Total War: Warhammer 3 combines a famous strategy game series with a popular fantasy universe. At release, the game received very positive feedback on Steam, despite some technical issues. Then came a shock for fans: the prices for DLCs soared so high that people even called for a boycott. Now the developers are reacting, but incorrectly, according to the community.
What kind of game is this?
- In Total War: Warhammer 3, you control the factions from the fantasy universe of Warhammer and try, broadly speaking, to dominate the world.
- With the major “Immortal Empires” update, the maps and peoples from all three Warhammer parts of Total War have been combined. Over 280 factions play against each other on the map here.
- At release, the game achieved a rating of 85% on Steam, despite some technical problems. Now, Total War: Warhammer 3 is rated “mostly negative” in the recent reviews on Steam.
This is the dispute: The Warhammer games by Total War have always evolved with new DLCs since part 1. These have different price categories depending on the content they offer:
- purely cosmetic DLCs cost only a few euros
- Packs with additional commanders cost around 5€ per commander
- “Race Packs” are the most expensive and introduce new playable peoples
The Chaos Dwarfs as a new people came with a proud price of 25€. The subsequent DLC, Shadows of Change, then led to a harsh drop to 19% on Steam.
The reason: it actually only contains 3 new commanders, yet the pack was marketed for 25€. The players called for a boycott to counteract the rising pricing policy. The developers said at the time: the costs are justified. The latest statement causes even more anger.
In testing Shadows of Change, the DLC was quite good, as there is indeed more in the pack than the name suggests.
Creative Assembly moderates forums more strictly, fans are angry
The developers explained in a new forum post that from now on, exchanges on Steam will be moderated more strictly. Calls for boycotts, questions about a new Total War, and general conversations that do not contribute to the purpose of the discussion will be deleted.
This is intended to lead to more constructive criticism. It is useless to just complain; something must come of it. Nonetheless, it is okay to be upset sometimes, but one should remain respectful.
On Reddit, this decision is not well received. There, one user cynically says: “This will bring the community back.” Others say mockingly: “You criticize us? Off to the cooler,” or they compare the post to the Streisand effect.
The whole situation is miserable. Fans accuse the developers of being arrogant. They raise prices and then prohibit discussing that it is unfair. All of this turns into a battle against the community instead of working towards a solution.
Other developers have already fought a nearly identical battle before they had to back down:
