Total War: Warhammer 3 Screenshot
Image: Creative Assembly & SEGA

One of the biggest and best PC-exclusive games gets even biggerer and besterer today. Total War: Warhammer 3 just received its massive v9.0 overhaul update, accompanied by the release of the hefty Lords of the End Times expansion, adding four more playable sub-factions to the game, each with their own unique campaign gimmicks and units to further flesh out the sprawling Immortal Empires mode, where every single faction from across the entire trilogy is thrown into a colossal globe-spanning battle royale.

On the DLC front, the undead are represented here by Nagash, Supreme Lord of Undeath. A lich-king that's less interested in just raising skeletons, mummies, or zombies, and more in crafting techno-magical constructs of bone and metal. The Skaven get the paranoid, twitchy Thanquol, whose campaign involves putting together elaborate, ever-shifting schemes that only raise his infamy whether they succeed or spiral wildly out of control.

On the Chaos front, you've got the Glottkin, a trio of brothers (the two smaller ones riding on the giant third) out to spread the good word of plague-god Nurgle, converting captured settlements into Gardens of Corruption that can spawn new mutant monsters to lead the next offensive. And lastly, we've got Boris Todbringer, who has some very impressive facial hair... for a human. He's all about building up religious fervor (a resource that can be traded for upgrades) by hunting down his sworn enemies, with Khazrak One-Eye of the Beastmen being top of his to-murder list.

But even without taking the Lords of the End Times DLC into account, the combined patch notes for today's update (split between the main game and the free DLC/Endgame overhaul) are mind-bogglingly massive. Content-wise, everyone gets a new Legendary Lord - the desert vampire queen Neferata. She'll be joining the huge list of AI-controlled factions, but if placed in players' hands, her campaign revolves around scheming out of sight, sending heroes out on covert missions to establish vampire covens in enemy territory, assassinating heroes, undermining factions, and softening foes up long before you march any armies out.

Beyond Neferata, the Vampire Counts in general have seen a major rework designed to make them feel fittingly, villainously aristocratic. The more territory they control, the more Corpses and Blood they generate from their oppressed peasantry - resources that can be converted directly into undead minions. Blood can also be spent on several new mechanics, including the vampire lairs that you need to establish in order to raise new vampire commanders.

But the real big thing here is an overhaul to the whole endgame. What were previously the final threats you'd face in the Immortal Empires mode have been reworked as mid-game events, classified as Crisis Scenarios. Now, as you roll into the late phases of a campaign, the game will roll one of three apocalyptic scenarios for you to face down as a final boss, of sorts, each one changing the music and visibly corrupting and destroying the world as the apocalypse spreads.

Chaos Invasion has Archaeon rise as a near-invincible force, spawning demon armies with no goal beyond destroying the entire world. The big bad is nigh invulnerable unless you knock down five fortresses that give him his power. The Vermintide scenario has the rats get bored of sneaking around underground. All the previously hidden Skaven settlements emerge on the surface and start vomiting forth countless rat-men.

And lastly, the Nagash Rises has the lich-lord make a play for undead godhood, uniting every undead faction (of which there are many) under one banner, and forcing a long, tough fight through them to challenge Nagash at his Black Pyramid fortress. Obviously, if you're already playing as Nagash, this scenario isn't going to happen - you'll have to do all the undead unification stuff for yourself.

It's a lot, and that's just scratching the surface. There's also been major improvements made to the AI, so enemy factions should behave a bit smarter overall. The only real downside to all of this is, as ever, major updates tend to break all the major mods. It might be a few weeks until major faction mods and full-game overhauls are back up to speed, but you've probably got more than a bit of the vanilla game to play in the meantime.

Total War: Warhammer 3's massive update is out now, along with the Lords of the End Times DLC, costing £50/$60 and £25.48/30.56 respectively. But as ever, savvy shoppers stay winning, and you can snag the base version of Total Warhammer 3 for just £6.49 over at Fanatical. For newcomers, it's worth noting that if you've got Total Warhammer 1 or 2 in your library, all the factions from them and any DLC you own will be playable in Immortal Empires as well. All combined, it costs a pretty penny but adds up to one of the biggest strategy games ever. And that's not even counting the hojillion mods.