Total War: Warhammer’s Rich Aldridge on roleplaying, iteration, and lessons from nearly a decade on strategy’s most ambitious series

In more ways than one, today’s Total War: Warhammer 3 expansion marks a milestone for game director Rich Aldridge and his team at Creative Assembly. Omens Of Destruction’s three headline legendary lords each bring new campaigns and units for their respective factions, but it’s the fourth lord - a Khorne champion free to all players - that I imagine Aldridge will end up remembering the most fondly.

When Total War: Warhammer released back in 2016, it shipped with eight legendary lords - famous characters from Games Workshop’s fantasy setting that here act as faction leaders. The number grew steadily and, in terms of announcement order at least, today’s addition of Arbaal The Undefeated marks the series’ 100th. That's a hundred campaigns, a hundred joint efforts of game design, animation, art, writing and voice work.

Aldridge has never been shy about the team’s ambition for the series to eventually offer up each unit from every Fantasy Battle 6th edition army book ("The goal is to do everything, right?"). But ambition is one thing, and considering the fraught conditions at Creative Assembly and parent company Sega over the past few years, it’s not just the addition of the 100th lord that feels like something to celebrate. It’s taken time, effort, and a siesmic shift in update frequency, but Total War: Warhammer III is in the best place it's ever been.

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