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This month, Total War fans have been spoiled. Highlights include the reveal of Total War: Warhammer 3's biggest DLC to date, confirmation that Total War: Medieval 3 is in early pre-production, and teasing over a second game that's still to be revealed at this year's Game Awards. But for the developers at Creative Assembly, the greatest gift is Warcore: a new engine that is already being used to build Total War: Medieval 3 and more.
It's been a long time coming. Few expected 2016's Total War: Warhammer to inspire such a voracious appetite in fans, with the studio's debut fantasy game spawning an armfull of DLC before getting a sequel the next year. The gap between Total War: Warhammer 2 and its finale was longer but still crammed with DLC, while 2022's Total War: Warhammer 3 continues to add fan-favorite factions and characters seemingly without end.
Beneath it all, the Warscape engine has buckled and strained under the weight. Development on Total War: Warhammer 3 has slowed due to how long it takes to work with Warscape, and changing anything now requires a game of high-stakes whack-a-mole to prevent unforeseen side-effects reaching the live build. There's no need to sugar-coat it: even Roger Collum, vice president of Total War, says Warscape has "become untenable" in its final days. "You can just update one thing, then you have to test everything, and then things will fall apart once live," he says. "It's just a total mess."
Besides being functional, what makes Warcore so exciting? Lots, as core tech director Roberto Geroli and art tech director Ellie Koorlander are keen to explain.
Siege engines
While you can see parts of Warcore demonstrated in the Total War 25th Anniversary Showcase, we'll have to wait a little longer to get our hands on it. The engine is currently being used to create Total War: Medieval 3, which is still very far from launch, along with another game which is due to be revealed at The Game Awards. As the least technically-minded person in this room, I ask the pair to give it to me straight: where will the average player see the most improvements in Warcore?
"The visuals, the lighting, the fidelity," says Koorlander, who explains that Warcore allows for " a level of complexity and world-building you've never seen before on a battle map [or] on a campaign map."
There will also be "destruction everywhere," as newly-integrated Havok software will properly simulate the likes of collapsing buildings. Dismemberment will be gratuitously accurate. Beyond violence, Warcore will transition Total War into DirectX 12 and revisit the engine's more dated elements. "The animation system was pretty old, so we've rewritten that entirely," says Geroli, allowing for "even better animations" from the team going forward.
"We've had things raised by the community in the past. Like the quality of rendering, screen space ambient inclusion, the shadowing around the units to make them feel grounded and realistic – we've had challenges with that," Koorlander explains. "Those are the things that we, first of all, definitely want to improve – that lighting and shadowing on objects, generally improving the fidelity. We really wanted to upgrade all of the visuals as much as possible in our new series of games, and that means looking foundationally at the rendering and being able to improve that fidelity without compromising on the gameplay. It's been a long-time passion and we're really excited about it."
Much of the work carried out by Koorlander and Geroli is foundational, designed to support games beyond Total War: Medieval 3 whilst leaving room to be built out even further. Koorlander says the team is "set in mind" with what it wants Warcore to achieve in its first five years, but "there's still room to grow" beyond that window. Sieges will play a "big part" in Medieval 3, Geroli offers as an example, so the team is already working on battle AI. But that work can then be carried across to other projects, creating a building block framework that allows for transferable improvements.
That philosophy extends to deeper layers. Warcore is Creative Assembly's first attempt at a console-friendly engine, with plans to launch future games on PlayStation and Xbox platforms. While Warcore itself offers flat upgrades to performance and memory, the team has had to consider how console-level memory restrictions are lower than some PCs. By accounting for that, Koorlander says they have also been able to build a "strong foundation" for lower-spec PCs.
I ask whether this work will allow Total War to run on the Steam Deck or newly-revealed Steam Machine. That's more "long-term," says Geroli, who explains that current plans are focused on staying "true to PC players" first and foremost whilst opening the door for Xbox Series and PS5 players. Warcore is "in its infancy currently," he adds. "It will keep evolving over time – we're playing long-term."
Whirring gears
"We're targeting Medieval 3's release date to have the complete modding experience"
Roberto Geroli, core tech director
As much as Warcore represents a sizable and long-term investment in Total War, it also remains a passion project for those making it. "We have a contractor who said 'Oh this looks like Unreal [Engine]' as a compliment," Geroli boasts. "Getting to that bar with our small team is quite a challenge, and something hopefully players will be able to see with Medieval 3 and modding – we want to put these tools in the hands of players."
Modding support is being built from the ground up, which Koorlander tells me is the only way to achieve the flexibility they have in mind. "We're targeting Medieval 3's release date to have the complete modding experience," says Geroli. "We're prioritizing things for the internal team now, but it's something we're keeping in mind because we knew from the start that [Warcore] needs to be a tool that can be used by people to mod the game."
Our conversation turns once more to players. Are there any long-standing complaints the pair hope to overcome with Warcore?
"Because I worked on Warhammer 3 for a long time, the things I know used to get brought up was some of the blood and gore, things weren't looking like they were impacting. You would get people raising [issues] about different types of damage, and wanting things looking more visceral. We didn't really get that melee impact," says Koorlander. "All of that stuff we had in the forefront of our minds while redesigning it, and I'm really hyped about what we've got and what we've been able to design because it's looking fantastic."
Geroli points to performance, though admits that it is a "constant" battle. "When we improve performance we want to put more things in the game," he explains. "This engine has much [better] performance than the previous one, but we want to put more things in, so the player might not see it because we've increased the quality of what goes in."
We're seeing the foundations for Total War's future being laid right now, and despite the buzz around Total War: Medieval 3 and Creative Assembly's mystery reveal at The Game Awards, Warcore is perhaps the most exciting development of them all. These are new beginnings: I'm looking forward to getting my grubby mitts all over the next generation of Total War, alongside everyone on console getting to experience it all for the first time.
We've ranked the best Total War games, but if you'd like to read about one that nobody has played yet, check out our Total War: Medieval 3 interview
