Dedicated fandom has two states: cultishly devoted or aggressively cynical. So here's something that Total War: Warhammer's more jaded fans (It's me, I'm the jaded fan) sometimes have trouble admitting: even if Creative Assembly was to Doomrocket the entire franchise tomorrow, it would still have long ago earned its place in strategy game history as an all-timer. The most recent series sales figures sit somewhere around 40 million, and it rarely slips out of Steam's top 100. With a helping paw from Vermintide, it even convinced Games Workshop that bringing back a beloved setting might actually be worth a few quid.
The recent volatile discourse around both the game and studio may point to a mass fan exodus if the upcoming Thrones of Decay DLC isn't something special. But wherever we go from here, the Horsham studio's odd little experiment has already worked wonders. It's worth noting that the trilogy works quite differently to other franchises. Any full games or DLC purchased since the release of Warhammer 1 are still relevant in Warhammer 3, making it effectively a trilogy-shaped single game. As a player, I've got 1700 combined hours logged. It'd be impressively delusional to pretend I haven't got my money's worth.
