Total War: Warhammer II review — strategy game brings the Warhammer universe to life

The Creative Assembly‘s new strategy game, Total War: Warhammer II, debuted last week as the latest release in a series that combines turn-based strategic war, real-time tactical combat, and the fantasy lore of Games Workshop’s Warhammer universe. It is a massive game that seeks to lure fans in from both the richly detailed Warhammer world and the ancient warfare of the Total War games.

The Warhammer theme was a risk for the Total War studio when it did Total War: Warhammer in 2016. It was the first time in 15 years that the franchise moved beyond a historical setting into a fictional universe. But the Sega-owned studio in the United Kingdom did its homework, and in the newest game, it came up with a campaign game that pits four Warhammer factions against each other in a race for a single-minded task: Conducting five rituals to gain control of the Great Vortex, a magical maelstrom at the center of the strategic map.