You ever play a game that just activates your brain in all the right ways? I remember it happening a few times in my life—the first time I played Morrowind on a friend’s PC and experienced a lifelong RPG addiction occurring in real-time. Just hearing that menu theme makes me want to run outside and start smacking mud crabs. The most memorable occasion, though, was playing Rome: Total War for the first time as a kid.
I immediately knew that this genre was made for me, and turns out I was right; over 6,000 hours and many years (and games) later, Total War remains my favorite. After 25 years, its longevity as a series feels almost unprecedented, especially as most of the games still use a very similar formula—the classic balance between real-time battles and overworld campaign management.
Sean Martin
As the kind of sicko who loves meticulously arranging phalanxes of Dwarf and Empire infantry and watching Chaos hordes break themselves apart in a storm of gunpowder and steel, Total War: Warhammer 40k’s cover system is really quite appealing. I look forward to chokepointing enemies from defensive positions and working out ways to crack them open myself with orbital bombardments and flying Orks.
It’s been applied to ancient Rome, the Dark Ages, medieval times, the Boshin War, and even trickier myth-shrouded periods like China’s Three Kingdoms and the Trojan War. The only thing Creative Assembly could do to make Total War more addictive in my book was combine it with my favorite fictional settings, Warhammer, which it proceeded to do back in 2016. The 3,000 hours I’ve since sunk in those games stands as testament to how bloody good they are.
Welp, Total War: Warhammer 40k is next in line, and as for so many, it’s a setting that’s near and dear to my heart. In the PC Gaming Show last weekend we got to see 40k gameplay for the very first time, as well as a closed beta announcement for later this year, and honestly, it’s looking really good.
Watch On
When Creative Assembly first revealed the game, I was a bit unsure, both in terms of the somewhat arcadey looking visual style of the battles, and my uncertainty surrounding how it could possibly flesh out such a vast and canonically fragmented setting. Live blogs and new info since then have gone a long way to assuaging these doubts.
The map reveal showed us that Creative Assembly has crafted a planet creation system that will flesh out the universe, while the maps have gigantic scale, plenty of variation, and even destructible scenery that opens up new tactical avenues. And now, the new gameplay reveal has me convinced Total War: Warhammer 40k is going to be quite special.
Here are some things that stood out to me:
- We’re taking a road trip to Armageddon: The previous tease of Yarrick and Ghazghkull, his long-time nemesis, has been cemented, and CA confirmed that we’re fighting our way to Armageddon. This isn’t unusual considering the new edition of 40k is all about Armageddon, but I suspect the campaigns will culminate in either defending the planet against a gigantic waaagh (as Yarrick) or assaulting the planet with said waaagh as Ghazghkull.
- The Space Marines and the Eldar have a different opposing campaign: The Astra Militarum and the Orks are similar tactically, so it makes sense they’d be diametrically opposed in the conflict for Armageddon. What are the Space Marines and Eldar doing, though? As stated in the video: “The end goal, at least for the Orks and the Imperium, is Armageddon.” Considering their smaller elite numbers, it’s likely we’ll get a different objective that the Space Marines and Eldar are fighting for.
- Cover is king: We already knew from the map reveal, but we actually got to see units of Astra Militarum being lined up along ruined buildings while protecting a river crossing against Orks. We also got to see a very fancy animation of troops scaling cover as they traversed the battlefield.
- Lots of new units: We got to see loads of units that we hadn’t previously, such as a Baneblade, Leman Russ tanks, Sentinels, Ogryns, a Commissar. And for the Orks? Meganobz, Deff Dreads, and we even got a lovely close-up of a Stompa at one point.
- Bombardments are big: The scale of the battlefields already looks pretty huge, but the bombardment abilities seem especially big. At one point, we see a giant explosion (at least as big as a warpstone nuke in Total War: Warhammer) send greenskins flying into the air. Later, we get to a valkyrie fly past and unleash a rocket barrage.
For me, it looks so much better than it did during the initial reveal and a lot further on than I’d expected it to be. Originally I estimated we wouldn’t see the game until early 2028, but between this gameplay, the map reveals of the planets and planet-making system, and the beta happening this year, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the game releases next year. If you’re interested in checking it out, don’t forget to sign up to the beta later this year.
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