Total War: Warhammer 3 brings the grand strategy trilogy to a triumphant close with a new set of factions as well as a sprawling map to traverse and conquer as part of its single-player campaign. But although its map is considerably bigger than those of its predecessors, it won’t rival that of its Immortal Empires mode, whose release date is on the minds of diligent players who’re already planning subsequent playthroughs.
Total War: Warhammer 3’s Immortal Empires campaign builds upon that of its predecessor, offering players a combined map that stretches across territories from all three games, pitting a massive number of factions against each other. If you’ve played Warhammer 2, you’re likely familiar with its Mortal Empires DLC and this is precisely that but bigger and with lots more daemons.
Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Release Date
Although it lacks the bells and whistles of the grand campaign, focusing instead on simply eradicating your opponents, many treat it as the most complete way to play the series due to the sheer amount of choice you get in terms of factions.
As far as Total War: Warhammer III’s Immortal Empires release date goes, we now have all the details we need.
For starters, Creative Assembly confirmed, in a blog post detailing the game’s patch 1.1, that the Warhammer 3’s combined map DLC would be called Immortal Empires.
The mode entered open beta on August 23, 2022. The release date of Total War: Warhammer 3’s Immortal Empires full version then occured on February 16, when Creative Assembly surprise released patch 2.4, concluding the mode’s testing phase.
- Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires release date: August 23, 2022 (integrated open beta); February 16, 2023 (full release)
Like its first iteration, it is one of the game’s free DLCs. Initially, it was only available to players who owned all three games in the series. With its full release, that has changed. Owners of the third game in the series get access to a core experience that includes Warhammer 3’s base race and lords.
You can then pick up the previous two base games and DLC (which can now be purchased without owning its associated base game) to add more playable factions to your Immortal Empires roster. You can get more details, including a full breakdown of DLCs and factions in the updated FAQ article.
The details under the video just below date from when Immortal Empires first launched in beta and may not be entirely relevant, given how the mode’s full version is now officially released.
After initially giving the mode a Q3 release window, developer Creative Assembly has now confirmed that Total War: Warhammer III’s Immortal Empires release date is slated for the 23rd August 2022, when its beta version will launch. Here is a list of planned launch features:
- Access all 86 Legendary Lords from all three Total War: WARHAMMER titles.
- Be’Lakor is now a Legendary Lord with his own faction.
- Dedicated factions for a number of the older Legendary Lords, including: Grombrindal, Helman Ghorst, and Volkmar the Grim.
- New starting locations for 29 of the older Legendary Lords.
- Improved personal faction mechanics for a selection of the older Legendary Lords (such as Volkmar the Grim).
- A new ‘Sea Lanes’ feature, which allow you to move armies between distant lands and continents—from one side of the map to the other—without leapfrogging them all the way across the map.
- New dynamic end-game scenarios: randomised mid- to late-game challenges we’re introducing to challenge the late-game steamroll—where the player is so powerful that there’s little-to-no challenge left and less of a reason to complete the campaign. Think Greenskin invasions or resurgences of the undead, as a few examples…
- Revamped victory conditions. Most players don’t end up finishing campaigns, and we want to give them better reasons—and a greater level of satisfaction—for doing so. As such, we’ve simplified the victory requirements into more meaningful objectives while avoiding any arbitrary playstyle requirements.
- Corruption rework. Players will have new tools for spreading (or reducing) corruption through more active usage of their armies. Small amounts of natural reduction will also be available to uncorrupted factions.
- 8-player multiplayer campaigns. And as a bonus, only the host of an Immortal Empires multiplayer campaign needs to own all three games. Friends who only own WARHAMMER III will still be able to join the campaign, though their Legendary Lord choices will (naturally) be limited to the ones they own.
Immortal Empires will launch with a beta tag because, as the developer explains, it’s not a simple job of porting content from the older games to Warhammer III.
The third entry has significantly improved lighting and the team also needs to ensure parity between UI assets, character models, effects, and more.
In addition, the developer also points at the game’s Corruption system, which affects all races in one way or another and has also changed quite a bit in the series’ third entry
At present, our aim is for the mode to be fully ‘content-complete’ in terms of the available Races, factions, Legendary Lords, units, and geography, as well as all the extra features and improvements noted […] above,” the developer explains in the dedicated blog post linked above.
“You’ll be able to start a full sandbox campaign to play and conquer however you wish, use any Legendary Lord accessible (based on your game ownership) from any of the three games, or experiment with the older Legendary Lords benefiting from their revamp (especially Ghorst, ho ho).”
Total War: Warhammer III’s Immortal Empires mode won’t be released on a separate branch, in an attempt to keep the community together. The developer plans to support it for years to come with both bigger and smaller patches while listening to player feedback.
The mode’s map is the biggest map featured in a Total War game thus far and almost twice as big as Mortal Empires’.
The Sea Lanes mechanic can be used by any lord looking to conquer or befriend factions from distant lands more quickly. They connect the eastern and western parts of the map, with the exception of the Underworld Sea, which connects the Sea of Malice to the Boiling Sea.
Creative Assembly has also begun gradually sharing details regarding the starting positions of factions in Immortal Empires. The developer also answered a number of other questions, big and small, about Immortal Empires in this Q&A.
For more on the game, here’s what we know about its available multiplayer modes as well as our thoughts after playing through the first 50 turns of its grand campaign.
Total War: Warhammer 3 is out now on PC. You can grab it from Fanatical, other major storefronts, as well as Xbox Game Pass.
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