Creative Assembly Announces Total War: Warhammer II

[Raevenlord]

Creative Assembly is one of the biggest players in the RTS genre - a genre that is exclusive to our platform of choice. You do have leave out some outliers like Halo Wars - of which its second installment was indeed developed by Creative Assembly itself - and Command & Conquer 3, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule: the PC is the place to strategize.

Now, Creative Assembly has announced yet another iteration on their Total War series of game, which borrow from Civilization's "just one more turn" addictiveness. And this one is set on one of the most cherished IPs in gaming: the Warhammer universe. The first Total War: Warhammer was a poster child for DX 12 integration and performance improvements (at least on the AMD side of the equation). Total War: Warhammer II should also carry some of those optimizations with it, and the second installment in a planned trilogy of RTS titles on the receiving end of the Total War treatment.





An interesting part of the equation is that some content you have already acquired for the first installment in the series will carry over to your Warhammer II campaign. So, while it isn't being billed as an expansion, owning the previous content really will inform and flesh out the experience in the new title. The campaign will play out across four new continents: Ulthuan, Naggaroth, The Southlands and Lustria, and it looks like there will also be a vast, combined map that covers the geographic areas of the first and second games.

No firm release date was as of yet announced, but you can count on this title dropping this year - exclusively - for the PC platform.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Vayra86]

SKAVEN
LIZARDMEN
HIGH ELVES
DARK ELVES

and my life is complete

Still busily choppin' away at the original TW:Warhammer at this time No regrets even with all the DLC except for the Beastmen one. This has been a really good ride so far, gimme more!

 

[Kursah]

Hell the first one isn't even a year old yet! I have been on the fence about buying that one due to some comments and disappointments my friends have had...

But Vayra is pretty happy as posted above...so maybe I'll pick up the first one on sale. Considering it dropped May 24, 2016...I think they could've easily gone another year on DLC and patching (like any modern game really). I say that and I still have to put some more time into Battlefleet Gothic: Armada as well...

 

[Vayra86]

Hell the first one isn't even a year old yet! I have been on the fence about buying that one due to some comments and disappointments my friends have had...

But Vayra is pretty happy as posted above...so maybe I'll pick up the first one on sale. Considering it dropped May 24, 2016...I think they could've easily gone another year on DLC and patching (like any modern game really). I say that and I still have to put some more time into Battlefleet Gothic: Armada as well...

It depends on what you're looking for in a TW game, but with some mods you can add some serious depth in tactics if that is what you're missing.

For me this Total War has been the best, and I do mean the best of them all thus far. The asymmetrical style of this Total War is what does it for me, and I also happen to love the setting. Every race in this Total War is a completely different experience. Not just positioning, but unit roster, economy, the lot. I also found it stunning how they put the Total War mechanics to use and how well they fit within the Warhammer setting, its like a match made in heaven.

About the release schedule; yes there is a short time in between but this has been part of a larger business plan from the start, the original intent was and still is to eventually merge all three games together so they can cover the entire Warhammer universe with all its races. Only a few weeks ago they pushed the last feature update for TW:WH and the update process has been very solid, also with fixes. I have yet to encounter a bug since the last update, seems pretty well finished to me. And if you look at the content / replayability its well worth full price, and that's coming from someone who tends to be hyper critical of gaming content wise. I'll be breaking 300 hours playtime tonight I think

You have Armada, with danger of going offtopic, but how has that been treating you? I've been on the fence on that one, was hoping for something more than just skirmish battles.

 

[ZoneDymo]

pffff DoW3 DoW3 DoW3!!!

oh and if a capable company could make EDF with a warhammer 40k sauce over it, that would be lovely.
And a warhammer 40k Tower defense game like Dungeon Defenders would be cool as well.

 

[Kursah]

It depends on what you're looking for in a TW game, but with some mods you can add some serious depth in tactics if that is what you're missing.

For me this Total War has been the best, and I do mean the best of them all thus far. The asymmetrical style of this Total War is what does it for me, and I also happen to love the setting. Every race in this Total War is a completely different experience. Not just positioning, but unit roster, economy, the lot. I also found it stunning how they put the Total War mechanics to use and how well they fit within the Warhammer setting, its like a match made in heaven.

About the release schedule; yes there is a short time in between but this has been part of a larger business plan from the start, the original intent was and still is to eventually merge all three games together so they can cover the entire Warhammer universe with all its races. Only a few weeks ago they pushed the last feature update for TW:WH and the update process has been very solid, also with fixes. I have yet to encounter a bug since the last update, seems pretty well finished to me. And if you look at the content / replayability its well worth full price, and that's coming from someone who tends to be hyper critical of gaming content wise. I'll be breaking 300 hours playtime tonight I think

You have Armada, with danger of going offtopic, but how has that been treating you? I've been on the fence on that one, was hoping for something more than just skirmish battles.

Thanks for the insight, I'll definitely look into it! I love my strategy so what's one more time sink in an awesome the Warhammer 40K theme.

Armada is pretty good if you like cap ship tactical strategy...that's what this is...you won't ever control more than a small handful of ships. They each can be upgraded, are persistent through the campaign, and each can have various abilities that can help out on the battlefield. Battlefields are on fought on a 2D plane, but can have stations, asteroid fields, pockets of gas, etc...that can affect how the battle plays out as you can use some for cover or to lure an enemy into. There's a lot of strategy, each race plays differently and feels good. The graphics and artwork are beautiful...performance is decent of you have a good PC.

Where it fell short for me was not enough races, not enough ships (I have adjusted as my expectations were different to what the game actually was), and it seems development is slowed but devs have announced there "might" be some future support. I didn't MP much but believe that has slowed greatly due to major balancing issues. Overall I'd say pick it up on a sale...it is great if you love WH40K, but there are some annoyances... things start to get very samey in a hurry. But then again, that is kinda par for the WH40K series...where Armada does it more is with the battle environments. There isn't enough to make the battle planes feel unique or interesting...but they're really just there for you to execute the glory of your well planned tactics with well fortified ships to cleanse the enemy scum from the sector!

 

[Fx]

Ahh, hell yeah. I enjoyed the hell out of this series so far. It really caught me by surprise. I dropped hundreds of hours into the first and now am sure to do it all over again. Since there is going to be islands I bet they are going to implement ships and more complexity to the resources and trade which I thought was shallow in the first.

 

[yotano211]

I'm still playing Rome 2 and Empire total war. Over 1200 hours in both games, I need a life!!

 

[Fx]

Rome 2 was a great game. It received much hate, but I thought much of it was unwarranted. I think I have played every game of the series. To date, my favorites of the series:

Rome 1, Rome 2, Medieval 1, Medieval 2, Shogun 2 and now Warhammer 1.

They definitely have a winner on their hands with Warhammer. Out of the entire series, I have never went through and played almost every faction or even close. On this game though, I went through the legendary campaigns of Empire, Wood Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Vampires as well as the special campaigns for Beastmen and Wood Elves on legendary.

Dope game.