Total War: Warhammer III’s Immortal Empires mode, which is currently in Beta, was created with the goal of combining all maps, factions, locations, and armies of the entire trilogy of games into one singular experience. A remarkable feat when you factor in that each individual title already features its own massive map and set of factions and races to play as.

Ahead of its debut we got a 13-minute trailer showcasing the combined world, which not only impresses in terms of detail but gives you some insight into the scope of Immortal Empires.



The stats alone are eye-opening, we’re talking 86 Legendary Lords, 23 races, 533 Regions, and 278 starting factions to choose from, all contained within 1 world. And that world map is chock full of detail and lore, with distinct biomes, races, and histories all laid out with care and detail. For Total War and Warhammer fans, it stands as a dream mode, and we had the chance to chat with Mitchell Heastie, Lead Designer at Creative Assembly to talk about its creation, the team’s journey into Warhammer, the future, and more.

Combining maps and factions from multiple games into one grand campaign. Of course, the task itself is anything but simple. With the latest Immortal Empires update, what was the starting point, and what were some of the initial challenges?

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"With the content of three games spread amongst a world-sized map, one of the earliest challenges was simply deciding where to start. One of the ways in which we overcame this was to break the campaign into digestible chunks and so we identified several different theatres of war that we could focus on one by one. Lustria, Naggaroth, the Southland, and so on.”

Related: Total War: Warhammer III Review

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“This allowed us to envision the sort of experience that would be expected of those locations and build out from there. Another major challenge was analysing the ‘old’ content from games one and two to ensure it was still fit for purpose given the significant improvements made with game three. The main way this was evaluated was through the plethora of player feedback we had gained over the years, and this led to Chaos Warriors getting a game-changing rework, whilst races like the Lizardmen, Vampire Counts, Norsca, and Dark Elves got a significant update that made their gameplay experience much fresher.”

Each of the Total War Warhammer games has a distinct narrative flavour, from tone to location to what’s at stake. Connecting these locations, what sort of adjustments needed to be made to maintain the same aesthetic and almost seamless level of detail across the entire world?

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"One of the advantages of releasing the trilogy as three separate games is that it has allowed us to gradually improve our engine as well the aesthetic tools at our disposal with each release. On the flip side, this does mean that we’ve had to go back through all our ‘old’ content from games one and two in order to ensure they were on par with the content of game three.”

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"With the content of three games spread amongst a world-sized map, one of the earliest challenges was simply deciding where to start. One of the ways in which we overcame this was to break the campaign into digestible chunks and so we identified several different theatres of war that we could focus on one by one."

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“This means that anything from battle maps to campaign art and unit design all saw a significant upgrade as part of their move to Immortal Empires or the Realm of Chaos campaign. On top of this, we’re quite literally – in some cases – working on content that has never been realised before. Intricate details on the campaign level, and there’s been a great deal of collaboration with Games Workshop to ensure that we’re getting those small details right.”

The scope of this as a game mode is monumental, not just for Warhammer fans. Is it safe to assume that this is the ultimate Total War experience? Or the most ambitious, based on the studio’s experience?

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“It’s definitely the ultimate Total War: Warhammer experience and certainly the most ambitious piece of content that the studio has ever created. When we were envisioning the mode back in pre-production of game one, I don’t think we ever expected it to be this big and with this much content. It really is a testament to the amazing support of our fans that we’ve been able to do this much.”

Going back to the first Total War: Warhammer, which took the historical franchise into new territory. Compare that to the fantastical spectacle of Total War: Warhammer III - has the series evolved beyond what the team initially looked to accomplish?

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“Absolutely. We’ve always had huge ambitions for this trilogy and with every game, we’ve surpassed the previous in terms of content variety, ambition, and depth. And although we had belief in our ability, I don’t think we expected it to quite reach these heights. Over six years later and we’ve released one of the grandest strategy modes of all time and collaborated with Games Workshop to give Grand Cathay a majestic gaming debut. It’s an experience few studios get to enjoy.”

Immortal Empires is launching in a Beta state, what does that mean for the mode on day one and its immediate and long-term future?

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“Immortal Empires is our most ambitious and technically challenging campaign mode ever and as a result, we introduced the Beta tag to help set expectations because it has some bugs. Post-launch we’re sifting through user feedback to help prioritise what needs to be fixed, but we only expect the mode to get better as we progress.”

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“It’s definitely the ultimate Total War: Warhammer experience and certainly the most ambitious piece of content that the studio has ever created. When we were envisioning the mode back in pre-production of game one, I don’t think we ever expected it to be this big and with this much content."

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“This is only the beginning of the journey and we plan to support the mode for years moving forward in terms of both patches and new and exciting content additions.”

As Chaos Champions arrived on the same day, that's also being integrated into Immortal Empires - how does the development of new Legendary Lords and other content impact progress on the mode? How is the team structured for ongoing updates?

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“It doesn’t really have any impact. We have multiple teams spread across the Warhammer project, each of which focuses on different aspects of the game. Like Mortal Empires before it, players will see regular improvements made via patching whilst other team members work on future content.”

Total War: Warhammer III is available now, alongside the Immortal Empires mode on PC.