Total War: Medieval 3 Announced, New Total War Game Engine, Star Wars or Warhammer 40.000 Next?

Total War: Medieval 3 Announced and Everything We Saw At The Total War Showcase

The highly anticipated Creative Assembly 25th Anniversary Showcase has taken place, and we have a lot to discuss, including some exciting news that has people eager for the future of one of strategy’s biggest franchises. We have the announcement of Total War: Medieval 3, some details on the new engine, Total War Engine, a new DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3, and last, but certainly not least, we have been teased a new Total War game! This is some great news for historical and non-historical Total War fans alike!

Total War: Medieval 3 Announced and Details

Let’s start with the biggest news of the showcase: Total War Medieval 3 has been announced, and it’s already underway in early pre-production, meaning that the game is currently in the planning and preparation phase, and development is yet to begin. This also means that we probably won’t see the game being released next year, but hopefully, we could be fighting off medieval battles sometime in 2027. The game has been described as the “rebirth of historical Total War,” and the team has extremely high expectations for themselves, and they want to make “the definitive Total War experience set in the medieval era”. The reason why the game was announced so early is that Creative Assembly plans on constantly updating the community with updates about its progress. Does this mean Historical Total War is truly back? I certainly hope and expect so.

New Total War Game Engine

A new Total War game engine called Warcore has been announced to be underway, and from the developer talk we saw, it seems like it’s at a very advanced stage in its development. I say “seemingly” because during the livestream, it has been described as an “iteration”, but also as a “new engine”, and it wasn’t exactly clear if Warcore is a completely new engine built from scratch, or just a huge improvement over 2009’s Warscape engine.

Total War New Game Engine Warcore Screenshot

The team talked about redesigning the foundations to allow for the new features the development team needed, the inclusion of the havoc physics system, and how this will impact destructible environments and improvements on the battle and campaign AI. The team went on to discuss that this new engine will allow for improved graphical fidelity with improved rendering, new lighting techniques, giving the game a more realistic feel. Still, they also emphasized significant advancements in the animation department, which will now use a graph-node system that allows for more animation variety and complex vehicle movement (is this a hint for upcoming titles?).

A couple of screenshots, like the ones you’re seeing, were shown on the background, and if those are from the new engine, they look pretty good.

Total War New Game Engine Warcore Screenshot

There’s a New Total War: Warhammer 3 “Lords of the End Times” DLC

Players of Total War: Warhammer 3, one of the best real-time strategy games you can play in 2025, are getting a new expansion called “Lords of the End Times”, set during the final chapter of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle story. The new DLC will add four new Legendary Lords for you to play in the Immortal Empires campaign, with fan-favorite necromancer, Nagash, bringing his Mortarchs with him. Despite this DLC being set during the later stages of Warhammer fantasy, Creative Assembly already cleared that this is not going to be the last update the game will receive, and that there’s plenty of support coming.

Total War: Star Wars or Total War: Warhammer 40,000 To Be Announced?

Right as the stream came to an end, it was teased that Total War: Medieval 3 was not the only game currently under development by Creative Assembly, and that a new one is going to be announced on December 11, during the Game Awards. On the stream chat, players were placing their bets on what it could be, but two ideas stood out above all else: The first and more prevalent would be a new Total War: Warhammer 40,000, and the second one would be Total War: Star Wars. It comes down to one of those. I’ll be extremely happy as a fan of both franchises.

Total War Franchise Sale

25 Anniversary Total War Franchise Sale Steam Promotional Banner

To round up the great news, the entire Total War franchise is currently on sale on Steam.

Watch the Whole LiveStream Here

If you want to see the whole thing, you can watch it here:

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6 responses to “Total War: Medieval 3 Announced, New Total War Game Engine, Star Wars or Warhammer 40.000 Next?”

  1. Great news!!!

    1. So excited about it!

  2. TW is a “new iteration, next evolution” game engine which was the opening on it. Upgraded not really new in my eyes. With the Blood and gore mentioned and the animation increased amount for units battling, im leaning WH40K over star wars as i doubt star wars IP will allow a gory game. The December 11th announcement is said to be the next total war to release. I think if it comes out in 2026 we wont get TWM3 till 2028. Personal opinion on this all so ya lol

    1. The engine presentation was very confusing. But if it’s the same engine, then I would bet on 40K too, given that Star Wars is more WW2 in space and the current engine, even updated, would be terrible for that.

  3. […] an underwhelming showcase during the Creative Assembly 25th Anniversary event, Creative Assembly came out guns blazing during The Game Awards and unveiled the last piece […]

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