Review for Total War: Warhammer 2. Game for PC, Mac and Linux, the video game was released on 28/09/2017
In the middle of the great ocean of the new world stands Ulthuan, a bulwark of civilization. In the center of the island, the incredible magical vortex has been circling since the dawn of time.
The old legends tell of the collapse of the star portals, they whisper of the advent of the first Phoenix king: Aenarion the defender. The mighty king made himself an indomitable adversary of the Chaos demon horde and the revolting offspring it generated, granting the Asur magic circles time to hatch a wise ritual to weaken the demonic daring.
The evocation of an eternal vortex, capable of conveying chaotic magic and expelling it in a different space-time is attributed to the wise Caledor Domadraghi. The Asur that allowed the old and new world to proliferate away from the demonic threat.
Who would be foolish enough to even imagine jeopardizing the whole world out of lust for power, resentment or whim? On the icy throne of Naggarond sits Malekit, the tyrant of the dark elves. He does not forget the humiliations he suffered and the throne stolen by his candid cousins: for the king of the Druchii, revenge is priceless.
A two-tailed comet soars in the sky, a harbinger of omens and prophecies, a celestial body capable of briefly weakening the stability of the vortex. The Skaven clans, perfidious sentient rats, will not miss the opportunity to order some sordid conspiracy, we can already hear the council of the thirteen squeak the future misdeeds.
Lord Mazdamundi awakens from his long sleep: the lizardmen will once again have to protect the world from the threat of insane intent and pernicious powers.
As before, more than before
Total War: Warhammer 2 looks exactly like the first chapter: you can choose from a menu that has remained virtually unchanged whether to take the multiplayer route, going to assemble mighty armies to defeat friends and enemies, or venture into the campaign (also available in one multiplayer version) single player.
The campaign will put us in the shoes of a powerful general of one of the four available factions: high elves, dark elves, Skaven and lizardmen.
Each of the factions has two heroes to choose from, of course the most iconic of the faction: for the dark elves Malekit and Morathi, for their cousins Tyrion and Teclis, for the lizards Lord Mazdamundi and Kroq-Gar, for the rats Queek Mozzateste and Lord Skrolk.
The “Vortex” campaign represents the most significant difference from the first chapter. In this adventure, the factions will have to collect through missions and special buildings, unique resources to be spent to officiate magical rituals. There are five rituals to be officiated in all and the first faction to beat the others on time will be declared the winner.
Easier said than done, unfortunately. Each time we officiate a ritual, chaotic or pestilential units will be summoned in order to destroy the three cities that we will have to defend for all the turns necessary to complete the ritual.
In addition to these unwanted guests, the other factions may decide to invest sums of money to summon mercenaries against us with the danger proportional to the squandered money.
While we won't be able to perform rituals light-heartedly, we will still have to make sure that we are ahead of all the other factions in the number of rituals performed, we don't want that mouse to summon the legendary horned rat, right?
The factions also have unique new mechanics capable of bringing that minimum of variety that never hurts, such as slave management for the dark elves and food for the Skaven.
Stronger than a Ratgre
The aesthetics of this second chapter are pure ecstasy. It seems that the miniatures of Games Workshop (the house that produces the famous wargame) have come to life and the level of detail of the clashes reaches almost unspeakable heights of realism, zoom in to believe.
The audio sector underlines each scenario in a timely manner, giving profuse realism, counterpoint to the excellent English dubbing (even if for most of the dialogues it was preferred to use the original language and subtitles).
Total War: Warhammer 2 boasts a boundless map, which dwarfs the first chapter and faithfully reports all the cities and scenarios present on the board game maps. A dream come true for Warhammer Lore enthusiasts and strategists alike.
Dlc on the horizon
Creative Assembly has repeatedly claimed to have as the ultimate goal of the Total War: Warhammer trilogy to recreate the eighth edition of the wargame at 100%. To achieve this ambitious goal, it has been decided to release three separate chapters that will have the opportunity to "join" to create the ultimate experience.
Four Dlc factions have been added to the first chapter: Chaos available at launch, besta men, wood elves and Norsca. To the factions are added two Dlc containing additional units per empire, vampire accounts, dwarves and goblins.
Someone would turn up their noses in front of a product that is truly complete once it is dressed up with all its Dlc, especially if in this Total War: Warhammer 2 it is evident that many contents of the factions already released will need additional content to be complete.
Let's take the dark elves. Both in the dialogues and in the videos (both in the tabletop edition) we see units not currently present in the army such as the jellyfish and the cauldron of blood, both of which are fundamental for playing specific lists. The same happened with the mortis machine and related units of the vampire accounts from the first chapter.
All this makes you smell the affirmation of a Dlc mechanism not only suitable for adding new paid content (very welcome), but also to “complete” the partial contents already available.
The heart of Total War: Warhammer 2
Despite the pleasantness of the campaign, the diplomatic and management mechanics are superficial when compared to games purely focused on this front such as Europa Universalis 4.
The beating heart of Total War: Warhammer is of course the battles. Whether they are pitched, sieges or ambushes, the very strong accent placed on the naked and raw fist is evident, which represents the absolute excellence of this sub-genre of Rts.
Big flaw is still being forced to select the "Automatic Resolution" during naval battles. Much of the clashes will come to life during the migration between one continent and another. Given the large portion of the sea on the map, one would have expected a little bit about it, but nothing. The factions are well balanced with each other and the variety of units gives life to always different and interesting clashes.
Total War: Warhammer 2 is a pearl of the strategy genre that takes on the excellence of the first chapter and brings improvements on almost every possible aspect. Today the dream of the child who wanted to storm Ulthuan more than 15 years ago is fulfilled.
► Total War: Warhammer 2 is an RPG-Tactical game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega for PC, Mac and Linux, the video game was released on 28/09/2017
