Key Preview Takeaways:
- The setting has jumped way into the future
- It's using the new WarCore game engine.
- Customization for units is a welcome addition, though it's a bit bare-bones at the moment.
Ever since Creative Assembly released the first Total War: Warhammer back in 2016, the part of the community more interested in its futuristic sibling has been clamoring for a version set in the 41st Millennium of the long-running tabletop miniatures series. It may have taken longer than folks would have liked, but Total War: Warhammer 40K is on the horizon, and during a recent event, I had a chance to go hands-on with an early build of the strategy sequel, purging some savage Orks and spreading the word of the God Emperor. The build I got to try consisted of three focused slices – a tutorial, a tease of how the campaign will play out (including some customization goodness), and finally a massive battle – all of which were seen through the helmets of the Space Marines. All things told, it was about an hour of explosions, bullets, and little dudes shouting “For the Emperor!”
Up until now, the Total War series, while featuring ranged units, has been about two armies getting up close and slashing and stabbing one another with swords and the like. This latest entry marks the first run with Creative Assembly's new engine, WarCore, and is the first ranged-focused title since 2009's Total War: EMPIRE. Trebuchets are out, and tanks and walking mechs are in. With this massive leap forward in time to the 41st millennium, gameplay itself has had to catch up and evolve a bit.
Playing through the tutorial, I got a very basic understanding of how this beloved franchise will operate in this new grimdark setting. My squad was sent in to secure the crash site, giving me a crash course on how to move around, get to cover, and more fun things like raining missiles down on the greenskins. It also proved a great opportunity to start getting a grasp of some of the new mechanics that players will have to master when it eventually releases, such as strafe-firing, suppressing enemies, and calling down drop pods from orbit with fresh forces. Perhaps my favorite of these is that there wasn’t a single ammo bar anywhere to be seen. Thank the Emperor.
Even with all the guns, you don’t have to worry about 40k losing the intense close-combat brawls, as that is still here too. The best showcase of what the new WarCore engine will offer became most apparent when I would pause the action and zoom into the large marine-on-ork bloodbaths, seeing all of the different units covered in blood or mid-vault over a piece of cover. Seeing my Space Marines’ chainswords and their motorized teeth sparking against the axes of the Orks while the bullets shot overhead was a sight to behold.
While this latest iteration certainly looks to change things up a bit, Total War 40k is still very much a Total War game, with that same tactically rich strategic playground the series is known for. Even in that introductory scenario, between the sheer number of bodies fighting and all the fronts of the skirmish I had to manage kept me on my toes. Positioning and countering enemies remains something you will always need to consider, with this newest entry looking to offer even more ways to conquer and twist the battlefield to your needs. Lessons that, being a bit out of practice with the Total War series, I was reminded of during a rather tense moment during the campaign mission I got to try.
The mission in question was for me to go in and retake the nearby Thetha-Citadel Astropathic Relay Station and get rid of the xeno threat, which was once again the orks, whose space force was already positioned and laying waste to the planet not just from the ground, but from orbit as well. Before heading down to the ground myself, I wanted to take a peek around the system that my Space Marines found themselves in. Planets orbited a menacing blood red star with what looks to be an equally imposing Chaos Ga te looming nearby. I couldn’t interact with them or utilize them in any way during the demo; they simply teased at mechanics to come.
Zooming back into the planet I was tasked to clear, I was greeted with a more familiar Total War screen, with various zones, cities, and my armies to command. I could easily rotate my view around large swaths of the planet to find my objective, and the view of space behind the curved world lent itself really well to the sense of scale this game will have. After training up some new troops and making my way to the station, it was time for my Immortals of Demos (the custom chapter I set up and colored before this mission) to deal with Snaz Braggerz and cleanse the citadel.
Fielding some squads of Aggressor marines, Intercessors, Dreadnoughts, Repulsor Executioner tanks and more, I assigned them to groups and sent them on their way. After some poor battlefield decisions by yours truly (note to self: don’t spread yourself too thinly and forget to turn the speed back down when things get hairy), the orks quickly began marching towards my last group of marines and tanks, which I had earlier in the match hunkered down and held the high ground of a nearby landing pad. After a few tense minutes of exchanging gunfire and calling down ordnance from my ships in orbit, we managed to rout the orks and destroy their Stompa super-heavy walker. Watching the yellow monstrosity tip over and explode was nearly as rewarding to see as when I managed to do so while playing the actual tabletop version of 40k. The Imperium of Man had come out victorious once again! Unfortunately, this sense of accomplishment and boost to my ego carried me straight into the “Very hard” big battle that Creative Assembly had also left us to check out if we wanted, and let’s just say things didn’t go quite so well…
Now, a moment ago, you may have caught me mentioning my “Immortals of Demos,” my custom chapter of Space Marines I got to color up before the mission. Customization is a big part of 40K, and miniature games in general, so I was glad that right at the start of the campaign slice of my demo, I got to check out an early look at what to expect in this regard. For those who have never dabbled in the realm of tabletop miniature games, most of the time, the armies you bring to the table have to be built first, and normally also all come unpainted. The “grey pile of shame” is a hobbyist term we use to lovingly refer to all the models in our backlog that we have yet to paint and customize.
The offerings at this stage were admittedly a bit lacking, with only a base, accents, and detail colors able to be adjusted and applied to the whole armor, in addition to customizing your chapter's name and emblem. The number of colors available to pick from, however, was pretty impressive, with Creative Assembly using the actual paint colors Games Workshop releases. Poking through the options, I saw the familiar Caledor Sky and Screamer Pink before settling on Mournfang Brown for the base of my Immortals of Demos. The representative on site, though, did make it clear that there would be far more options and details for players to explore when 40k eventually ships. As someone with a rather large pile of grey unpainted units (but they’re primed, I swear!), I hope one of those options includes letting me make my armies in that signature plastic look. In all seriousness though, I do hope that the customization offers enough flexibility that physical 40k players will be able to recreate some of their custom paint jobs here in Total War. I don’t want to just play Space Marines, I want to command MY Space Marines.
The team at Creative Assembly has a lot to prove with Total War: Warhammer 40k after various issues and missteps with how DLC has been handled with Total War: Warhammer III and 2023’s Total War: Pharaoh. What I saw during the preview event shows promise; since the community has been asking for this, I’m hoping they can deliver.
Total War: Warhammer 40k still has a ways to go before it launches, with no current release window set. We haven’t seen a peep out of the Aeldari faction yet, and so far we’ve only had teases and glimpses at the real depth that Creative Assembly is putting into this latest tactical titan. The core of Total War’s DNA appears intact so far, but we will have to wait and see if the heavier focus on ranged combat and the other 40k influence will result in something genuinely special or a creation that has fallen to Chaos.
While you're here, check out these previews of other big upcoming games we've played recently!
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
