Total War: WARHAMMER III

Cry havoc! And unleash the blue-tentacled dogs of war

- IAN EVENDEN

WE TAKE THE WORSHIP of the dark gods seriously here at Maximum PC. When it's not the simple brute-force power exemplified by Khorne we're getting excited about, it's the serpentiform Slaaneshi curves of a liquid cooling system, or whatever Tzeentchian sorcery makes PCs work in the first place. Sorry, Nurgle, we haven't worked out a tortured metaphor for you, yet.

The injection of Warhammer's chaos gods into Total War for its third installment based on the tabletop war game is just the shake-up that the game we aren't supposed to call 'Total Warhammer needs. While the second installment arrived bearing new races, the third wasn't going to get away so easily. A heavy dose of sorcery to join the swords makes the game feel fresh again.

So what's new? The barrier separating the worlds of men and demons has been torn apart and hellish forces are flooding the land. They come in four types: the armies of Nurgle, the god of plague and pestilence, all green fumes and huge fat units with gaping maws on their bellies; Khorne, the god of war, with his traditional horned and bat-winged demons complemented by mystical machine guns and metal war-rhinos. There's Slaanesh, the prince of pleasure, who favors androgyny, hooves, and seafood; while the god of sorcery, Tzeentch, has bird-like followers, flying disks, and multi-limbed creatures known only as 'Horrors'.

What do these fantastical, grotesque creatures bring to the massed battles we've come to expect from Total War? Well, they certainly add verticality. Not only are there flying creatures, but many of the walking, or lumbering, ones are enormous, towering over the battlefield and any swordsmen or archers unlucky enough to get in their way.