"We don't want to rest on our laurels": I've spent over 2000 hours playing the Total War: Warhammer trilogy, and its latest DLC ties the bow on Warhammer 3's best year yet

There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come right out and admit that I've played the Total War: Warhammer trilogy for a collective 2,379 hours. That's a little over three months of playtime. Through the series' eight-year lifespan I've made vampire pirates fight hordes of dinosaurs-riding-dinosaurs, burned down civilization as a legion of stinky plague-worshippers, and righted centuries-old grudges with throngs of axe-toting dwarfs. It's this sort of high-fantasy faction diversity that's kept me playing for as long as I have, with semi-frequent DLC introducing new units, characters and playstyles every few months.

Warhammer 3's latest addition, Omens of Destruction, makes it harder than ever to put down. Ogres now feel like a real mercenary faction, the Greenskins get "tactician" orc Gorbad Ironclaw at the helm, and Khorne fans get Skulltaker – whose goal is to hunt down important characters to take their, er, skulls for a cape he's making. Sigh. Like a stubborn fish, I'm hooked again.

Big thinkin'

It's been a fantastic year for Warhammer 3 – but a year ago, the trilogy was at its lowest-ever point. Its 2023 DLC Shadows of Change was heavily criticized for its pricing and contents – it essentially asked for more while giving less, a rare miss even for me – and there were concerns that core bugs and issues weren't being addressed. The debacle led to an apology from Creative Assembly, along with promises to shape up going forward.

To the studio's credit, it's spent the entirety of 2024 delivering on that promise. Besides Omens of Destruction there have been frequent hotfixes for balance issues and bugs before they have a chance to fester, and its last DLC – Thrones of Decay – remains one of my all-time favorite additions to the game. It's been a fantastic shift, and even parent company Sega praised the game's critical and financial turnaround in its latest financial results. When I catch up with game director Rich Aldridge ahead of Omens of Destruction's launch, he's open about the progress Creative Assembly has made in 2024.

"We make this game for people to enjoy, and we just wanted to go out there and do that," says Aldridge. "It's a continuing journey. We know the job is not done. It's really lovely that people welcomed us back into those conversations, and we're able to do things like blogs and video diaries [...] that's been a really good moment in this year for us."

"But we don't rest on our laurels," he adds. "We know that there's still a lot more to do. There's still a lot more to fix and improve upon. There's many fan favorites out there, which we haven't managed to bring to life yet. But, yeah, we're all passionate about the project and about the IP, so we just want to do good, continue this journey, and keep working hard for everyone.

Speaking of fan favorites, the game's largest omission for most players is iconic necromancer Nagash, also known as Bone Daddy. Just look at Reddit user zaneprotoss, who's been drawing fanart for 181 days and counting – with no plans to stop until Nagash is added. "We've seen that," laughs Aldridge. But while the director has found the artwork "really fun," the path to actually adding Nagash – who is considerably stronger in the lore than most existing characters – is still unclear. "We know that he's well-loved, and he's definitely someone that we've considered, but he's on a completely different power level," he explains. "That's something we'll have to think about, if and when we get to that."

On my end, I've dreamed about playing Warhammer's calcium-in-chief since learning of his existence in the second game. But in his absence, Immortal Empires – a sandbox campaign that stitches all three games' maps into one cohesive whole – has steadily become full-to-bursting with playable factions. It leaves players spoiled for choice, but makes fitting in new characters a challenge – a problem that Aldridge could never have foreseen when Total War: Warhammer launched in 2016. "Whoever thought the world would become too small?"

Though it speaks to how long Creative Assembly has stuck with its trilogy, it also raises the question of whether there's an end in sight. "I think we've come a long way," says Aldridge. "We found our feet. We've learned a lot from our players – what works, what doesn't. We've got a big playground in Immortal empires available to us, and I think that's what we set out to do."

"We know there's lots of characters, lots of creatures and bits and pieces [still missing]," he continues. "Obviously, if we could do it all, we would do it all, but realistically, we'll try and do as much as we can. There's some big, interesting things still out there, which hopefully we'll get the opportunity to do at some point in time. But we've been thoroughly enjoying all the content we've been working on in recent times."

Hopefully Nagash (who is both big and interesting) falls into those plans somewhere, if only for the sake of zaneprotoss. Regardless of what comes next, though, Total War: Warhammer's future looks far brighter than it did a year ago. We are, as the kids and Bone Daddy's freshly-raised zombies say, so back.

Here are the best PC games to keep you busy until Nagash arrives