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As we wait for Total War: Warhammer 3's gigantic Lords of the End Times DLC, Creative Assembly has surprised us with the game's first character pack, fleshing out the jungles of Cathay with Tiger Warrior mercenary Bhashiva. Bhashiva's addition marks the first character pack for Total War: Warhammer 3, which are intended to offer smaller bites of DLC with a lower price reflective of its smaller scale.
Still, I've been pleasantly surprised by how much is on offer: Bhashiva offers a brilliantly thematic playthrough in which you're encouraged to support Cathayan ruler Zhao Ming whilst recovering ancient relics and escorting trade caravans. It's a promising start for Total War: Warhammer 3's character packs, so to learn more about the approach, I caught up with senior game director Richard Aldridge and designer Josh King.
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If you're a fan of Total War: Warhammer 3's more thematic campaigns – think Grom the Paunch's goblin tides or Markus Wulfhart's limited Empire roster – Bhashiva should be an immediate go-to. You're incentivized to build armies around Bhashiva's tier-two Tiger Warrior infantry partly because existing Cathayan units are in short supply, but largely because the campaign funnels so many buffs into the Tiger Warriors that you won't want to use anything else.
While Tiger Warriors are fast and aggressive, they aren't necessarily a flat upgrade to Cathay's sturdy Celestial Dragon Guard. It's indicative of the broader character pack, which complements the Cathayan roster with a more aggressive playstyle without making the faction out-and-out stronger.
"I really like how they [Bhashiva's faction] found their place within the wider game world," says King. "Their addition doesn't invalidate or replace anything on the Grand Cathay side, it complements it. So with Claw Speakers for example, their embedded action on the campaign side allows you to replenish your units, which Cathay desperately needed. They've also got the lore of Beasts, Shadows, and Life available to them, something that Grand Cathay never had access to."
"We've always enjoyed having a really clear focus, and she definitely gives us that vibe," Aldridge agrees. "And it's just fun [to make], right? Like, how are these tiger warriors going to behave? How are they going to move? What can they sound like? We love doing that kind of stuff. It's a great way to get something different into the game and really showcase what Grand Cathay is."
The result is a refreshingly focused campaign, and I've enjoyed playing a much smaller piece on Immortal Empires' chessboard. With this being the series' first character pack, though, I'm keen to learn how it's representative of future DLC – will the new DLC format let Creative Assembly work more niche characters or units into the game?
Bhashiva was an opportunity to "experiment a little bit more" with the trilogy's DLC output, says Aldridge. "She's obviously got a great supporting cast of characters and really plays into that tiger power fantasy, but they are limited in number – we don't have 20 or so things to go and make. So it felt appropriate."
"We know there are loads of fan-favorite characters out there," he continues. "There might not be the necessary volume of units to support it, but why wouldn't you want to get those into the game? We absolutely do. With Bhashiva, players hopefully resonate with it. That [would] give us the opportunity to go forward and try it again, but maybe in slightly different guises. Maybe there's a character that's got a bunch of really cool legendary heroes associated with them. Maybe there's some that would make sense with a wealth of Regiments of Renown, and maybe a lord or a hero [...] We want to get all these characters and creatures in!"
Bhashiva will be joined by necromancer Nagash and the Empire's Boris Todbringer, along with two more currently-unnamed lords, as part of Lords of the End Times later this year. That still leaves plenty of fan-favorites on the table ("I dare say there's some monkeys in the south," offers Aldridge, teasing Cathay's Monkey King), but after dicing up Chaos as Bhashiva, I'm convinced that character packs have the potential to keep me coming back to Immortal Empires long after Total War: Warhammer 40,000 arrives.
