Total War: WARHAMMER III

 PC
  • Publisher: Sega
  • Release Date: Feb 17, 2022
User Score
5.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 354 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 154 out of 354
  2. Mixed: 42 out of 354
  3. Negative: 158 out of 354

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. barbone3
    Sep 12, 2022
    5
    One Word: Lag.
    The game is not even that good, it's a copy and paste from shogun.
  2. khern
    Mar 3, 2022
    5
    At launch, this title has some serious issues with replayability, bugs, performance and is not deserving of the launch price. Its more in line with how paradox launch their games, just a shell of a game they will flesh out later in dlc sized chunks for a tidy sum.

    What a shame.
  3. luckydutch
    Feb 21, 2022
    5
    Can't recommend this game or rate it higher than a 5 because I have had major technical problems with it that I've been unable to solve and so had to do a refund.

    My PC is above the recommended specs for the game yet the graphics are truly appalling. Specifically, units. There must be an issue with their anti-aliasing because units look incredibly pixlated. So much so that as you    Can't recommend this game or rate it higher than a 5 because I have had major technical problems with it that I've been unable to solve and so had to do a refund.

    My PC is above the recommended specs for the game yet the graphics are truly appalling. Specifically, units. There must be an issue with their anti-aliasing because units look incredibly pixlated. So much so that as you line-up in battle, your army will just be a shimmering block of visible pixels and sharp edges. When you zoom right in on a unit and wait for a second, the detail suddenly pops in and it looks OK but this is only OK for screenshots. The battles are unplayable.

    Besides that, the campaign has a lot of bugs. Factions have major balancing issues. Vassals are completely broken and that's a primary mechanic for one faction.

    This game needed a few more months in the oven...    … Expand
  4. Quatra
    Feb 18, 2022
    5
    7 years making the same game and they decide to RUIN the things that worked. Optimization Awful. Bugs - aplenty - Two hard stopped campaigns due to bugs. The UI! The UI is the most awful bland red color and hard to read. Gone are beautiful graphics and beautiful art - all replaced by bland red symbols and generic colors.
    Being forced to go through chaos portals and a lame end game race    7 years making the same game and they decide to RUIN the things that worked. Optimization Awful. Bugs - aplenty - Two hard stopped campaigns due to bugs. The UI! The UI is the most awful bland red color and hard to read. Gone are beautiful graphics and beautiful art - all replaced by bland red symbols and generic colors.
    Being forced to go through chaos portals and a lame end game race means this mode will never be played after mortal empires comes out. Map is now cluttered with debris and less crisp. Overall Dissappointed. A 5/10    … Expand
  5. Boris-Barbaris
    Feb 21, 2022
    5
    Ужасная оптимизация, куча багов и мыльная картинка. Некоторые защищают игру, говоря, что Тотал вары всегда выходили сырые на релизе - и я скажу наверно страшную вещь, но это НЕ НОРМА. Учитывая, что каждая игра становится дороже предыдущей, а кучу длц в будущем никто не отменяет.Ужасная оптимизация, куча багов и мыльная картинка. Некоторые защищают игру, говоря, что Тотал вары всегда выходили сырые на релизе - и я скажу наверно страшную вещь, но это НЕ НОРМА. Учитывая, что каждая игра становится дороже предыдущей, а кучу длц в будущем никто не отменяет.
  6. Tigloco9
    Sep 7, 2022
    7
    Just like Warhammer II, it's incredibly barren and unoptimized on launch. The rift mechanic, just like the vortex race, is obnoxious and really sucks out the fun of expanding your empire. But at the end of the day, we all know that Warhammer III is just a stepping stone to Immortal Empires. The actual main game. When that's released and a couple of months pass to fix the undoubtedly brokenJust like Warhammer II, it's incredibly barren and unoptimized on launch. The rift mechanic, just like the vortex race, is obnoxious and really sucks out the fun of expanding your empire. But at the end of the day, we all know that Warhammer III is just a stepping stone to Immortal Empires. The actual main game. When that's released and a couple of months pass to fix the undoubtedly broken state of it, then it will become the game for the ages. … Expand
  7. OliveriaJon
    Apr 18, 2022
    7
    I love this series. The campaign is fun, new, and clever. I like really cant wait for the game to merge the maps from Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2. That will be even more fun to explore that will no doubt give me years of fun just like the previous two installments.
  8. Guillimann
    Nov 25, 2022
    7
    Has the potential to be great, but is too flawed in it's execution. The launch was unforgivable, missed the chance to make this one of the best strategy games ever made and turned into just another good strategy game
  9. Noir9090
    Feb 28, 2022
    6
    I'm sorry to say this game desperately needed another 6-12 months of work before publishing. It has some nice little positive changes so it's not all bad so let's start with those.

    Exp gained on lords is is actually based on the enemies so you are no longer encouraged to battle each army twice. Even low end items are still somewhat relevant late game since you can fuse with other items    I'm sorry to say this game desperately needed another 6-12 months of work before publishing. It has some nice little positive changes so it's not all bad so let's start with those.

    Exp gained on lords is is actually based on the enemies so you are no longer encouraged to battle each army twice. Even low end items are still somewhat relevant late game since you can fuse with other items to make them higher tier ones(lots of useless and worse items available in higher tiers tho that needs balancing).
    Diplomacy has nifty quick deal feature to allow player much faster gauge on what kind of deals they can do and you can now technically trade settlements with AI.
    In battles AI now feels more human(both good and bad at same time but we'll get to this later) and it tries to dodge spells. And well, that's all she wrote. Really, those were the only positives I could find so let's move to the dark side.

    On the negative side sadly this game shines like a beacon in the dark. The game pace is atrociously slow compared to WH2. Even minor settlements have sieges now. These sieges are extremely dumbed down so that you can never lose them, but you will take huge losses over nothing if you don't do them manually. This means you will take tons of extra time either manually playing those or you Auto-Resolve them and take time healing/building up again while enemy bolsters their troops making those battles take again more time.
    As defender in sieges you are now allowed to build towers and barricades middle of the battle and keep rebuilding them constantly. As defender you can beat giant armies that should walk over you at ease by selecting supply point and turtle there. The AI has huge problems with pathing in sieges and tends to just let you kill them in bottle necks. Your towers will lay waste to everything(including your own army if you buy tier 4 towers). You cannot control the towers to focus fire which is yet another thing that felt like it was dumbed down. I actually liked the idea of getting freedom to build towers and barricades to siege, but it should have been left as something you do when placing your troops at start instead of mid battle. For first battle or two this felt great fun new-ish thing. Sadly after couple battles you realize this is what you are going to be facing 70-80% of your battles.
    As attacker on sieges you will realize just how awful the AI can be. You can leave single scout visible opposite side of siege and hide your army into obvious forest to abuse the crap out of the dumb AI. AI will respond as you'd expect. It will move all their troops to that scout side and waste all their points there while your army can march from behind with streets empty. Alternatively you can do it the other way around also. show your army and backdoor points with quick units. The enemy will send proportionally huge chunks of their army to deal with the scary intruders making rest easy pickings. The AI loves spending their points on worthless tier 1 junk towers btw, it just buys the cheapest crap as it has no idea how to play the sieges.
    siege maps also have ramparts locations similar to standing on old walls(except these ramparts can be walked to even by cavalry). The AI does not understand those at all. It might have their elite swords just standing there while you keep backstabbing or shooting them there like idiots. Again it's a fun idea, but terrible execution.
    Regarding sieges I truly hope when Mortal Empires comes they give us "classic" option for sieges just to bypass them or at least make it so these are thing only for major settlements with walls for example. You gotta fix pathing, AI, tower spam, turtling and make the AI understand battles it can take. You can just farm AI for free money and items when it keeps bashing their heads into a wall over and over again while you don't even need army anymore. These sieges made took away a lot of economy management and map control since you no longer need to keep armies there. Sieges also begin instant attrition which makes them even easier for you while keeps taking the fights even dumbest players will win if they turtle.

    On the world map the AI is back to the dark ages of first WH. It plays extremely passive. You are stuck hiding in ambush mode to not make it run. It's constant cat and mouse if you don't.
    You are no longer encouraged to keep expanding. Rather again turtle tactics are just as good if not better with the new campaign. It's like devs looked what was bad with Vortex campaign and decided to go deeper into it. Unlike Vortex this objective is not optional way to play. Now you can just stick to couple provinces and wait.... and wait... and wait... till game decides it's time for demon portals so you can do the objective. You can do only one portal at a time since it needs your legendary lord despite your other armies being just as strong to artificially make game longer, much longer than it should be. That's 150-200 turns of utter boredom.    … Expand
  10. bananajamslam
    Feb 18, 2022
    5
    The UI is pretty awful and the graphics are terrible, like blurry and glitchy at once. Noticeable pop-in and other issues.

    I could look past that, but the changes they made to the settlement battles are somehow worse than before. Huge maps that are a slog to get through with pathing issues causes your units to blob up. Most of the battles in these games end up being settlement battles,    The UI is pretty awful and the graphics are terrible, like blurry and glitchy at once. Noticeable pop-in and other issues.

    I could look past that, but the changes they made to the settlement battles are somehow worse than before. Huge maps that are a slog to get through with pathing issues causes your units to blob up. Most of the battles in these games end up being settlement battles, so it's kind of painful.

    I'm sure they can fix these issues with a bit of time, and I look forward to installing a mod to remove the settlement battles.    … Expand
  11. lowercases
    Feb 28, 2022
    5
    For each improvement, there's something fixed by game 2 that is somehow unfixed again. It joins a lack of optimisation, thread-bare factions and a bizarrely discordant campaign to give the game its sense of being slopped together carelessly. Apart from that, it's more of the same. That'll make the addicts happy enough, but it's unlikely to wow the rest as much as TW:WII did once upon aFor each improvement, there's something fixed by game 2 that is somehow unfixed again. It joins a lack of optimisation, thread-bare factions and a bizarrely discordant campaign to give the game its sense of being slopped together carelessly. Apart from that, it's more of the same. That'll make the addicts happy enough, but it's unlikely to wow the rest as much as TW:WII did once upon a time.

    Prepare your wallets for the privilege of many 15 euro fixes over the next few years. Joy.    … Expand
  12. Pahanshik2
    Feb 18, 2022
    7
    Где оптимизация ? Всё страшно тормозит, хотя желозо подходит!!!!!
  13. dwarfscotsman
    Feb 21, 2022
    6
    I think my rating will evolve over time, by the time all the DLC/FLC and patches are out (in 3 years & several hundred pounds later) I have no doubt that this could be a high 8 or even a 9, like WH2 is for me now.
    I have played TW games since the original ROME, so when I say this a 6, that's comparing to a bloody strong franchise history, I have played over 30 hours, in that time I got to    I think my rating will evolve over time, by the time all the DLC/FLC and patches are out (in 3 years & several hundred pounds later) I have no doubt that this could be a high 8 or even a 9, like WH2 is for me now.
    I have played TW games since the original ROME, so when I say this a 6, that's comparing to a bloody strong franchise history, I have played over 30 hours, in that time I got to turn 160 of Kislev on hard difficulty. Its insane and totally unbalanced, I had 30 chaos armies surrounding me, I have 2 armies and that’s all I can afford.
    Technical issues - I have a top end gaming PC and even CPU/gpu struggled, so as with most new games there are optimizations needed and CA are decent at sorting those. The graphics however, its obvious this is a reskin of 3 kingdoms (a game I utterly hate), everything on campaign map looks grainy same issue with 3k. I thought it was me but then I compared it to WH2 - its NOT even close to WH2 quality, this must be addressed.
    Campaign is unbalanced and AI spam is just tedious, battles there is nothing new at all, even managed to destroy a 20 stack slannesh army in 2minutes, really what is the point in having great graphics/unit textures if AI just rushes you.
    AI - Yes CA after 10 years of warscape it is still a brain dead on arrival Battle AI. As for siege fix/improvement, well you just copy/pasted the terrible 3K siege maps straight in to WH3, please just go back to WH2 sieges and make slightly bigger settlements, modders can do it why can't you??
    Overall and I'm sure there are several other issues but I can't be bothered (yes that’s how the game makes me feel right now) its average, not a great launch, bit similar to Rome2 launch in my view.
    Not sure why this got such high critics review - they obviously spent their 15 mins review time smiling at the cute Nurglings! This is a personal review and I hope to come back in time and re-write it. Oh and if you don’t agree with my opinion that 3K is by far the worst ever TW game, your entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to my own.    … Expand
  14. Padudu
    May 6, 2022
    7
    I can see the appeal but I just didn't find the game very promising or rewarding. The campaign was uninspiring and the improvements done compared to the previous titles just weren't enough for me to dig deeper into this game.
  15. eturyu
    Aug 16, 2022
    7
    I dont think im alone in saying i have little to no interest in Total War Warhammer 3, We are all here for Immortal empires. If they had "just" released Immortal empires, expanded the map and races, and not bothered with the new main campaign, i think everyone would have preferred it.
  16. Sawicky
    Mar 20, 2022
    7
    On the whole I have played quite a fair bit and enjoyed it for the most part.

    However the realms of chaos are a massive chore and only really bring annoying mechanics into the game really putting me off. There are ways to avoid this which is why I have played so many hours. Lots of good improvements have been made Diplomacy is 100% better not perfect yet but tones better. As soon as a    On the whole I have played quite a fair bit and enjoyed it for the most part.

    However the realms of chaos are a massive chore and only really bring annoying mechanics into the game really putting me off.

    There are ways to avoid this which is why I have played so many hours.

    Lots of good improvements have been made Diplomacy is 100% better not perfect yet but tones better.

    As soon as a the major issues are sorted I’m sure it will be amazing.    … Expand
  17. Bosman666
    Mar 30, 2022
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Tears, crying and despair. WH: TW 3 is a product that was released too early, numerous bugs hindering the game, units execute orders with a large delay, during the AI siege it can immediately rebuild its turret after being destroyed. Graphic errors like a flying palisade in cities. Very bad optimization compared to other TW games, not including Attila (technical crap). I have a lesson not to buy a pre-order. If you are a TW fan, wait for the patches, if you are a Warhammer fan then buy a new box with models and wait for the patches.… Expand
  18. Valent1
    Aug 2, 2023
    7
    Très bon jeu de stratégie avec des combats et un mode campagne bien réalisés. J'enlève -1 pour la note car il y avait d'énormes problèmes d'optimisation au début mais il n'y en a plus beaucoup malgré des latences et des pertes de connexion à certains moments notamment pour les campagnes en coop.

Awards & Rankings

25
#25 Best PC Game of 2022
17
#17 Most Discussed PC Game of 2022

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
86

Generally favorable reviews - based on 65 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 61 out of 65
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 65
  3. Negative: 0 out of 65
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 30, 2024
    100
    Although the Immortal Empires format, which will combine all three games into one large map, was not yet available at the time of review, the world itself is large even in the individual parts. Its treatment and variety of climatic zones and chaotic crevasses deserve high praise, and the freedom of creative license has been used to the fullest by the authors at Creative Assembly in this regard as well. [Issue#318]
  2. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Oct 19, 2022
    84
    Selling Ogres as a separate Day-1 DLC is definitely an anti-consumer practice, AI would be best described as “braindead", and some mechanics only work because of duct-tape solutions like “background income”. Yet, CA has managed to capture that certain “je ne sais quoi” of Warhammer: every faction plays differently, but they all feel awesome. [Issue#259, p.42]
  3. Het Nieuwsblad
    Oct 6, 2022
    60
    If the "Total War" series had been a cow, PETA would have been at the door a long time ago. That's how milked she is. When you're not fighting, you're trying to build your empire. This part of the game combines both the best and worst of Total War: on the one hand, the factions you can play differ substantially and all offer a different experience; on the other, after a strong start, the campaign collapses like a pudding. You focus mainly on one powerful army, so the overall overview disappears somewhat from view. Too bad.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »