Total War: Warhammer II is more of an expansion into new lands and races than it is an entirely new game. The core experience will be much the same as the original, but the setting and armies you’ll play with are entirely different. This time around, you’ll explore the High Elf homelands and the jungles of Lustria, which are populated with all manner of terrible armies and creatures.
While those warring factions do appear in this latest trailer, it’s more of an overarching look at the portion of the Old World that the game is set in. It shows the expansive defenses of the High Elf strongholds and the treacherous seas between it and the more humid climates where the Dark Elves and other races call home.
Crossing those seas using the new ship and sailing mechanics will be a major component of the game, but seabound battles aren’t all that we can expect in terms of new locations for conflict in Total War: Warhammer II. There are also the jungles themselves, the High Elf fortifications, and the ancient cities of the Lizardmen and Dark Elves.
Visually, the campaign map is more colorful and nautical than players of the original Total War: Warhammer will be used to. With less of a blasted landscape than is found in Chaos and Undead territories, this part of the world is much brighter and aesthetically pleasing. There are also gargantuan magical storms and auroras that give the very atmosphere itself a much more varied look from the previous entry in the series.
This trailer also goes some way to showcase the variance in architecture between the different races. The Elven strongholds are vastly different depending on which army they belong to, and the Lizardmen have a uniquely ancient look to their stonework.
Although Creative Assembly hasn’t announced what the game’s fourth and final race will be just yet, we spied what looks like warpstone at the five-minute mark. Skaven anyone?
Total War: Warhammer II is slated for release on Windows PCs on September 28, 2017.
