Hello friends,
Here we are again; the end of another year and a moment to reflect.
Several letters ago I committed myself and the franchise to being more open and transparent (mixed success based on some feedback I see), and this is a chance for me to talk about both our successes, and failures.
Thank you so much for your support over the years be it through praise or criticism. We do read the feedback, take it to heart, sometimes beat ourselves up about how dumb we did a thing, and then plan how we make things better.
2025 has been a landmark year for the Total War franchise. We celebrated 25 incredible years of the franchise and marked the occasion by announcing three new projects I’ve been excited about since I came to CA. We also shared a first look at Warcore, the brand-new Total War game engine (to be fair it’s built on top of the last one so a little Ship of Theseus here), and spoke about bringing our new games to console (I'll talk more about that later).
We revealed the worlds’ worst kept secret, we’re making a game in one of my favorite universes, Warhammer 40,000. At the same time, we look to our past, both Total War’s and humanity’s, to set our sights on the Middle Ages with MEDIEVAL III (now? Soon?). I’ll write more on why we made the call to announce it. And finally, we are not finished with Total War Warhammer III as we revealed Lords of the End Times. It’s my hope that we talked about at least one setting that you're excited for.
Our Anniversary Showcase was the first event like this we’ve ever done; and a longstanding ambition for us.
We know we didn’t get everything perfect in this plan, but aligning three projects at very different stages in their development cycle is challenging. There’s plenty of feedback we’ll take on board for next time, and that’s exactly how it should be. In retrospect, I wish we’d also spent time celebrating our players and the mods across all our games – but that’s something we’ll explore in the future.
For a first attempt, I couldn’t be happier for the teams who pulled this off and gave you a genuine glimpse into the projects we’ve eagerly been building. I’m proud of what we did and happy for what we learned. Those in front of the camera are lifelong Total War fans, and while exciting, it’s also incredibly nerve wracking talking publicly about the things you’re working on – I'm hugely proud of them all. It was an enormously complex orchestration of presenting the showcase internationally, launching a DLC, and releasing Immortal Empires to WH1 and 2 players.
Over half a million people tuned in, and seeing that mix of familiar faces, players coming back after years away, and people discovering Total War for the very first time was awesome. It meant a lot to the team, and moments like that remind us why we choose to do this for a living.
In the future, we want to deliver more of these moments. Could a Total War-con work? Would you come? Regardless, future events might not all look the same, but each will show what Total War is up to across its many projects and where it’s going.
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— The Total War Team
