Total War: Medieval 3 is in early pre-production, Creative Assembly have revealed during Total War’s 25th anniversary showcase, with release still years away. It’s to be the “rebirth of historical Total War”, and CA are unveiling it earlier than they’ve ever announced a Total War game before, so that you crafty peasants can offer more feedback throughout development.
Time to hang up your Reikland Runefang and start boning up on the fall of the Byzantines – though there’s precious little news about how the new Twar will differ in practice from Medieval 2, which launched way back in 2006. Here’s a live action trailer full of moody-looking regents, some of whom are badly in need of a sticking plaster.
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During the showcase stream, there was much loose historical background and talk of reinventing the wheel (which may have happened several times during the medieval era – enlighten me, historians?) but few concrete specifics. They don’t even have a fixed start date for the period, though it sounds like it’ll be approximately 12th to 15th century.
If I’m reading the entrails correctly, the game’s world will range from the Holy Roman Empire through the Kingdom of England to the Italian Free States, the Mongols and the Ottomans. It will feature such celebs as Saladin, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Richard the Lionheart.
The devs characterised the medieval period as one of experimentation, personal ambition, and the formation of nations. There was an aside on “lines of succession”, which suggests you might be switching between rulers and their heirs, but colour that speculation. There was also a bit of detail on recruitment and historical armies, with a senior game designer commenting that rather than having a standing army, you might call on oaths of fealty to rally the banners of your vassals.
As divulged on the official website, Medieval 3 will run on Warcore, Creative Assembly’s new engine tech. It’s billed as “unlike anything we’ve worked with before, offering a bespoke set of new and improved tools across our animation system, to the renderer and campaign building blocks – all designed to bring the medieval era to life in ways we’ve previously never been able to achieve.” Given how long Creative Assembly have been working on Total War: Warhammer, it’s nice to hear that there’s a more comprehensive technological overhaul in the offing.
I’ll be honest, Medieval is one of the Twars I skipped. I am Shogun and Three Kingdoms to the bone. Still, I’m delighted for you fans of knights and castles. If you’re baying for more, please direct your baying at this announcement post from Medieval 3 creative director Leif Walter. It contains a lot of blue sky thinking, but there are some possibly indicative remarks about letting players deviate from the textbooks and your realm being “really almost like the main character in an RPG game”.
That’s not all Creative Assembly announced in their showcase. Not all they teased, rather. They’ve got another game reveal next week, during the Geoff Awards. Apparently, “this title will be Total War’s next major release and represents one of the most ambitious projects in the franchise’s history, marking the beginning of an exciting new era.” Are the words “for the Emperor” stomping with zealous indignation towards this sentence, CA?
If all of this has you classique Warhammer advocates boarding your griffins and fleeing to the mountains, come back. There’s more Total War: Warhammer 3 DLC on the way – Lords of the End Times, which introduces uber-necromancer Nagash and three other legendary lords. We’ll try to write about that when we can. I have to go read up on Eleanor of Aquitaine.
