Earlier today Creative Assembly outlined their 2022 roadmap for Total War: Warhammer 3. Among other things, the developers announced that a new Warhammer 3 major update is launching next month along with the first Regiments of Renown. Meanwhile, highly anticipated features like Immortal Empires, the Blood DLC, and the Assembly Kit are set to arrive much later in the year.
The Warhammer 3 2022 roadmap is quite extensive and you can check out all the details on the official Total War blog. But if you’re looking for a (slightly) more compressed version with commentary keep reading because we’re going to cover all the most important bits down below.
Q2 2022
Q2 of 2022 will see the release of a new Warhammer 3 major update, which should arrive sometime in May. There’s no concrete release date for update 1.2 just yet, but we already have a pretty good idea of what it will bring to the table.
First off, update 1.2 will introduce a variety of improvements to the game’s AI. One of the most important changes relates to the AI’s infamous anti-player bias. While the bias will probably not be removed completely, CA did state that they are implementing the first fixes for the issue.
On a somewhat related note, in update 1.2 the AI will no longer be able to build and rebuild towers as quickly as it does currently. Auto-resolve is also seeing improvements that will prevent the AI from winning battles that it should clearly lose. In 1.2 the auto-resolve difficulty will be determined by the Battle difficulty setting. At the moment, it’s determined by the Campaign difficulty.
As I’m sure you can tell by now, the new Warhammer 3 major update will cut down on the AI’s blatant cheating. These changes won’t solve all the problems but they’re a step in the right direction. If you’re looking for ways to reduce AI cheating even before the update hits, we recommend checking out our list of best Warhammer 3 mods.
Since we’re already talking about AI, it’s worth noting that the update will also fix issues related to flying units becoming stuck when attacking ground units, ranged units becoming randomly idle, and single-entity dueling. These changes are part of an overall larger plan to improve the responsiveness of units across the board.
CA says it’s also looking to improve tech and skill trees, starting with the former. The devs didn’t give any further detail, though.
Regiments of renown
Regiments of Renown are coming to Total War: Warhammer 3 and they’re coming soon. CA will be doing things differently this time around and I’m glad that they’re taking this route. In the past, Regiments of Renown would be added to only one or two factions at a time and they usually came via DLC. As a consequence, you had to own most of the Warhammer 2 DLC to unlock all the regiments. Same goes for the first game in the series.
Some Regiments of Renown for Warhammer 3 will still be tied to DLC but this first batch will be available for free to everyone. Not just that, but all Warhammer 3 factions will receive a Regiment of Renown. This will prevent situations where some factions would automatically become stronger than others just by having access to RoRs.
The next Warhammer 3 major update will introduce the first batch of Regiments of Renown but we can expect at least two more by the end of 2022.
Q3 2022
Q3 of 2022 will see the release of update 1.3 and this is where things will start to get really interesting. Just like 1.2, the update will include a series of fixes and improvements, many of which are still being discussed. Regiments of Renown II will arrive as another free-LC alongside the update, as will the Total War Assembly Kit. The Assembly Kit will give modders a lot more tools to play around with.
Update 1.3 will also see a few faction-specific changes. Most notably, the update improves replenishment rates for Tzeentch and Slaanesh while also making Cathay infantry stronger in frontal engagements. Skill tree reworks, battle-related fixes, and reduced minor settlement battles frequency are all coming with update 1.3 as well.
Q3 will see an additional Warhammer 3 major update and this is the one we’ve all been waiting for. Update 2.0 will include the usual slew of bug fixes and improvements along with three important content additions.
Immortal empires
We finally have some concrete news regarding Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires. The beta version of the highly anticipated grand strategy map is coming with update 2.0 sometime during Q3. Given the scope of the mode, CA will first make it available as an open beta before moving on to a full release further down the line.
This approach is a bit different compared to Warhammer 2’s Mortal Empires so we’re not quite sure what to expect here. We got confirmation that Immortal Empires will merge maps and factions from all three games but we don’t know if the DLC content will also be available in the beta. Adding everything at once would make the developers’ work significantly harder, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the beta only included base game content for starters.
While we’re all very excited for Immortal Empires, it is disappointing to hear that we won’t be able to play until Q3. Presumably, the plan is to release update 1.3 around July followed by update 2.0 in the second half of Q3. That would most likely put the Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires release date somewhere between late August and early-to-mid September.
Currently, people are flocking back to Warhammer 2 primarily because of the lack of Immortal Empires in Warhammer 3. As of this writing, Warhammer 2 already has more concurrent players than Warhammer 3, which doesn’t bode well for the latest entry in the series. It looks like the situation will probably stay like this until late Q3. Unfortunately.
Blood pack iii
Also coming with update 2.0 is the controversial Blood Pack, the DLC that adds blood to the game. I’ve already gone over how insulting the Blood Pack is in my Warhammer 2 DLC guide so go check that out if you like a good rant. We won’t delve into it again here.
Suffice it to say that the blood DLC is coming much later than expected and, by the sound of it, this one won’t be free either. Yes, you have to pay for blood in a Warhammer game. I know.
But just like with the last one, if you own the blood DLC for either of the previous games you will automatically unlock access to it in Warhammer 3 once it drops. Conversely, if you buy it for Warhammer 3, you’ll unlock it for the first two games as well.
Warriors of chaos update
The worst race (by far) from the original Total War: Warhammer is finally getting some love. We don’t have any details just yet but CA says that we can expect a number of Old World races to receive overhauls starting with update 2.0.
First up will be the Warriors of Chaos, the race that’s in the direst need of an update. Presumably, other long-neglected races like the Dwarves, Norsca, Vampire Counts, and more will follow at some point.
Q4 2022
Unsurprisingly, the Warhammer 3 2022 roadmap doesn’t contain a lot of details regarding the fourth quarter of the year. However, we did get a few bits of interesting info.
Similar to Q3, there will be another Warhammer 3 major update in early Q4 followed by possibly an even bigger one towards the very end of the year. Update 2.1 will apparently focus primarily on polishing Immortal Empires and adding further improvements. 2.1 will also add Regiments of Renown III.
CA will wrap up the year with either another small update (2.2) or a big one (3.0). A lot can change until then so we’ll know for sure closer to Q4.
While not included anywhere specific on the roadmap, the developers mentioned a few other areas that will see improvements throughout 2022 and beyond. These include the chat system, Domination mode, matchmaking queue, and returning maps from Warhammer 1 and 2.
Finally, Creative Assembly says it’s eager to support Warhammer 3 for years to come. Among other things, the studio is drawing plans for future DLC packs but it may take some time before they decide to give us any details.
If I were to guess, I’d say Chaos Dwarves are probably up there on their agenda. It would make a lot of sense to introduce the highly anticipated race alongside an Old World update for the Dwarves. But that’s just wishful thinking on my part so don’t quote me on that.
More warhammer
For more Warhammer-related content, check out the links and the video down below.
- The Best Warhammer Fantasy Games of All Time
- The Best Warhammer 40K Games of All Time
- Warhammer 3 Optimization Guide for Best Performance and Visual Quality
- Blood Bowl 3 Closed Beta Hands-on ImpressionsÂ
