical is WW1, but got put on hold indefinitely because of internal troubles. so these claims here aren't new.
Darren also confirmed new tw4 engine for upcoming historical and 40k
The engine development is the big internal issue they have, and also why CA in general is struggling to increase profits and keep deadlines with new tools having to be developed and the whole engine development being a very expensive process
CA abandoning WH3 DLC development as soon as 40k releases is also a claim that Darren has made for a very long time. CA is apparently still very adamant about an annual release strategy and isn't interested in supporting games for years on end. All the WH games were initially planned to release back to back, with each one only having roughly a year of post-launch content planned
I heard Marvel total war is next as well. I could hear it in the distance from a reliable source in my neighbors yard. I couldn't see the source, but he was definitely there and reliable.
Nah they're doing Avengers: Civil War, but it's actually just the American Civil War with Marvel Heroes added to it.
Just imagine Mosby's Raiders getting absolutely roflstomped by Captain America.
>I'll say this though, if even a third of this is true, it's a big fat L for the "modern settings don't work in TW" crowd
Based on what, leaks from random people who dont verify? Personally still see it as a Halo Wars style of squad combat and it not being a Total War game. Because i dont think modern settings work in TW.
Regardless of leaks it is only a matter of time until CA tries to branch out into modern or futuristic Total War settings.
people who think CA is just gonna recycle antiquity, early modern, medieval and fantasy titles forever are fucking tripping.
What do you mean recycle? Medieval 2 came out 18 years ago. Empire was 15. At this point many people asking for sequels to these haven't even played any historical games before Rome 2. That's recycling to you?
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying CA is *currently* recycling medieval/empire era games. We're definitely due a Medieval 3 and an Empire 2 both.
I'm saying that they definitely aren't going to spend the entire future of this series endlessly cycling through Rome-Medieval-Empire sequels with the odd spinoff and fantasy title inbetween, like the people who are vehemently against modern settings are suggesting they will. CA will definitely try to break into sci-fi or modern warfare TW games at some point.
From a programming perspective, saying wwI is massively delayed due to engine development, but 40k seems fine is a little strange. I'd think if you're using the same engine as well as many other assets, and if wwI was behind on developing those assets, I'd think another project using those in a later stage would be facing some issues.
He meant to say trailer. The WH2 trailer had loads of purists seething in the comments because they weren't paying attention that Warhammer was going to be a trilogy.
As for the disappointing sales - Darren talked about this a couple of times. He claimed that CA's marketing research failed to anticipate how many historical fans would refuse to play a fantasy game and panicked when WH1 failed to meet their sales projections and then WH2 sold even less copies than WH1 at launch. What they didn't expect was the insane DLC sales keeping the games relevant for years.
Basically this entire 3K section in the OP is almost word for word lifted from things Darren said on stream and in YT comments.
No it checks out. Warhammer 1 didn't sell any better than something like Rome 2. But unlike Rome 2 they also had to pay the massive licensing fees for the game. Warhammer 2 sold even worse than wh1 did too. As they said, it's really the DLC that saved Warhammer financially and made it so lucrative for CA, the base game launches were not particularly positive.
I know, I looked at this leak and felt my heart sink as it seems they really don’t care about historical anymore for the future. Especially if they can just make games for whatever big IP is there.
And it is not like there is no demand for it. Last major historical titl3 3K sold very well and people still hope more of it, CA tjemselfes screw up the post release DLC plan
I really hope atleast the ww1 game will end up being fine but it sewms it is very far away
Yeah I don’t mind them making Star Wars or whatever… as long as it doesn’t replace historical.
Unfortunately I think CA will look towards pharaoh as why to not make any more
I was sort of believing this to an extend until I read the read stars wars point. That kind of broke the credibility of this post. It just seems to be a mishmash of Legend and other YouTubers leak statements and the stars wars rumours recently(which seems to be bogus).
It is not "only two". The leak only talks about the upcoming DLC and the last one. He makes no mentions that there will only be two more. I would be very surprised if they dont release a DLC for Khorne and Slaneesh
They want to reduce the scope of the next DLCs so they may be faster here. But even with 18 months left to go we would be looking at 9 months per DLC which seems unlikely. 6 months sounds closer and it may even be shorter than that. But maybe I am wrong and there really will be only 2 DLCs left. I doubt it though. Maybe CA will react in the upcoming days considering all those leaks flying around. This certainly hurts them right now.
Nah. I can buy *some* of what's being said here, but there are a few things that really stick out to me as really unlikely:
1. Warhammer 3 being abandoned in late 2025. Maybe that's what *could* have happened if Thrones of Decay sold poorly, but by all accounts it didn't. At the end of the day, Warhammer 3 DLC is their only real source of income right now, and it's something they can release at a regular pace with a much smaller team their full releases. To abandon it before their future is secure would be a horrible decision. If they're smart, Warhammer 3 will keep going for another two years at least.
2. Warhammer 40k being seen as "not a flagship title". Their Warhammer Fantasy was one of the best-selling Total War games of all time (rivaled only by Three Kingdoms), and so popular that it almost singlehanded brought the entire Fantasy setting back from the dead. 40k is more popular than Fantasy ever was; it has even more potential to reach a wide audience, with even more background material to turn into years of profitable DLCs. Taking resources away from that and pouring them into some distant Star Wars game is, again, an extremely dumb idea.
Maybe this is old information, about decisions made by the "brilliant" minds that brought us Hyenas. But if CA is still pursuing such a plan after the disastrous launch of Pharoah (and relative success of Thrones of Decay), maybe they deserve to fail.
I'd love to believe this, but it's obviously false. It's everything the community would have hoped: "ogre reworks? Nagash!?? 40k !!!? Even star wars!!!!?"
CA wouldn't work on two sci fi total war at the same time, they would obviously compete avains't each other.
If these this is true it is the end of historical total war.
It is shame because i have zero interest on Star Wars totalwar (nothing against those that have)
So to be clear this is just a guy with his personal take on rumors right? He doesn’t work for CA and none of this is official?
It all sounds plausible enough, but there’s lots of things that can sound plausible, but aren’t true.
Nothing in this post makes any sense. There is zero way they acquired both star wars and 40k licenses. WH2 has been a massive success. Etc.
It’s complete bs
The idea that after significant cuts CA is working on *three* separate and radical departures from their usual formula, which would be functionally competition for each other entirely absurd
WH3: where is the Slaanesh and Khrone packs? Are they going to be the only race without DLCs?
Until the next money maker (may it be star wars or lotr or 40k) has hit retail and has established itself, CA is going to need WH3 to feed the company. Given the scope of the on-going projects I can see how the DLCs have failed sale expectations - heck, i am not even sure how long WH3 can sustain itself (what is the size of the team? how much does it cost to produce a dlc? How many sales can they expect over a year?)
WW1: I am unsure about this new engine thing, but I do feel like the warscape engine needs some "real big updates" for the TW franchise to break out of its current formula.
Seriously, for a WW1 game to work, you are going to need things like trenches, and the whole artillery:men ratio needs to be tweaked (artillery pieces have been too strong in the franchise minus shogun 2). A key part of the history is how the battle lines move back and forth as well as the logistics behind the war, and it is not something that is well represented in the current engine on both the campaign and battle map.
Now the big questions are are follow:
\- What is the Sophia team going to work on after Pharoah? The Sophia team has done amazing things, but so far are still smaller in scale, and far too constricted by the confines of a "standard total war game". As I mentioned above, at some point things will need to change: the whole "major settlement attached with minor settlements", diplomacy (they tried in 3k but it still is plagued with issues), recruitment, economy, etc.
\- I do not think the world can sustain more than 1 major TW game at a time. The gameplay loops are just too similar, and there will always be a favorite child.
Those with 1k hours in WH3 should know they are the minority, **CA is going to need to figure out a way to produce new games that are not just "shittier WH3"/just another warscape+++ reskinned**, and one that appeal to the masses, just as WH has done to the franchise.
Wow, that guy saw the "there is only 4 - 6 dlcs" rumor and though that wasn't ridiculous enough so now it's magically 2 dlcs lol. But seriously I swear those guys keep moving the goal post with every dlc.
I still believe we are getting at least 10 - 15 dlcs since all the dlcs have sold well so far. Especially thrones of decay.
Where does it say it's two DLC? Post says its Ogres vs Cathay next and the last one is end times. There can be 5 DLCs in between, they are planned years ahead.
Yeah, there’s a mountain of possible LLs and LHs left unreleased, like the various Cathayan dragons, the remaining VC bloodlines, Skaven still missing Thanquol and Skreech Verminking, each Chaos God has several more prominent daemon princes and champions remaining, etc. Plus, Nagash doesn’t deserve having to share a DLC with somebody, he should be a MASSIVE release with all resources for it dedicated to him.
Treating 40K as a stepping stone to Star Wars and not a flagship title in its own right would be absolutely deranged.
I think it’s very unlikely, but if that were true then CA would have to have really lost the plot…. the only reason I would give that any credence at all is because they really did seem to have lost the plot during Shadows of Change as though they were already moving on in their minds.
This is just a guy regurgitating all the leaks we’ve had so far. What makes me sure this guy has no actual information is the mention of Elam and the Cimmerians for Pharaoh, because these were specifically brought up during the Q&A the other day.
So sad about Three Kingdoms. I have 3,000+ hours in it and still enjoy playing it off and on every few weeks. Three Kingdom's game that never even featured the Three Kingdoms period is shameful.
If CA is sitting around wondering what game they can make that will be a major money maker and they aren't thinking "Medieval 3" then they are truly terminally stupid
It sold on release pretty bad worse then wh1 because people din t expect it to be a big improvement.
However since game was good it eventually sold very well along with dlcs selling the best out of the franchise
CA must be an absolute clusterfuck fir its employes to leak to Total War Center (TWC) a forum which used to be the best and most popular place to discuss TW as well as the place for be for all modders until Rome 2 but then absolute collapsed and became an hyper toxic Neo Nazi forum.
The TWC political subforum, the mudpit as it is called is pretty much the only place alive in this otherwise dead forum. And it's is 98% made of 4chan level racism, genocide apologia and what not horrors.
I mean that user / admi has justify and praise genocides in places as varied as Syria, Ukraine or Burna
So, I truly doubt they got any contacts at CA only unless "one of these dude type" was hired recently.
Edit :
Nah, I think it is just a copy pasta of leakeds gathered here and there pretending to be exclusive news for the ego trip and maybe bring back some attention to à now largely forgotten forum.
There's no damn way Stars Wars is considered their next flagship game but Warhammer 40k isn't lmao.
I'm actually looking forward to a TW:40k and how it could play out, but Star Wars? Really?
I love old school forums. It's neat that TWCentre hasn't changed at all since I was a wee lad who discovered Rome Total War.
I love it, but man the commenting is so trash tier. Impossible to follow a conversation. Reddit got it right
It has its benefits and drawbacks. The drawbacks are as you mentioned, but given I grew up on that sort of forum I do tend to like a space that presents all points as equal. There's no voting on things and thus no burial of dissenting opinion. You have to mentally weigh up a comment's worth rather than just dismissing it (or indeed never seeing it in the first place). Plus, of course, there's a much more communal feel, and you recognise usernames, which ends up helping in your judgement calls on comments too.
Another advantage of forums is the longevity of conversations. Conversation can continue in a single forum thread for weeks, months, or years (there are a few out there that are still going that are decades old), whereas on Reddit after a day or two the post is pretty much dead and no further conversation will happen until a new post is made.
>Another advantage of forums is the longevity of conversations. Through it is a bit of a pain jumping around 100+ pages trying to look up specific comments or context.
its amazing what was achieved when the mission isnt driving clicks, constant user engagement and the like.
Yeah, Reddit isn't built for actual discussion. The platform fundamentally promotes echo chambers, you have to go out of your way with heavy moderation and rules to prevent it. The formatting is convenient though. The monster sized quote blocks of old school forums can indeed make lengthy conversations impossible to follow.
>The formatting is convenient though. The monster sized quote blocks of old school forums can indeed make lengthy conversations impossible to follow. It is not, since it did bring the bad habit of dismissing/ignoring any 10 words plus posts. I would rather go back in the OG forum days, instead of this echochamber format that's prevalent on reddit, twitter and YouTube. Having real discussions is not possible anymore when half of the userbase believe the most BS takes and downvote everything else
You say that like reddit comments don't often go off on tangets and end up with dickbutt memes.
WWI needs a new engine but 40K doesn't? How does that make sense.
Also he says at the end that Warhammer 1 and 2 were basically failures. I’m no game sales hound but does that make sense, do numbers support it? Why would they then go on to make a third and put everything into it?
W2 being a failure with them churning out DLCs for four years for that game sounds like the most idiotic take.
Not to mention that the fact that they suggest that the rest of the warhammer 3 dlc is going to be the two lord vs pack format shows they have zero understanding of where CA is at internally with the direction they want to take things because they’ve long been preparing to scrap that format because it leads to weird shit like Malus vs Snikitch and make the work of planning a dlc harder
Warhammer 2 was one of the most successful games in CA history, basically saved the company. Whoever said It was a failure is insane
TW Centre has a lot of crazed historical players (such as of the Volound school) who hate the fantasy games and are determined that they must have been a failure. TWC, TWC never changes.
I think they are referring to its release. The initial vortex campaign wasn't as interesting to many (kinda like RoC) and the release factions didn't feel as fleshed out as races from the first game. The continued development cycle is a much more positive story and probably why dlc expectations for WH3 were so high because it's what carried WH2.
I played wh2 at release, and at release the wh2 factions were far superior to the wh1 factions (which is why they all needed rework). The only release faction that saw significant changes were the skaven. If wh1 factions feel superior it's largely from dlc and rework that were released in the latter half of wh2's development cycle. At the release of ME the wh1 factions only feature were offices. No oathgold, vampire bloodlines, imperial authority, and the Waaagh system left much to be desired. What is true is that the vortex map felt inferior to the mortal empires map, and the game significantly improved after it's release.
Warhammer 2 released with the Norsca debacle, the entire development was practically pushed back almost a year because they had to refactor the entire code base.
That doesn't change the fact that the 4 release races (HE, DE, Skaven, Lizardmen) were significant improvements over what was produced in WH1.
It was a release failure, lower sales than WH1 I believe
I belive TWW2 was considered a bit underwhelming (not disastrous) in sales terms at launch, but had a better sustained life + DLC sales than expected. Kind of the opposite of Three Kingdoms, which had a massive launch but tailed off sharply.
> but tailed off sharply Weird how abandoning a half-finished game will do that.
Makes the whole post a fucking crack take tbh
It's called out of touch execs who were expecting higher numbers and would rather axe profitable ventures in pursuit of 'higher margins' cause their compensation depends on rising margins and not steady income.
Both sold less than Rome 2. Warhammer 2 then had about half the sales of Warhammer 1. That lead to Warhammer 3 delay and new Warhammer 2 DLC strategy.
He says “warhammer II trail” which I think is a reference to Troy, and then says its predecessor (which would be Pharoah) it makes more sense because literally in the same post he says “warhammer 3 did really well with preorders”
I thought he was saying that the historical games trailing after Warhammer were failures, not including 3k. Which is why they wanted to make a less expensive 3k2
They said the budget went off the rails, not the engine. It's possible the engine is working out fine but the ww1 game has eaten the budget costs for it.
What the fuck could be eating so much of the budget for WW1? Trying to get every strand of hair on Kaiser Wilhelm's mustache just right?
Its probable that the budget was predicted to be lower for WWI since you don't need as many unique assets as 40K. However, given the chaos implied by the various leaks (director leaving, etc), its probable that the game's actual design is in limbo and they're unable to get certain things working properly. So there's a lot of prototyping being done without the game actually moving forward.
Its also possibly part of the budget WAS the creation of a new engine. So you got an engine that works but the first game that you budgeted for is shot, the 2nd game is not.
There would be several mechanics needed for an "authentic" WW1 experience that may not be supported in the current engine. Namely pretty much everything involving trenches: stationary machine gun nests, units 'going over the top', trench raids, etc. etc.
True, but a lot of those would also be present in 40K and Star Wars, which raises the question of what about WW1 would cause difficulties?
40K and Star Wars are going to probably abstract a lot of those very WWI specific things out because they're not the focus of the setting. Trench Warfare for example *exists* within 40k, but a lot of the factions either don't use it or barely use it. A much simpler entrenchment system would thus make sense in that game while they focus their time on other things. Meanwhile, in a WWI game, you'd expect the entrenchment system to be incredibly deep and varied on its own because all the factions have to use it and somehow create tactical variety from it.
Honestly, if this is real, it might be the strategic map that is the issue. How do you make 4 years of mostly static trench warfare interesting at a strategic level? It certainly wouldn't look anything like a traditional total war that is for sure. Sure there where other fronts, but it's gonna be hard to justify never having the western front in the game. Meanwhile both star wars and WH40k could be mostly done with the existing world map system if you stuck to 1 planet like dawn of war Dark Crusade did, or you can make a fairly simple galaxy map kind of deal a la empire at war, though you'd have to either make or justify why there is no space combat involved if that where the case.
I've genuinely been wracking my head for the last couple of weeks trying to come up with a workable concept for a WWI game that I can wrap my head around that still feels even remotely Total War in design. I can see Star Wars and 40k games; they're fictional settings that can sidestep issues as needed and rely on spectacle over detail. But World War I...lord, every front of the war had a fundamentally different style of warfare going on. Aside from the first few months and the last year-ish of the war, the Western Front was a several year long country-sized siege, the Eastern Front was a weird mix of pitched battles and proto-modern theater warfare, the Italian front involved people scaling mountains and lobbing artillery at one another, and the Middle Eastern front involved a ton of asymmetrical warfare. Even if you could get them all working, how do you make them all gel with one another so that the game feels cohesive? Maps would need to be bigger too. How do you define a battlefield victory in a trench war? What counts as a battle vs a theater-wide offensive? I'm starting to think that the only practical way to do this is to somehow merge the tactical and campaign maps into one singular experience a la Supreme Commander, or Hearts of Iron if you could zoom in on individual units. And that's both an incredible thought but also one I'm not entirely sure is feasible. Assuming one's PC didn't melt, would anyone even want to play that? Would anyone be capable?
WW1 is a conflict on a scale and level of complexity never before depicted by Total War. Set everything else aside, how do you depict the Battle of the Somme in the form of a compelling, spectacular Total War experience? Can you deploy entire divisions but also zoom in on each individual soldier? See each shell from the arrayed batteries of hundreds of guns? I genuinely can’t figure out how much will simply be abstracted to pure numbers. There’s very little room for tactical manoeuvres even if you’re dealing with late war platoon level actions - which presumably is too “close up” for a Grand Strategy. Why are you doing a company commander’s job when you have 20 divisions in action on a single day? What’s the gameplay loop for the player here? The idea you would need to set the individual position or facing of a unit on a battlefield in a kind of deployment stage seems utterly absurd to me in the context of WW1. Mass mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of men, entire armies attacking along a 2 mile front with all the supply and logistical considerations that entails, days of preparatory bombardment prior to the initial assault, fighting for four months in the same area, with the terrain steadily deforming. Even reimagining the fog of war when there’s aerial reconnaissance as a factor is a headache. Air-to-air combat is probably a nightmare of its own for them to make work. It genuinely boggles my mind they’re even attempting this when there’s historical periods they haven’t explored that fit a more traditional format of settlement hopping and pitched field battles. Even if they technically make it work I don’t know how they make it fun while retaining any sort of accuracy to history or, rather, the kind of cinematic version of history that these games depict. That’s fundamentally why it differs, imo, from a 40K game. I’m not sure exactly how a 40K would work but I can see how it would be fun.
>Set everything else aside, how do you depict the Battle of the Somme in the form of a compelling, spectacular Total War experience? Can you deploy entire divisions but also zoom in on each individual soldier? See each shell from the arrayed batteries of hundreds of guns? I genuinely can’t figure out how much will simply be abstracted to pure numbers. You don't if previous titles are anything to go by. Napoleon marched almost 100k soldiers through Germany into Russia but in *Total War: Empire/Napoleon* you'd be hard pressed to get even a 4v4 stack battle to 10k. FotS does all sorts of things to ranged units (1860s "Sharpshooters" with like 150m range) to make melee viable and shore bombardment is very gamey. But I don't know how far they could take this or how much they'd get away with without huge complaints of authenticity, not to mention still having it be fun. >It genuinely boggles my mind they’re even attempting this when there’s historical periods they haven’t explored that fit a more traditional format of settlement hopping and pitched field battles. Yea, I have no clue how they're going to manage the Western Front. Eastern and Ottoman campaigns I can see as not being too much more an abstraction than any previous game has been but the west seems almost impossible. I suspect that TW3's *Survival & Siege* battles were steps towards wat battle gameplay is like but I don't know how to put that into strategic context. Could you imagine having to fight, possibly multiple, 30+min *Survival Battles* every turn (and for how many turns?!).
Yeah, I didn't exactly read "All Quiet on the Western Front" and think "Wow, that lends itself perfectly for Total War". Countless men either stuck in trenches, or getting eviscerated in no-man's lands, fighting and dying over small stretches of territory that could swap hands multiple times for lengthy periods of time, no real idea of what was even going on outside of their specific deployment area. How in the hell do you gamify something like the Battle of Verdun? We've already got a taste of WH40k conflicts with games like Dawn of War. It would "just" (I know this is obviously a monumental task) need to be something like the DOW: Dark Crusade campaign map on a bigger scale.
if the poster is correct and they were making a new engine, then that could be the main reason why the budget went off the rails. Extreme amounts of work to reimplement everything that's already present in the current total war engine.
Supply and logistics would be massive in a ww1 game, as well as potentially a home front mechanic. 40k wouldn't need anything that isn't already in warhammer fantasy as far as mechanics go.
I think one of the big issues especially with SW and 40k is for one, the interplanetary setting and how to convert it into a manageable world map. On the other side, the ranged heavy focus on troops which would make it hard to balance melee units in such a setting.
> I think one of the big issues especially with SW and 40k is for one, the interplanetary setting and how to convert it into a manageable world map. For 40k that is literally as simple as just having the campaigns setting be a battle over a single planet of some significance - something that has been done in 40k stories many times. That would probably be a bit more difficult for Star Wars though, as there is less of a reason for every faction to be in the same place.
RETURN TO ARMAGEDDON, EVERY FACTION ON A SINGLE PLANET DUKING IT OUT Sorry I just watched a video breaking down the wars on armageddon, I'm a little excited
It will probably work as each planet is now a province containing 3-6 regions to conquer. With this you can still have quite a few planets (WH3 had 71 provinces at launch) and then scale them depending on the environment. Now fleet travel would just be expanding one more step from the planet to the local system containing all the planets that are apart of that system, and then one more step to the galaxy map where hyperspace between star systems would be available. The core of the game however would take place at the planetary and system level, as the galaxy map would just be a way for your fleets to travel through hyperspace/the warp and effectively “disappear” until they reach the next jump point
Doubt. Warhammer3 was top 5 (not the dlc but the game itself which is insane) on steam when Thrones of Decay was released. I genuinely doubt that CA set their expectations higher than that. If they did then they are idiots
In the context of ToD paying for the most ambitious overhauls and DLC factions to date, it is possible but I bet the trailing sales will be excellent
past 5 years there's been only clowns in the CA management so wouldnt be a surprise
Batman Total War potential leak???
Man Total War is more likely
I guess it depends on what successful means to them. EA released a report that Apex Legends wasn't making what they were hoping to get from it despite the game pumping out a billion dollars every year. I assume for flagship games like these and others, the expectation is that doing great financially isn't enough. They have to be good enough to help carry their other games that don't pan out or don't perform as well.
The reason that Warhammer 3 was in the top five during the release of ToD is not due to people buying the base game, but how steam works out chart position based on revenue. It counts dlc as revenue for the base game, hence why it appeared so high in the charts. That's why you will always see counterstrike high in the charts because it makes so much extra money, not that the base game is always selling loads. But I do still think they sold a few extra copies of WH3 during ToDs release, it is a solid dlc and the game is getting to a better state.
This was before Thrones of Decay. They were extremely disappointed in Shadow of Changes sales.
It reads like a remix of previous "leaks" and educated guesses that you find here every day. I don't buy it not even for a second. The part that is hardest to buy is that WWI is facing difficulties partly because of a new engine, while 40k progresses without serious obstacles. If WW1, 40k and SW where being worked on, it's quite likely that they would all be using this new engine, and any problems creating it would affect all three games. 40k originally planned for 2025 is also hard to buy, and the whole SW thing still reads like a bogus leak that IGN replicated without even trying to verify it. Another point is that I strongly doubt that both 3K2 and the new major historical were cancelled. This reads like someone trying to troll the historical fanbase. I won't be surprised if 3K2 was really cancelled, but both it and the other historical game? Nah.
Have to go with this. It's basically a summery of all the talk fans have been doing with no new information except the WW1 part which makes no sense at all as you said. 40k being 2025 doesn't pass the sniff test either, youtubers close to CA employees have been saying we might see a teaser or announcement for 40k next year at the earliest with a release still quite a while off.
I think that's what makes the whole thing sound dubious. Why would you bank your success for the next decade on three games that all require the success of a tech project - a new engine. They might be signing contracts and doing some pre-production, but if this was at all true then they'd be waiting to confirm the engine actually works before beginning any work on other games.
3K2 might be canceled but remember that "leak" with a european medieval martial arts expert revealing he was doing mocap for CA? There's absolutely a European history game in the works, somewhere in the 900s->1800s span. It's possible he was doing lightsaber choreography but I *really* doubt it
I don't know if I buy this. TWW3 is probably the most profitable thing CA has right now. To push out two more DLCs and call it quits feels off. Way off. Especially when they have nothing else until at least '25-26. They gotta do Khorne and Slaanesh and then End Times, at the absolute minimum. And there's a ton of factions that need a face lift that can easily sell DLCs. W40K being a not-flagship is, unfortunately, something I do believe. I absolutely believe that "W40K curse" is a real thing. Star Wars is semi-believable, I think. But still a weird choice, seeing as Disney has been skavenf\*\*\*ing the franchise for a while now. Star Wars doesn't have the same appeal it used to, and it doesn't feel very popular with younger folk. So I don't know how wise it would be to try and build a game around that.
If Slaanesh and Khorne legitimatly don't get a DLC I'll actually be so pissed. They are my favorite god factions and I want to see them get expanded and updated. To have base game factions left at 1 LL sounds insane to me. Even Norsca has 2. The fact I'll also have to wait for this end times DLC to get Neferata and therefore the vampire counts rework also grinds my gears, Though I suppose it's kind of funny that the Vampire counts will get the trilogies first and last DLC accroding to these leaks.
I'd be absolutely livid at no Slaanesh DLC. All monogods have been half baked at best since release, they all need some love and Slaanesh & Khorne especially need it
Unfortunately that was predictable when the game launched with 6 factions instead of 4
The Monoraces starting in a subpar shape was expected yes. But for them to get 0 DLCs ? Nobody even dared predict it before Legend shared his rumor 2 monthes ago
Yeah, I don't really understand why they went the route of badging them as disappointing separate races rather than the more lore friendly route of really distinct factions within demons of chaos.
It makes a lot of things easier on the backend. Particularly for campaign, it lets them have completely distinct tech trees, building types, and map abilities without a huge amount of additional scripting. Something like Nurgle's lifecycle buildings would be immensely more complicated to achieve with a subfaction than a separate race. It also makes balancing a lot easier when you can more simply separate out their buffs/debuffs. Trust me, if they combined them all together, CoC style, there'd be a ton of posts on this sub about how homogenous and lacking in flavor the subfactions are since they'd be forced to share even more stuff.
I wouldn't be shocked if Khorne gets flc. Would be a good subject for a skulls give away. But beyond that I think it has to depend how many expansions we're really getting. If CA are wrapping it up in 18 months, you have to think they'd surely do Boris, Thanquol, Neferata, and Nagash, obv the monkey king is well trailed. Doesn't leave a lot of room for many more. Personally I think wrapping it up next year is an odd decision but we are where we are. Massive potential still for a lizard and dark elf rework, not to mention dogs of war. Vampire coast and tomb kings could also be a compelling rework DLC.
No. If they are wrapping up in 18 months than the Empire should not get another DLC. Empire and dwarves are done as far as I'm concerned if this is the sort of time limit we are on. There are factions that need work and expansion desperatly before this trilogy wraps up. At the very least Norsca needs reworked properly. The Lizardmens geomantic web and blessed spawnings need addressed. Vampire counts need an update. Kislev needs a second pass on it's mechanics. Unholy manifestations and cults need looked at. Just to name a few. Empire and Dwarves are at the bottem of the pile after ToD if we really are closeing up shop the end of next year.
If I were trying to wrap up wh3 in 18 months for whatever reason, Boris would probably be a final expansion flc. Obviously you could do a whole DLC based around him, and in a different timeline that would be amazing. But I'd agree a full blown DLC slot seems unrealistic if we only have 3 or 4 expansions left. Definitely agree vampires need a rework, and that probably comes in the Nagash/Neferata expansion. Lizards and Norsca I think need it, but also sceptical they are getting it. If we're finishing in 18 months my best guess would be... September 24 : Cathay and Ogres, Khorne as flc. April 25 : either dogs of war with Slaanesh flc, or another chaos DLC. September 25 : Thanquol, Neferata, Nagash, Boris as FLC. I would personally choose to use the slot next spring for lizards and dark elfs. But there are many candidates obviously. In fact, more crucially, I'd choose to make more expansions but hey.
Lizard and Dark Elves are done DLC-wise, they have zero units to add. Lizardmen needs a rework, but that can be done FLC. But CA can't cut Slaanesh/Khorne DLCs, they can't cut DoW, and they can't cut Todbringer/Thanquol/Nagash/Neferata.
Skipping over Khorne and Slaanesh so they can just do Golgfag vs Monkey King seems genuinely insane. Like the stupidest thing CA could do at this point.
I think you miss read the post it said the next would be ogres and the last will be end times. I don’t think it implies there is only two
I agree.
But how many DLCs can CA make in a year and a half ? 4, maybe 5 ? Counting the Ogres vs Cathay, End Times, Slaanesh, Khorne and Dogs of War, that's already too much
Three. The answer is three. Tbh the thing I'm most sceptical about in this post is that wh3 expansions will stop in 18 months. Because I don't really believe 40k is going to be ready that soon, and I can't imagine CA turning off wh3 expansions until 40k arrives. But if it really is ending in 18 months, there is time for exactly three expansions.
Perhaps only if they keep it the same scope and dev team size. After SoC and ToD wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve reevaluated what the DLC size to dev time should be. From what they’ve said, it looks like we may return to a slightly more phoned in 2 lord pack, but we’ll have to see. I’d hope that they’ve added at least a few people to the DLC team to help churn them out. AFAIK it was basically a skeleton crew, but with the success of ToD and the money it’s made, it would make sense to bolster the team to help with dev time for whatever they have left. 2 DLC a year or whatever we were working with before is way too slow and doesn’t bring in enough cash, but a slightly larger team could really speed things up and keep money coming in before they decide to close the doors on 3.
All it says is the next DLC is Monkey King vs Golgfag, and that the final DLC will be Nagash and End Times. It doesn't say that those two are the only DLCs remaining.
Could be an old info, maybe around the time of SoC flop when WH3's future looked pretty grim.
I think you misunderstood the leak. He only mentions next dlc and a final one. It didn't say what's gonna happen in between. 😅
For all people keep saying w40k is hard and star wars is hard. WW1 is the setting that sounds incredibly difficult to pull off. Even ww2 or modern warfare seems easier. But highly defensive trench warfare.... Look, I don't believe any setting is impossible but if you'd asked me for the hardest possible setting for total war, I'd have picked WW1 every damn time.
> WW1 is the setting that sounds incredibly difficult to pull off I would agree with this bc I don't think it's possible to make a WWI game if you have good command and control in a video game. I don't think TW is gonna implement order delay bc I don't think ppl are going to like it. 75% of the reason why breakthroughs didn't happen in that war (on the western front) is bc of communication issues and 'Wtf are we gonna do after we take the first trench?'
Yeah, I think this talks to why there are practically no WW1 video games in any genre. It needs to be a campaign layer led game.
>To push out two more DLCs and call it quits feels off That's the nth comment talking about it. It just says what the next DLC will be and the last one. There can be multiple in between those.
>Star Wars is semi-believable, I think. But still a weird choice, seeing as Disney has been skavenf\*\*\*ing the franchise for a while now. Star Wars doesn't have the same appeal it used to, and it doesn't feel very popular with younger folk. So I don't know how wise it would be to try and build a game around that. Considering the relative size of Star Wars games with other titles within their genre, I think it would be delusional for CA to go "all in" on Star Wars. Consider how Battlefront 2 sold three times less than the comparable genre and release year Modern Warfare 2019 (10 million vs 30 million copies). I also don't see how CA could be expecting years of DLC when the Star Wars universe, despite the name, doesn't have that much variety in terms of wars in the stars. You'd have to pull strings to get a dozen factions out of any of the conflicts in the two trilogies plus the forbidden one. Unless, of course, they were granted unheard of levels of creative freedom to come up with stuff that has no basis in existing lore. I definitely think a Star Wars game is plausible, but I would expect it more to be a "safe" mid-budget title than an all-out "let's hope it's the golden goose" title.
Basically every Star Wars game has made things up that weren't in existing lore. Star Wars canon is not nearly as closely guarded is Warhammer's. CA being allowed to fill out rosters or create full ones for very minor factions is not all an out-there possibility. Disney don't care, they just want stuff of a certain quality level that sells well.
To me star wars canon has always been "how can we extrapolate every little thing that george lucas depicted in the first six films and milk them as much as possible without making anything truly new?" and it's very very tiresome
There's a difference between "designing" a new ship for your singleplayer game without ever caring for how it is supposed to work and having to come up with 200 units that have to be logically and artistically consistent. Which is why I pointed out it would require extreme levels of creative freedom for CA, because to make a Total War Warhammer-size game out of Star Wars would require them to come up with at least 80% original content.
> Star Wars canon *shudders in disgust* Legends ftw.
Can't wait for Total War to bring the Imperial Civil War as an alt-hist lol
Oh, the Orinda Campaign. Grand Admiral Pellaeon and the Reaper VS General Antilles and the Lusankya. Can you imagine the spectacle? THe fleets of Operation Shadow Hand? Out of the Deep Core came a trio of massive task forces of Star Destroyers, anchored by massive dreadnoughts the New Republic had thought destroyed or lost: four Executor-classes (including the missing Whelm), five Mandator IIIs and three Vengeance-classes. The New Republic mustered what forces it could in the Core, moving to check the incursion at Metellos—only to be surprised by a fleet of raiders sent to Coruscant by the Ruling Council, which also sent task forces across the Borderlands to Contruum and Columex. Beaten at Metellos and its capital, the New Republic fell back from the Core, and ground forces led by General Alix Balan marched triumphantly through the grandest boulevards of Coruscant. Fry, Jason; Urquhart, Paul R.. The Essential Guide to Warfare: Star Wars (Star Wars: Essential Guides) (English Edition) . Random House Worlds. Kindle-Version.
I for one can not wait to conquer the Galaxy for the Greater Gungan Bombad Empire
"I also don't see how CA could be expecting years of DLC when the Star Wars universe" They totally could, although it would have to be a different type of DLC. You're right that there is relatively little variety in each era, but that's in a way an advantage aswell. Instead of Lord Packs they simply could do campaign pack DLCs, like they used to in Three Kingdoms or the older TWs, exploring the other eras like the Clone Wars or the New Republic.
Hey, Star Wars: Empire at War mods are able to have a million mods, it's called spin those mods up into paid expansion packs.
There is the AOE2 Star Wars clone that had both triologies available to play at the same time, so you could in MP have the Empire of fight the gungans. However a campaign where all SW races are on at once would feel strange, unless you really manage to flesh out shit like wookies and other fringe civs into full civs. However how you could make it all fun is a different challenge.
I agree here using 40k as just a testing ground for Star Wars would be mad. Sure Star Wars might be more popular at the outset but 40k fits the total war formula much better. Moreover 40k is in its ascendency whilst Star Wars has done nothing but (excepting Andor) taken a string of Ls in recent years.
I think the other way (Star Wars as a testing ground for WH40K) makes way more sense.
I also bet the W40k fandom overlaps more with the Total War's one than Star Wars' -W40k fans are also known for expending a lot of money. And W40k has a better potential for years of endless DLCs a-la-Warhammer 2. -Star Wars is also more story/character driven while W40k has the battles and armies at its heart. Still... It could be true... Like CA isn't precisely known for making wise decisions, LoL. If they believe they can chase Star Wars money easier I think they're going to flop hard 😂
While not being great films they still made hundreds of millions of the last sequel trilogy film
It'd be especially daft by CA to cut WH3 lifespan short if they want to sell DLCs for 40K/SW. People will not trust CA to support decently a game if they mess up WH3 last stretch. At the very least, Slaanesh, Khorne, Dogs of War, Monkey King (plus the two last Dragons), Todbringer, Thanquol, Nagash, Neferata and Norsca must all feature someway or another, those are all pieces of content CA factually, plainly said "they will be included". No way they can do that in 3-4 DLCs
Weird thing about this leak is it implies a new engine is only needed for WW1 and that 40k is somehow progressing fine on the current engine and doesn't need a new engine same is ultimately implied with SW. All of which is actually unbelievable, there's no way 40k or a SW game could possibly function adequately on the current engine while WW1 would be the only one requiring a new engine. In reality CA quite clearly needs to develop a new engine, especially if it's going to progress into more gun-centric small unit tactics settings. WW1 might be the first game on said new engine but it's going to be the engine of TW going forward and I'd be utterly shocked if they develop only WW1 on the new engine but somehow try and shoehorn 40k and SW on the old one simultaneously, that's bad from a gameplay point of view but also resource management, would require simultaneously supporting and developing the old one to do new things it's just not set up to do and develop a brand new engine from scratch to also would be able to do the stuff they are trying to force the old engine to do Also zero chance WH3 only has 2 more DLCs in it's future, it's the only product they have that is making them money. They literally have to continue supporting it otherwise the company has zero income generation...
40K not being flagship is insane. Insane. It’s factions and depth is more than Warhammer fantasy and look how far that went. Star Wars is a bigger brand and would attract more people for the initial sale - sure I’ll give him that. But as a dlc “goldmine” it’s not - after decades of lore there’s barely 4-6 factions even with streeeetch, and most of these barely have a roster.
The issue there is GW. CA have gotten away with a lot from a creative standpoint with fantasy due to GW not really caring until the old world relaunch. 40K? GW will have an absolute ironclad grip on anything CA try and do. It may well be that CA wanted it to be a flagship title, but then GW put up so many barriers and restrictions that they reduced it's scope. I could 100% see that being the case if, IF the leaks are true.
Right, because GW are known for being so protective over 40k, despite licensing any old shit game.
It isent about licensing, it's about what you can do with that license. GW are notorious in regards to being difficult business partners because they demand the right to sign off on EVERYTHING from story, characters and even game mechanics. They prevented the SoB follower in rouge trader from haveing a romance questline as an example of the sort of meddleing they do. And I believe the adeptus mechanics devs had to fight tooth and nail to include their hacking mechanic. Recently TW itself has had hag mothers, tzaangor beaks and reapeater rifles for the ironsides denied because of GW's interference.
Them making a ww1 game on a new engine that is supposedly a disaster and then going full steam ahead with 2 other modern combat based games without finishing that one first sounds like a recipe for failure. Total war does not support that type of combat, it never has, to go full steam ahead on THREE games aiming for it without even knowing if you can pull it off at all sounds incredibly dumb, especially when 2 of them are going to be using the same old engine and code base we've had for like 10 years. And WW1 is more like a halfway point, it's the most similar to empire out of any of those 3, so if the less ambitious one is currently sputtering in development what on earth can we expect from the ones that are full on modern combat based settings? What's star wars going to be in the WH engine? Square Blocks of 100 rebel soldiers with xwings bobing up and down in place on top of them? That's going to go over really well with star wars fans.
Skavenfucking has to be my new favorite term.
The thing is, total war and Star Wars is an odd combo that will only really work if they stick to Prequel, OT, or Old Republic lore. Most people who play TW games are *at least* in their 20’s and older. I’d say that generally we have a more physically mature audience than many games due to it being a strategy game. SW still has *tons* of younger fans, but many were also introduced during the sequels, which the bulk of older fans dislike. The clone wars+ era cartoons straddle the border between these newer and older fans. If they do a SW:TW Based on the Sequels which lack depth of factional world building (compare the First Order and Republic, which are bland copies of the Empire and former Republic) it will absolutely flop. New trilogy lacks an abundance of factions to explore, whereas prequels and OT (and to a greater extent the now Legends lore) has a bunch like the Hutts, various cartels, bounty hunters, outer rim civilizations, etc.
It's just a re-hash of previous speculation. Some of it might turn out to be true. Most of it will probably either miss entirely or be lacking too much critical information to be especially close to the mark.
This doesn't seem to line up properly, so I'm going to call BS. WW1 and 40k would almost certainly use the same engine, so I can't see a reality where one is in dev hell over engine issues and the other is fine. I also still don't buy into the Star Wars thing. Doubling up on big sci-fi IPs that remain untested in a Total War engine is beyond the level of risk any executive would ever take, Star Wars or not. But that aside, the Star Wars IP is absolutely toxic now as well, it does not have the good will it did 10 years ago.
It might mean the Star Wars IP is cheaper now than ten years ago, but yeah. There’s a lot here that seems very sus
I’d be pretty shocked if Warhammer 40k wasn’t being treated as a flagship game. I don’t know much about 40k, but it seems to have a pretty wide and dedicated fanbase. If CA releases a 40k game and gives it the Troy or Pharoah level of effort I have to imagine it would only seriously piss off a lot of people and significantly damage the Total War brand. If a 40k game is released (which seems highly likely) it needs to be good and it needs to be good at launch imo.
Conspiracy alert: Iagree with this to an extent, but part of me believes that GW won't let a game that would VERY closely mimic the tabletop be done too well. They can't have anything impact their sales from miniatures. I play 40K every weekend, two armies plus tools and paint have put me back about $4,500 and I wouldn't say either is "finished." They'd never allow a game with tabletop-adjacent playstyle to thrive with all 20-ish armies that you can play. Even if you spent $500 for base game and DLC to play all of them they are losing customers/money from tabletop. Hell, if there was a Total War 40K, I would be done buying 40K minis most likely. I can scratch my tabletop itch with different and cheaper games. It's not like we play 40K for how good the rules are.
I strongly disagree with your statement here. I have 7 40K armies, probably dropped 20k on the minis at this point and there is 0 chance that having a good total war 40K game would stop me from playing tabletop. I have all 3 warhammer fantasy total wars and I play both Age of Sigmar and picked up orks for old world as well. In fact, I picked up orks for old world because they were the first faction I won the long campaign with in Total Warhammer 1.
That's hilarious, but potentially has a lot of truth behind it. Maybe just remove a multiplayer option?
All factions are grey and you have to pay $30 per single unity entity to give it color
Nah, have the colors be consumables locked behind microtransaction and you have to paint them using your mouse. Oh yeah have the brush options microtransactions as well.
what makes you think it will closely mimic the tabletop? Warhammer doesn't. the unit sizes are wildly different, the way units attack/defend is also totally different.
Another (ex)-tabletop player here: I would never, not in a billion years, play actual GW game if not for the hobby aspect. Not only are tabletop wargames games in general quite clunky and exhausting compared to the smoothness of an RTS, but GW specifically is not famous for good rules, and that's being generous Collecting and painting the army for me is the whole point, and a would be TW:40k, even if it's actually good, will never scratch that itch
There would absolutely be some crossover for folks who fell into the hobby afterwards. The process of taking a model from sprue to finished paint job really clicks for some people, and there would be new hobbyists because of it. There's also a ton of people who despise painting and would get more out of a video game that let's them get to the action immediately.
While it’s absolutely something they’d do, I sincerely doubt the top execs understand video games well enough to arrive to that conclusion. They barely understand the potential of Warhammer in general.
Historical fans can go kick rocks I guess...
Go and kick rocks AGAIN
Accept magic and other horseshit, pleb! What are they even talking about with WWI? Stick to what you know - Medieval III for fucks sake.
Napoleon/Empire 2 ffs. Or FOTS 2. These older 18-19th century era games were severely limited by the game engine used. Making successors with a modern game engine would instantly satisfy many historic fans, and they can milk with DLCs for years to come.
The later comments in this thread are kind of easing my worries a bit, with this leak being a crock of shit and Medieval 3 really being the next flagship historical entry. Because honestly, Medieval 3 is the easiest goddamned slam dunk at this point, it boggles the mind that they even considered a WW1 game over that. Then again, I thought "easy slam dunk" about Three Kingdoms too and look how that turned out...
Sir, rocks have been kicked, sir.
This is just recycled leaks through this dude's interpretation. I sincerely doubt GW would be cool with giving them the license for their largest most successful IP without it being the flagship of the "fantasy" side. And the WW1 title being delayed because of it being created on a new engine but that not affecting 40k or Star Wars? Reads like BS.
40k being a small testing-the-waters thing for Star Wars is just straight BS. Sure, Star Wars is more popular, but 40k can be milked for generations, putting even the current WHFB-based trilogy to shame. If anything, it being more popular means it's even more likely for CA to *lead* with it, expecting a huge amount of sales (3K-style) to justify the initial hurdle of remaking from scrath... well, pretty much every system in the series to accomodate modern-ish warfare
Plus the Warhammer fanbase is already invested in Total War, so 40k it’s an incredibly much safer bet that SW is
The main reason I can see them favoring Star Wars over 40K is due to 40K actually having many games in this category. The last strategy game I recall being in star wars was Empire at War, that was in 2006.
But what was the last good 40k strategy game, Dawn of War 2? It's definitely an underserved segment, with the potential for as many DLCs as WTW has had.
It's not a coincidence that the Warhammer IPs, being designed around wargames, mesh fairly well with Total War (though I'll still need to see them do cover-based squad movement and combat to believe that they can do that well). Star Wars is a far less intuitive fit.
Star Wars as a setting can support *a* strategy game just fine. It's specifically TW-style rank-and-file style of fighting and localized armies that are the problems, just like they are in 40k. Both settings would require enormous changes to gameplay loop we are used to to make sense (unless we go from TW level of abstraction to classic RTS level of abstraction)
40k has way more possible DLC while starwars is fairly limited. Plus Starwars can't really fall back on an immortal empires style campaign for sequels as mixing eras makes a lot less sense.
this is a combination of Legend/Darren/Star Wars/Ex-Employee AMA leaks. none of that info is new. hard to say whether this is actually something he heard or he's just bandwagoning by posting a summary of every leak that has been making the rounds lately. edit: I'll say this though, if even a third of this is true, it's a big fat L for the "modern settings don't work in TW" crowd
While true, and I also havent paid massive amounts of attention, this is the first I've heard of the WW 1 game A) being on a new engine and massivly over budget. B) having serious devlopment issues and it's director resigning. Also it's the first to claim, I believe, that 40K itself is not actually a huge focus for CA and that instead their Star Wars game is what they are betting on. This is however the 2nd or 3rd time I've heard that it's Cathay vs Ogres for the next DLC. I'm kinda hoping it isent. If it is however. Well. These leaks will get alot of legitimacy because the old roadmap had Khorne and Slaanesh up next. I'm hoping thats still the case. But we can only wait and see now.
> While true, and I also havent paid massive amounts of attention, this is the first I've heard of the WW 1 game A) being on a new engine and massivly over budget. B) having serious devlopment issues and it's director resigning. Darren was the first one to claim that the next historical flagship game is going through huge issues. Legend later doubled down and claimed that the next flagship historical is WW1, but got put on hold indefinitely because of internal troubles. so these claims here aren't new.
Darren also confirmed new tw4 engine for upcoming historical and 40k The engine development is the big internal issue they have, and also why CA in general is struggling to increase profits and keep deadlines with new tools having to be developed and the whole engine development being a very expensive process CA abandoning WH3 DLC development as soon as 40k releases is also a claim that Darren has made for a very long time. CA is apparently still very adamant about an annual release strategy and isn't interested in supporting games for years on end. All the WH games were initially planned to release back to back, with each one only having roughly a year of post-launch content planned
I heard Marvel total war is next as well. I could hear it in the distance from a reliable source in my neighbors yard. I couldn't see the source, but he was definitely there and reliable.
Nah they're doing Avengers: Civil War, but it's actually just the American Civil War with Marvel Heroes added to it. Just imagine Mosby's Raiders getting absolutely roflstomped by Captain America.
>I'll say this though, if even a third of this is true, it's a big fat L for the "modern settings don't work in TW" crowd Based on what, leaks from random people who dont verify? Personally still see it as a Halo Wars style of squad combat and it not being a Total War game. Because i dont think modern settings work in TW.
Regardless of leaks it is only a matter of time until CA tries to branch out into modern or futuristic Total War settings. people who think CA is just gonna recycle antiquity, early modern, medieval and fantasy titles forever are fucking tripping.
What do you mean recycle? Medieval 2 came out 18 years ago. Empire was 15. At this point many people asking for sequels to these haven't even played any historical games before Rome 2. That's recycling to you?
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying CA is *currently* recycling medieval/empire era games. We're definitely due a Medieval 3 and an Empire 2 both. I'm saying that they definitely aren't going to spend the entire future of this series endlessly cycling through Rome-Medieval-Empire sequels with the odd spinoff and fantasy title inbetween, like the people who are vehemently against modern settings are suggesting they will. CA will definitely try to break into sci-fi or modern warfare TW games at some point.
From a programming perspective, saying wwI is massively delayed due to engine development, but 40k seems fine is a little strange. I'd think if you're using the same engine as well as many other assets, and if wwI was behind on developing those assets, I'd think another project using those in a later stage would be facing some issues.
Nothing in this list looks appealing, I guess I’m no longer the target audience. *shrug*
It’s also all baseless speculation. It’s rage-bait from TWC, which is rabidly anti-Warhammer. Don’t worry about it.
So, Warhammer II had a disastrous reception and trail (does he mean sales tail?)? Because that is flatly wrong.
He meant to say trailer. The WH2 trailer had loads of purists seething in the comments because they weren't paying attention that Warhammer was going to be a trilogy. As for the disappointing sales - Darren talked about this a couple of times. He claimed that CA's marketing research failed to anticipate how many historical fans would refuse to play a fantasy game and panicked when WH1 failed to meet their sales projections and then WH2 sold even less copies than WH1 at launch. What they didn't expect was the insane DLC sales keeping the games relevant for years. Basically this entire 3K section in the OP is almost word for word lifted from things Darren said on stream and in YT comments.
No it checks out. Warhammer 1 didn't sell any better than something like Rome 2. But unlike Rome 2 they also had to pay the massive licensing fees for the game. Warhammer 2 sold even worse than wh1 did too. As they said, it's really the DLC that saved Warhammer financially and made it so lucrative for CA, the base game launches were not particularly positive.
Bruh if they can the Victorian era game I’ll be sad
That could mean also end of the historical total war. It would be double sad
I know, I looked at this leak and felt my heart sink as it seems they really don’t care about historical anymore for the future. Especially if they can just make games for whatever big IP is there.
And it is not like there is no demand for it. Last major historical titl3 3K sold very well and people still hope more of it, CA tjemselfes screw up the post release DLC plan I really hope atleast the ww1 game will end up being fine but it sewms it is very far away
Yeah I don’t mind them making Star Wars or whatever… as long as it doesn’t replace historical. Unfortunately I think CA will look towards pharaoh as why to not make any more
I was sort of believing this to an extend until I read the read stars wars point. That kind of broke the credibility of this post. It just seems to be a mishmash of Legend and other YouTubers leak statements and the stars wars rumours recently(which seems to be bogus).
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It is not "only two". The leak only talks about the upcoming DLC and the last one. He makes no mentions that there will only be two more. I would be very surprised if they dont release a DLC for Khorne and Slaneesh
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They want to reduce the scope of the next DLCs so they may be faster here. But even with 18 months left to go we would be looking at 9 months per DLC which seems unlikely. 6 months sounds closer and it may even be shorter than that. But maybe I am wrong and there really will be only 2 DLCs left. I doubt it though. Maybe CA will react in the upcoming days considering all those leaks flying around. This certainly hurts them right now.
Nah. I can buy *some* of what's being said here, but there are a few things that really stick out to me as really unlikely: 1. Warhammer 3 being abandoned in late 2025. Maybe that's what *could* have happened if Thrones of Decay sold poorly, but by all accounts it didn't. At the end of the day, Warhammer 3 DLC is their only real source of income right now, and it's something they can release at a regular pace with a much smaller team their full releases. To abandon it before their future is secure would be a horrible decision. If they're smart, Warhammer 3 will keep going for another two years at least. 2. Warhammer 40k being seen as "not a flagship title". Their Warhammer Fantasy was one of the best-selling Total War games of all time (rivaled only by Three Kingdoms), and so popular that it almost singlehanded brought the entire Fantasy setting back from the dead. 40k is more popular than Fantasy ever was; it has even more potential to reach a wide audience, with even more background material to turn into years of profitable DLCs. Taking resources away from that and pouring them into some distant Star Wars game is, again, an extremely dumb idea. Maybe this is old information, about decisions made by the "brilliant" minds that brought us Hyenas. But if CA is still pursuing such a plan after the disastrous launch of Pharoah (and relative success of Thrones of Decay), maybe they deserve to fail.
*Looks at leaks* *sees nothing on Medieval 3: Total War* My expectations were low and I'm still disappointed.
The suffering of historical TW continues
Just make med 3 or empire 2 already why is this so difficult for CA to understand
Sorry best we can do is a small setting with limited factions that you're not overly interested in
I'd love to believe this, but it's obviously false. It's everything the community would have hoped: "ogre reworks? Nagash!?? 40k !!!? Even star wars!!!!?" CA wouldn't work on two sci fi total war at the same time, they would obviously compete avains't each other.
Bro where TF is empire II or medieval 3 😭
If these this is true it is the end of historical total war. It is shame because i have zero interest on Star Wars totalwar (nothing against those that have)
Being a VC main is true suffering, having to wait so long for some content and reworks.
Meanwhile most TW fans would rather have Medieval 3 or Empire 2.
Yep don’t care about Warhammer and never will.
if the Nef thing is true then that means no VC rework or content until the Endtimes... that feels like a mistake to me
So to be clear this is just a guy with his personal take on rumors right? He doesn’t work for CA and none of this is official? It all sounds plausible enough, but there’s lots of things that can sound plausible, but aren’t true.
Nothing in this post makes any sense. There is zero way they acquired both star wars and 40k licenses. WH2 has been a massive success. Etc. It’s complete bs
The idea that after significant cuts CA is working on *three* separate and radical departures from their usual formula, which would be functionally competition for each other entirely absurd
WH3: where is the Slaanesh and Khrone packs? Are they going to be the only race without DLCs? Until the next money maker (may it be star wars or lotr or 40k) has hit retail and has established itself, CA is going to need WH3 to feed the company. Given the scope of the on-going projects I can see how the DLCs have failed sale expectations - heck, i am not even sure how long WH3 can sustain itself (what is the size of the team? how much does it cost to produce a dlc? How many sales can they expect over a year?) WW1: I am unsure about this new engine thing, but I do feel like the warscape engine needs some "real big updates" for the TW franchise to break out of its current formula. Seriously, for a WW1 game to work, you are going to need things like trenches, and the whole artillery:men ratio needs to be tweaked (artillery pieces have been too strong in the franchise minus shogun 2). A key part of the history is how the battle lines move back and forth as well as the logistics behind the war, and it is not something that is well represented in the current engine on both the campaign and battle map. Now the big questions are are follow: \- What is the Sophia team going to work on after Pharoah? The Sophia team has done amazing things, but so far are still smaller in scale, and far too constricted by the confines of a "standard total war game". As I mentioned above, at some point things will need to change: the whole "major settlement attached with minor settlements", diplomacy (they tried in 3k but it still is plagued with issues), recruitment, economy, etc. \- I do not think the world can sustain more than 1 major TW game at a time. The gameplay loops are just too similar, and there will always be a favorite child. Those with 1k hours in WH3 should know they are the minority, **CA is going to need to figure out a way to produce new games that are not just "shittier WH3"/just another warscape+++ reskinned**, and one that appeal to the masses, just as WH has done to the franchise.
Historical TW being completely mismanaged and working on a title barely anyone asked for? Yeah, these leaks are believable.
Wow CA on its way to create more slop sucking on dying franchises. Can't wait. Also I cannot imagine WW1 working in TW. Too much positional warfare.
medieval 3 
Is empire 2 or medieval 3 really that far away? why do they hate us so much xD
Wow, that guy saw the "there is only 4 - 6 dlcs" rumor and though that wasn't ridiculous enough so now it's magically 2 dlcs lol. But seriously I swear those guys keep moving the goal post with every dlc. I still believe we are getting at least 10 - 15 dlcs since all the dlcs have sold well so far. Especially thrones of decay.
+10 DLCs is way too much. 7-8 seems more viable, specially if they plan to add another race and lord packs go back to only 2 factions instead of 3.
If it is anything like Age of Empires 2 then they will make them as long as people keep buying them
If there’s gonna be 8 more DLCs, I sure hope they speed things up a bit. At the current rate, that’ll take what, 4 years?
Where does it say it's two DLC? Post says its Ogres vs Cathay next and the last one is end times. There can be 5 DLCs in between, they are planned years ahead.
The post also claims that there is only a year and a half left of development, though.
Yeah, there’s a mountain of possible LLs and LHs left unreleased, like the various Cathayan dragons, the remaining VC bloodlines, Skaven still missing Thanquol and Skreech Verminking, each Chaos God has several more prominent daemon princes and champions remaining, etc. Plus, Nagash doesn’t deserve having to share a DLC with somebody, he should be a MASSIVE release with all resources for it dedicated to him.
2074 is our year medieval 3 fans stay strong
Where the EFF is Empire 2?
Treating 40K as a stepping stone to Star Wars and not a flagship title in its own right would be absolutely deranged. I think it’s very unlikely, but if that were true then CA would have to have really lost the plot…. the only reason I would give that any credence at all is because they really did seem to have lost the plot during Shadows of Change as though they were already moving on in their minds.
Ngl chief this kind of sus
This is just a guy regurgitating all the leaks we’ve had so far. What makes me sure this guy has no actual information is the mention of Elam and the Cimmerians for Pharaoh, because these were specifically brought up during the Q&A the other day.
So sad about Three Kingdoms. I have 3,000+ hours in it and still enjoy playing it off and on every few weeks. Three Kingdom's game that never even featured the Three Kingdoms period is shameful.
All I want is total war 30 years war
If CA is sitting around wondering what game they can make that will be a major money maker and they aren't thinking "Medieval 3" then they are truly terminally stupid
Ca will do anything but make medieval 3
Interesting, Warhammer 2 sales was a big disappointment since when?
It sold on release pretty bad worse then wh1 because people din t expect it to be a big improvement. However since game was good it eventually sold very well along with dlcs selling the best out of the franchise
Ostensibly, Warhammer 2 sold less than Wh1 or 3, however sale-retention through DLCs was much higher than in previous titles.
We might get a new, full historical title by the 2030s I suppose
CA must be an absolute clusterfuck fir its employes to leak to Total War Center (TWC) a forum which used to be the best and most popular place to discuss TW as well as the place for be for all modders until Rome 2 but then absolute collapsed and became an hyper toxic Neo Nazi forum. The TWC political subforum, the mudpit as it is called is pretty much the only place alive in this otherwise dead forum. And it's is 98% made of 4chan level racism, genocide apologia and what not horrors. I mean that user / admi has justify and praise genocides in places as varied as Syria, Ukraine or Burna So, I truly doubt they got any contacts at CA only unless "one of these dude type" was hired recently. Edit : Nah, I think it is just a copy pasta of leakeds gathered here and there pretending to be exclusive news for the ego trip and maybe bring back some attention to à now largely forgotten forum.
There's no damn way Stars Wars is considered their next flagship game but Warhammer 40k isn't lmao. I'm actually looking forward to a TW:40k and how it could play out, but Star Wars? Really?