Format of future Total War: Warhammer 3 DLC will be decided based on Thrones of Decay’s performance

Things are in motion at the moment

Creative Assembly / Sega

Creative Assembly will make a decision on the size and format of any future DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3 after evaluating the reception and sales of Thrones of Decay, which is launching on April 30, 2024. Rich Aldridge, game director of the strategy title, confirmed that there wouldn’t be a new roadmap right after the upcoming DLC’s release during a Q&A session on Discord.

Ahead of release, Total War fans have been ecstatic about the content offered by Thrones of Decay as well as the possibility of buying the included factions separately. With Tamurkhan, Elspeth von Draken, and Malakai Makaisson, three highly anticipated Legendary Lords are making their way into the game with the next DLC.

In addition, Epidemius will come to the game as a free Legendary Lord and the Nemesis Crown campaign mechanic will be released for free alongside the DLC. Update 5.0, which comes with Thrones of Decay, also includes substantial reworks for Nurgle, the Empire, and the Dwarfs – this has been something players have been requesting for a long time.

During the Q&A, Rich Aldridge commented that the team had a lot of fun with these reworks, allowing them to look back on their old work and improve on it with years of feedback and brand-new mechanical possibilities in mind.

Tamurkhan leads the Daemons of Nurgle in Thrones of Decay. / Creative Assembly / Sega

Faction reworks had been part of the old Total War: Warhammer 3 roadmap and fans expect them to remain a focus of any future content drops, regardless of what exactly the studio will eventually decide any new expansions to look like.

Originally, a Slaanesh-themed DLC was supposed to be released in Spring 2024, following Shadows of Change and Thrones of Decay – but due to the issues with Shadows of Change, Thrones of Decay had to be delayed, throwing the entire roadmap out of order. 

For now, it looks like Creative Assembly will play things with the cards close to its chest.

The remainder of the Q&A was pretty tame, though a few interesting points were made. The developers said that formations have proven difficult to implement in Total War: Warhammer 3 due to the combat system working better the less restrictions there are on entities. However, since the Dwarfs’ new shield wall is mostly a defensive formation to block ranged attacks, this shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. Asked if other factions would gain access to similar formations, the developers said that there were no current plans for this.

Another “no” was delivered to someone asking if Dwarf Engineers would gain access to Gyrocopter mounts – since that wasn’t a thing in any of the tabletop game’s rulebooks, the decision isn’t Creative Assembly’s and it sounded like Games Workshop would be unlikely to sign off on it.