It is massive. No, really. If you zoom out all the way on the campaign map, the sheer scale of Total War Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires feels less like a video game and more like a digital desk-crushing hobby. You’ve got three games' worth of landmasses stitched together into a single, cohesive monster. It’s the kind of project Creative Assembly probably shouldn’t have attempted, yet here we are, years into its lifecycle, and it’s still the only thing I want to play on a Sunday afternoon.
Honestly, the launch was a bit of a train wreck. We all remember the Realm of Chaos campaign—the rifts, the constant stress, the feeling that you were being punished for actually expanding your empire. But Immortal Empires changed the DNA of the experience. It turned a narrative-driven slog into the ultimate sandbox. You want to take a Viking-inspired Chaos lord and sail across the world to punch a dinosaur in the face? You can. You want to lead a legion of French-accented knights against a swarm of literal space-demons? Go for it.
The barrier to entry used to be a nightmare, too. You basically needed to own all three games just to touch this mode. Now? Creative Assembly wised up. You just need the third game. That’s it. You get access to the map and the base factions, and if you want the DLC lords from the past decade, you buy them as you go. It’s a much fairer shake for newcomers who don’t want to drop $200 just to see what the hype is about.
The Map That Consumed the World
Let’s talk about the scale. It’s daunting. We are looking at nearly 300 starting factions and over 500 individual settlements. This isn't just a map; it's a logistical challenge.
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Moving from the Old World—that familiar, grimdark version of Europe—into the sprawling deserts of Nehekhara or the dense jungles of Lustria takes time. Real time. You’ll spend dozens of turns just navigating the oceans. To solve the "walking simulator" problem, the developers added Sea Lanes. These are basically fast-travel points that let you jump from the coast of Cathay all the way to the New World. It’s a godsend. It keeps the late game from becoming a tedious crawl across empty water. Without these lanes, playing as a faction like the High Elves would feel isolated. Instead, you're constantly engaged with threats from every corner of the globe.
I’ve found that the sheer density of the map creates these weird, emergent stories that weren't possible in the smaller campaigns. In one of my recent runs as Ikit Claw—the mad rat-scientist of Skavenblight—I ended up in a three-way war with a nomadic ogre tribe and a crusading army of Bretonnians. None of us were supposed to be there. We were all thousands of miles from our "home" provinces, fighting over a minor port city just because it had a gold mine. That’s the magic of Total War Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires. It’s unpredictable.
Balancing the Unbalanced
How do you balance a game where one faction uses 16th-century pikes and another uses nuclear bombs? You don't. At least, not perfectly. And that’s why it works.
The power creep is real. If you look at the newer factions like the Chaos Dwarfs, their mechanics are incredibly deep. They have a complex economy involving labor, raw materials, and armament production. Compare that to an older faction like the Empire, and Karl Franz starts to look a bit... basic. But the developers have been "remastering" the old guards. The Thrones of Decay update, for instance, gave the Empire and Dwarfs a much-needed facelift. They didn't just give them new units; they overhauled their fundamental systems to make them feel as "premium" as the newer DLC.
- The Empire: Now has a much more engaging "Elector Counts" system that doesn't just feel like a series of annoying pop-ups.
- The Dwarfs: Finally got the "Great Book of Grudges" to feel like a central mechanic where you actually hunt down those who wronged you for massive buffs.
- Nurgle: Went from being the most frustrating, slow faction to play to a genuine powerhouse of cyclical growth and plague-spreading.
The "End Game" Problem and How They Fixed It
Total War games historically have a problem: by turn 100, you’ve usually won. You’re so powerful that the rest of the game is just a mop-up operation.
To counter this, Immortal Empires introduced End Game Scenarios. Think of them as "boss fights" for the entire world. You can customize these in the settings. Maybe a massive Waaagh! of Orcs spawns across the map, or the Vampire Counts rise from their graves in every province at once. It forces you to stop painted the map your color and actually defend your borders. It’s chaotic. It’s often unfair. But it provides that final spike of adrenaline that the series has lacked for years. I usually turn on "The Black Pyramid" scenario because there is nothing more terrifying than seeing twenty stacks of elite skeletons marching out of the desert while you're busy fighting Vikings in the north.
Performance: Is Your PC Going to Melt?
This is the question everyone asks. Look, this game is a beast. It’s unoptimized in places, and the load times can be brutal if you aren't running it on an NVMe SSD.
When the mode first went into beta, the "End Turn" times were long enough to go make a sandwich. They’ve optimized it significantly since then. Even with hundreds of factions moving their pieces, the wait is manageable now. But you need RAM. 16GB is the bare minimum, but 32GB makes the experience much smoother. If you’re playing on a laptop, be prepared for the fans to sound like a jet engine. The engine is showing its age, especially with the lighting bugs that crop up in certain maps, but the art direction carries it. Seeing a Bloodthirster of Khorne clash with a Chinese-inspired Terracotta Sentinel is still one of the best sights in strategy gaming.
The Community and the Future
We can't talk about Total War Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires without mentioning the mods. The Steam Workshop is the lifeblood of this game.
Whether it’s the "SFO: Grimhammer" overhaul that redesigns every single unit for a more "lore-accurate" feel, or simple UI tweaks that let you decline diplomacy requests automatically, the modding scene is elite. If there’s something you hate about the game—maybe the attrition is too high or the towers in siege battles are annoying—there is a mod to fix it. Creative Assembly has been surprisingly supportive of this, likely because they realize the community is what keeps the game in the Top Sellers list on Steam year after year.
There was a lot of drama a while back regarding DLC pricing. The Shadows of Change debacle almost sank the game's reputation. Players felt they were getting too little content for too much money. To CA’s credit, they listened. They went back, added more content to that DLC retroactively, and changed their approach for future releases. It was a rare moment where a community revolt actually resulted in a better product for the consumer.
Making the Most of Your First Campaign
If you are jumping in for the first time, don't start as the High Elves or the Empire just because they look "normal." This is Warhammer. Go weird.
Start as the Lizardmen. You get to lead armies of dinosaurs. Or try the Skaven—specifically Clan Moulder—where you can genetically mutate your troops into horrific monsters. The beauty of this game isn't in the "fair" fight; it's in finding the most broken, ridiculous way to play your specific faction.
Actionable Next Steps for New Players:
- Check your storage: Ensure the game is installed on an SSD. If it's on a hard drive, the load times will genuinely ruin your enjoyment.
- Toggle the "Ultimate Crisis": If you want a challenge, enable all End Game Scenarios to trigger at once between turns 100-150. It turns the game into a survival horror experience.
- Don't ignore Diplomacy: Unlike previous Total War titles, the "Quick Deal" button in Warhammer 3 is a lifesaver. Use it every turn to see who is willing to pay you for non-aggression pacts.
- Watch the Terrain: The game doesn't do a great job of explaining it, but fighting in a forest as a large monster faction is a death sentence. Always check the "Toggle UI" button in battle to see the terrain modifiers.
- Focus on Growth: In the early game, building for money is a trap. Build for growth. The faster you get your main settlement to Tier 4 and 5, the faster you get the "fun" units that actually win wars.
Total War Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires is the definitive way to play this trilogy. It's messy, it's loud, and it's occasionally frustrating, but there is nothing else on the market that matches its scope. You aren't just playing a strategy game; you're participating in the final, violent conclusion of a decade-long development journey. Whether you're a lore nerd or just someone who likes seeing thousands of tiny soldiers die in a hail of magical fire, this is the peak of the genre.
Don't worry about "winning" your first map. Just pick a lord that looks cool, head in a random direction, and see what kind of trouble you can find. That is the true Immortal Empires experience.