Creative Assembly has published a new video detailing a lengthy list of updates coming to Total War: Warhammer 3 tomorrow, as the studio gears up for release of its Champions of Chaos DLC and beta access to the massive Immortal Empires campaign. Titled "Patch Notes 2.0", the video charts various additions and changes coming to the base game, all of which will be free.
First off, the update introduces several new game mechanics to Warhammer 3. This include "Gifts of Chaos" which provide "god-given boosts" to your chosen faction. These can range from enhanced abilities for specific unit-types, to more passive bonuses like extra ammunition for ranged units. There's also a new settlement structure for vassals, and warband recruitment, letting you recruit mercenary units from throughout the realms.
A major update has also been made to the Realm of Chaos map, with four new provinces available to conquer. You'll also be able square off against the new Champions of Chaos on the map, although the video points out these characters won't themselves participate in the race to claim Ursun's power.
Alongside these mechanical changes, Warhammer 3 has also received some visual touch-ups. The options for occupying cities are now accompanied by faction-specific illustrations, while the war-coordination interface has been refined. More broadly, the game's UI has been tweaked to make it more colourful, which hopefully will also make it more readable.
The second half of the video is dedicated to smaller tweaks and bug fixes, such as ensuring that battle reinforcement countdowns are always accurate, and the ability for allied outposts to be built outside their province capitals. There is one other notable announcement toward the end of the video though, which is that for players who have access to the Immortal Empires campaign (i.e., those who own all three Total War: Warhammer games) "all legacy battle content" from the previous two games will be ported to Warhammer 3.
While the number of updates mentioned in the video is extensive, it doesn't represent the complete list of changes that will be made by the coming patch. In the video decription, Creative Assembly mentioned that a "massive" changelog is "on the way", which will provide a complete overview of how the game is being updated in preparation for Champions of Chaos and Immortal Empires.
On the subject of Immortal Empires, Fraser recently gave Warhammer 3's mega-campaign a whirl, and was utterly enthralled by it. " It should be too big, too unwieldy, and it's certainly very messy and hard to wrap your head around," he wrote in his preview of the beta. "But it's all just brilliant." Somebody better hurry up and add an extra two days into the week, otherwise it looks like there are a lot of late night ahead of me.
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Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.
