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Total War: WARHAMMER II Review Thread

Stygr

Banned
I didn't see any threads so here's the review thread for the new entry in the series from Creative Assembly

Metacritic

PCGamer 92%
A maximalist sequel that improves on almost every aspect of the first game.

CGMagazine 95
Total War: Warhammer 2 is a fantastic love letter to both Warhammer fans and strategy game players alike.

IGN 91
The story and objective-driven campaign is a league above anything we've seen in the entire Total War series before in both design and presentation.

Eurogamer Italy 9

Total War Warhammer 2 is the highest point in the series, a spectacle of strategy and tactics that makes the most of the wonderful Games Workshop brand while delighting Total War veterans with new, interesting and entertaining ideas.

Stevior 80
Fans of Total War series are sure to love this Warhammer 2. As an added bonus to the people who already own Total War: Warhammer, you'll have access to a new, global campaign that involves the new lands and races from this title it alongside those from this new iteration. What's not to love?

XGN 85
Total War Warhammer 2 is a worthy successor. A better story, Skaven and Lizardmen as interesting factions and graphics to drool over. Without doubt one of the best fantasy RTS games of the moment. Unfortunately the same problems from TWW 1 return as well.
 
RPS - Recommended

There’s a confidence to this game. It doesn’t need a comfortingly familiar grand campaign or a traditional structure because it has an identity separate from that of Total War; an identity where a scripted narrative can work, or where starkly different factions are more important than balance. It’s an exceedingly strong beginning to this chapter of the Warhammer trilogy and is a strong contender for the best game in the series.


Eurogamer - Recommended


No matter how good a Total War game is, the follow-up campaign is always better. Warhammer 2's is no exception.

PCGamesN - 9

Overall, these problems don’t take much from Total War: Warhammer II. On a trip to the studio about ten months ago, Creative Assembly told us that the success of the original had caused them to re-evaluate their ambitions for the rest of the series, and this game does feel like a step change in that respect. This is a rich and thoughtful strategy game that is a joy to engage with at practically every level, and a new high-water mark of ambition and quality for Creative Assembly.
 
The first one was awesome. As a long time total war fan but not a Warhammer fan, it was a really fresh take on the series and allowed them to try some stuff I don't think they could or felt wasn't appropriate for the historical series. Love it and good to hear the second one is an improvement.
 

Arulan

Member
I might as well ask here. Can someone explain how the game will integrate the original? Will there be a new combined map? Will you be able to play with all the races/content of the first game?
 
I might as well ask here. Can someone explain how the game will integrate the original? Will there be a new combined map? Will you be able to play with all the races/content of the first game?

http://www.pcgamer.com/total-war-warhammer-2s-mortal-empires-campaign-will-contain-117-factions/

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/mortal-empires

We've long spoken about our end-goal for the Total War: Warhammer trilogy: to realise the Warhammer Fantasy Battles world in the most complete and detailed way as possible. All those races from 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles with army books, each with their own starting positions, all playable in the kind of holistic, mega-sandbox of Warhammer joy nobody has ever attempted before.


We also said we'd do this in three stages: part one would cover the geographical area of the Old World. Parts two and three would explore other geographical areas and races. Shortly after Warhammer II launches, owners of both parts one and two will get to play a key part of that grand vision with our first FreeLC download: Total War: WARHAMMER – Mortal Empires.


Mortal Empires will sit alongside The Old World and Eye of the Vortex as an epic fantasy strategy experience, a playable campaign in its own right, accessed through the Warhammer II menu. We'll be taking the iconic territory of the Old World you know from the first game and expanding outwards to the West, taking in key territories from Lustria, the Southlands, Naggaroth and Ulthuan to massively expand the playable area. It's not a straight stitch-‘n'-fit job, and it can't be – the Old World and Eye of The Vortex campaign maps are designed to be standalone; they're different shapes and don't ‘fit together'. Also, no Vortex story mechanics here: this is pure conquest, with all the playable races and factions we've released so far (plus a ton of AI controlled ones) vying for dominance across the continents.


By the end of the trilogy, we intend there to be 5 massive campaigns to choose from across all three parts:


The Old World Included in Warhammer I
Eye of the Vortex Included in Warhammer II
Mortal Empires Free Campaign for Owners of Parts 1 & 2
Warhammer III's Main Campaign Included in Warhammer III
A Very Big Campaign* Free Campaign for Owners of Parts 1, 2 & 3

In terms of content, Mortal Empires is way, way denser than we'd initially envisaged back in 2013, when we were in pre-production for the first game. That's thanks in part to our New Content team, headed by the ever-cheery Rich Aldridge, whose small but insanely talented crew have contributed to massively more playable factions per-square-mile in the Old World (and therefore in Mortal Empires) than we'd originally imagined. New factions for all those original Old World races (Clan Angrund, Crooked Moon, Bloody Handz and all the rest) plus three new races in Bretonnia, Wood Elves and Beastmen, each with their own sub-factions and start positions. Factor in what the core Warhammer team has been working on for the last year and a half – four new races (that's eight more Legendary Lords and start positions) with eye-poppingly different mechanics and playstyles for Warhammer II – and you've got quite a busy map to play on.


In Mortal Empires alone, we're up to 35 Legendary Lords across 25 different starting positions.


What's more, Mortal Empires will carry over many of the features of Warhammer II's Eye of the Vortex campaign you may've seen us talking about in recent months. These include (deep breath): rogue armies, ranged breath-attacks for all dragons, treasure hunting, encounters at sea, storms, shallows and reefs, a whacking great number of UI refinements and improvements, 8 and 10-slot cities, chokepoint maps and, of course, universal territory capture and climate suitability mechanics.


Sizewise, Mortal Empires is over twice as big as the Old World in terms of settlement count. Again, to be clear, this isn't the Old World and New World maps stitched together. We wanted to put gameplay and replayability first, so it's effectively a new map in its own right.
 

Lorcain

Member
How am I supposed to have time to play this masterpiece and Divinity Original Sin 2, and all of the other great games coming out on Switch and PS4/XBO this fall?

I'm happy to hear the Vortex campaign is even better than the first game's grand campaign, which I thought was already good. My toughest choice will be which new army to start with? I do have a soft spot for High Elves since I had a great time playing a White Lion and Swordmaster in Warhammer Online.
 

Steejee

Member
How am I supposed to have time to play this masterpiece and Divinity Original Sin 2, and all of the other great games coming out on Switch and PS4/XBO this fall?

I'm happy to hear the Vortex campaign is even better than the first game's grand campaign, which I thought was already good. My toughest choice will be which new army to start with? I do have a soft spot for High Elves since I had a great time playing a White Lion and Swordmaster in Warhammer Online.

I'm in your boat, but toss in a few 3DS RPGs as well. I tried to take up a personal policy of just ditching games I'm not enjoying, but I haven't been able to ditch one in a while.
 
When I was a teenager I loved to paint the figurines. I had a whole bunch of Skaven.

But looking at this game.. The Lizardmen are fucking sick. The way the T-Rex and Stegosaurus just plow through elfs... It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
 

karnage10

Banned
It is looking pretty good, I think the vortex campaign will be a lot of fun.
I'm still a bit worried about the mortal empires campaign because it might boring if the AI doesn't form big empires.

I'm also eagerly waiting for more info on the dlc, the first game changed a lot with the dlc, I think the 2nd has a much better "core" to build around.
 

John Dunbar

correct about everything
i wonder if this fixes how annoying chasing enemy armies could be in the first one. stopped playing when those fucking dwarves and beast men kept running away from my zombies.
 

ISee

Member
i wonder if this fixes how annoying chasing enemy armies could be in the first one. stopped playing when those fucking dwarves and beast men kept running away from my zombies.

Doubt it, but the new map (and the new shared campaign map) have now more choke points. It should be easier to force them into battle because of this. I hope.
 

Blinck

Member
There's no way a GTX670 would run this game with decent graphics is there ? :( (with an i7 3770k @4.2)

I miss the Total War games since I've moved to PS4. But I'm afraid I'd need to update my GFX card to enjoy this properly.
 

Menchi

Member
Ah guess I’ll be biting now, was holding off on the pre-order. Do we still get Norsca for free if pre-ordering?
 
I wish we could get a pay for each faction scheme.
I've only touched vampire counts/Von C and empire in 1. And i'd probably only play the elves in 2.
 
I might as well ask here. Can someone explain how the game will integrate the original? Will there be a new combined map? Will you be able to play with all the races/content of the first game?

There will be two separate campaigns. The Vortex campaign will feature the new world races and has all of the new narrative elements, and a "Mortal Empires" grand campaign that will be added some time after release that will allow you to play any race you've bought (Warhammer 1, Warhammer 2, DLC, etc.) in one large conquest driven campaign across a slightly modified version of both maps put together. It's supposed to be huge, with like 117 factions.
 
There's no way a GTX670 would run this game with decent graphics is there ? :( (with an i7 3770k @4.2)

I miss the Total War games since I've moved to PS4. But I'm afraid I'd need to update my GFX card to enjoy this properly.

Run the game? Probably. With decent graphics? Probably not. However Warhammer 2 is supposedly better looking AND better optimized than 1 so maybe you could get something decent looking even on low settings? Memory is probably a bigger hurdle tbh.
 

Philxor

Member
However Warhammer 2 is supposedly better looking AND better optimized than 1 so maybe you could get something decent looking even on low settings? Memory is probably a bigger hurdle tbh.

I do hope that this is the case. Loaded the first game last week and still see dips on a brand new machine. Hoping for XCOM 2 expo-style leaps with optimisation.
 
Glad it's looking good. TW:W1 was my favourite TW game. They really nailed the theme and the factions are really diverse and interesting compared to the historical games.
Very few bugs compared to earlier games too.

I keep being tempted by their DLC factions, until I remember that I've still not played a campaign as Undead, Dwarves or Brettonia. You get a huge amount of game for your money.

The super-campaign sounds great, though I suspect it'll be so big I'll never actually complete one.
 

Pooya

Member
I haven't paid attention to this game. The campaign map of the first game was very very shallow compared with Total War games. There was barely anything you could do with city building and other stuff. Has that changed?

Honestly the battle part was really barebones too. All of it looked nice but compared with main Total War games you didn't do much beside pointing your units to attack.
 

ExReey

Member
that last review? what are the same problems that return as well? Don't have time to read the entire article sorry.


First of all it's a pretty badly written review overall.

The problems he described can be summarized:
- he doesn't like the high elf and dark elf factions (doesn't say why)
- frame rate problems late in the campaign
- no precise unit controls in the battles
 

Plumpman

Member
I haven't paid attention to this game. The campaign map of the first game was very very shallow compared with Total War games. There was barely anything you could do with city building and other stuff. Has that changed?

Honestly the battle part was really barebones too. All of it looked nice but compared with main Total War games you didn't do much beside pointing your units to attack.

I'm actually curious about this as well. The campaign in Total War 1 seemed extremely "linear" almost, because of the geography and objectives. I admit I didn't play it that much because I lost interest quickly.

Is this new campaign more open?
Is the Total War 1 + 2 Global Campaign more of what I'm looking for?
 

karnage10

Banned
i wonder if this fixes how annoying chasing enemy armies could be in the first one. stopped playing when those fucking dwarves and beast men kept running away from my zombies.

This is very easy to counter and it is one of the few things that i hope CA doesn't change. I'd hate for the AI to suicide their armies against me because *some* players don't use all the game mechanics.

In case you genuinely don't know how to deal with it there are 2 ways:
- hero action called block army
- using ambush army stance

Glad it's looking good. TW:W1 was my favourite TW game. They really nailed the theme and the factions are really diverse and interesting compared to the historical games.
Very few bugs compared to earlier games too.

I keep being tempted by their DLC factions, until I remember that I've still not played a campaign as Undead, Dwarves or Brettonia. You get a huge amount of game for your money.

The super-campaign sounds great, though I suspect it'll be so big I'll never actually complete one.

I highly recomend WE and norsca DLC; the campaigns are fantastic and very different from the base game.

I haven't paid attention to this game. The campaign map of the first game was very very shallow compared with Total War games. There was barely anything you could do with city building and other stuff. Has that changed?

Honestly the battle part was really barebones too. All of it looked nice but compared with main Total War games you didn't do much beside pointing your units to attack.

I'll be blunt I highly disagree with your opinion. As a total war veteran i can't really get how would you consider warhammer 1 with less battle strategy then previous total wars.
While the campaign map was "simplified" it also much more varied between factions; in fact in all other strategy games changing faction meant very little... Take a look at france and the HRE - both play exactly the same while historical they were very differently.
In warhammer empire (HRE) and bretonia (france) play very differently both in campaign and in battle.


I'm actually curious about this as well. The campaign in Total War 1 seemed extremely "linear" almost, because of the geography and objectives. I admit I didn't play it that much because I lost interest quickly.

Is this new campaign more open?
Is the Total War 1 + 2 Global Campaign more of what I'm looking for?

The new campaign (vortex campaign) is actually supposed to be more linear and has a storyline.
The new mega campaign (mortal empires) is the new open grand campaign map.
 

Lord Phol

Member
Looking good! Personally have no worries over pre-ordering this as I adored the first game and this seems better in every regard. Curious if it will score better on steam than the first game which was downvoted heavily from people disagreeing with the pricing of the dlc. Felt a bit bad for the devs since the game itself had plenty of content and just got better better with every update and DLC release (even if you didn't buy the DLC you got new free content).
 

Feeroper

Member
The Mortal Empires campaign sounds amazing.

I bought TW:W1 back when it came out but haven't played a whole lot of it - however this is making me want to pick up TW:W2.

Quick question though - I noted that there was some DLC campaigns and some free DLC factions/races - are the paid DLC bits worth the price for TW:W1? Would it be worthwhile to eventually get that stuff for use in the Mortal Empires campaign that is coming, or would getting the free factions be the only thing needed?
 
My god I cant wait! Weird question: has the shadow bug been fixed? In the first game unit shadows would sometimes just disappear when viewed from a certain angle. I was wondering if that was fixed in this one.
 

ISee

Member
The Mortal Empires campaign sounds amazing.

I bought TW:W1 back when it came out but haven't played a whole lot of it - however this is making me want to pick up TW:W2.

Quick question though - I noted that there was some DLC campaigns and some free DLC factions/races - are the paid DLC bits worth the price for TW:W1? Would it be worthwhile to eventually get that stuff for use in the Mortal Empires campaign that is coming, or would getting the free factions be the only thing needed?

Chaos Warriors, Beastmen, Wood Elves and Norsca (free with TWW2 atm) are the only paid DLCs woth getting imo. Still, if you aren't immediately interested in their lore, art- or play-style wait for them to be discounted. And even then buy them only if you're interested in playing them in the great mortal empires campaign or in MP yourself, because even if you don't own them, they will be present during the mortal campaign (CPU controlled). You could also consider getting Blood for the Blood God, which is a cheap but just cosmetic DLC (adds more gore), no idea if it is going to work with TW:W2 though...
 
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