Total War: Warhammer II’s rat race is pretty fierce

Sega’s The Creative Assembly revealed the Skaven rat faction as the fourth playable race in Total War: Warhammer II. And it’s a logical question as to whether this faction is going to be overwhelming.

I went to a preview event for the game, which debuts on Steam on the PC on September 28. I played the beginning of the campaign for the Skaven, and I captured a number of videos of the gameplay. And I spoke with Al Bickham, communications manager at The Creative Assembly, who noted that the Skaven can spread in a stealthy way. That’s because they can build their underground cities in the ruins of other cities. Other players won’t know what is happening until they actually move onto that ruin. To them, it looks like any other abandoned city. But when they move into it, they may find a huge fortress and an army of rats awaiting them.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.