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Launch day did not go as planned for the recently released Total War: Warhammer III, as players were met with optimization issues, including frequent lag and stuttering.
Developed by Creative Assembly, Total War: Warhammer III is the third installment of the Total War subseries set in Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe.
In many ways, the Total War series shaped the modern-era strategy genre and its subgenres. From the original Shogun: Total War to the recent Total War Saga: Troy, the titles are generally set in a historic time period. The only exception to this is the Warhammer sub-series.
Ever since its announcement about a year ago, the hype surrounding Total War: Warhammer III has been understandably high. While it has been reviewed highly by all major media outlets, including Sportskeeda, it seems the title has had some optimization issues resulting in a Mixed Steam review.
“Roughly as optimized as the Holy Roman Empire was” - Total War: Warhammer III receives mixed reviews at launch due to unoptimized performance
The third installment of the Total War: Warhammer Series takes players across a narrative-driven, turn-based strategy real-time tactics campaign. It features the races and factions from Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe. The title is also the final installment of the trilogy and wraps up the storyline.
The hype surrounding Total War: Warhammer III is immense, and the game does live up to its expectations. However, the title received mixed reviews on Steam rather than a positive one like its predecessor. With over 2900 negative reviews, it seems like the main reason for the game's surprisingly mixed reception is its unoptimized state.
As a PC-only turn-based strategy and real-time tactics game, Total War: Warhammer III is available on Windows PC, Linux, and macOS. As such, the unoptimized state is widespread.
Here's a review shared by Intelektuál over on Steam:
"Optimisation is non-existent. The campaign map is for some reason, more demanding than battles. Some parts of the UI were reworked for no reason and just made it worse (like missions). The main menu looks like a mobile app. The minimalism really doesn't suit a game that is about massive battles (and Warhammer). Changing graphic settings somehow changes the resolution without user input. Actually impossible to get it back to center in windowed mode."
According to another review shared by Steam user tagari, the following bugs and glitches were encountered in the game in less than four hours:
- The game does not respond after alt-tabbing or outright crashes.
- Game crashes to desktop during post-battle load.
- Graphical glitches (a Bloodthirster has had its Mane and Wings colored either green or
- blue, for example).
- The end turn button is greyed out.
- Constant Micro-stutters during battle, regardless of the graphics preset use.
- Huge parts of the battle map are covered in black and a giant black rectangle over the units on the battlefield, giving a "redacted-like" feeling.
Total War: Warhammer III is currently sitting at a 57.05% rating with a little over 4000 positive reviews and almost 3000 negative reviews. There are more than 100,000 players playing the game.
Sega and Creative Assembly are yet to say anything regarding the issues plaguing the title. Hopefully, they will be resolved soon.
