Total War: Warhammer II: Dinosaurs Battle Rat-Men For The Fate Of The World

Open the door. Get on the floor. Everybody play as dinosaurs.

- Hayden Dingman

“Kill the warmbloods!” The cry resounds over the battlefield, no doubt instilling fear in the hordes of rats who face me. Still they march on, pouring out of desolate ruins towards my scaly soldiers. To the left, a division of spear-wielding chameleons. To the right, a massive tyrannosaurus rex waits with opening jaws. And behind? Well, that’s where my cavalry await—dinosaurs riding other dinosaurs.

Total War: Warhammer II is truly bizarre.

SKAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH

It’s been approximately a year and a half since the release of Total War: Warhammer (go. pcworld.com/twwa)—the first Total War game to abandon history for more fantastical fields of glory. Do I wish we’d gotten another history-centric Total War by now? Sure. But we didn’t, and instead Creative Assembly has released the second part of a planned trilogy, which for convenience sake I’m going to call Total Warhammer II from here on out.

Sort of a sequel, sort of a standalone expansion, Total Warhammer II adds a new map, a new conflict, and four new races to the Total Warhammer universe. The new map actually spans four different continents from Warhammer lore—Lustria, Ulthuan, Naggaroth, and the Southlands.

And at the heart of Ulthuan? The Great Vortex, a magical tornado that drains magical energy from the world.

This supernatural cyclone is also the heart of Total Warhammer II. Where the previous game focused on ancient enmities—between Dwarves and Greenskins, Empire and Vampires, and so on— Warhammer II is much more focused, more immediate in its concerns. All four factions want control of the Great Vortex, whether to save the world or to corrupt it.