New Total War: Warhammer – Savage Edition Officially Announced
Following the publication of a major dev blog detailing several upcoming DLC expansions across the Total War franchise, Creative Assembly today announced the Total War: Warhammer – Savage Edition. This new retail edition of the original Total War: Warhammer game comes bundled with two of its larger DLC packs; Chaos Warriors and Call of the Beastmen.
What is Total War: Warhammer – Savage Edition?
Essentially, Total War: Warhammer – Savage Edition isn’t anything new. It’s simply a retail re-release of the first Total War: Warhammer game with two DLC race packs bundled with it. Presumably, this will give gamers a cheaper way to acquire this content than the normal price of all three parts. However, while it may not be something which the game’s existing core audience needs, it may indicate a shift in the way that Creative Assembly handles DLC.
Yesterday, the studio released a dev blog which revealed that the next Total War: Warhammer 2 Lord Pack DLC will feature the Wood Elves; a DLC faction from the first game. Rather than follow previous DLC formats, this upcoming DLC will offer a bonus playable Legendary Lord for free for anybody who owns the original Realm of the Wood Elves DLC, effectively serving as a loyalty reward for long-term players. The Wood Elves are the first of four such DLC factions to get a rework and new DLC content in the second game, so this new format may be adopted going forward.
In that context, the release of Total War: Warhammer – Savage Edition is interesting because it serves as a way to get two of those DLC factions into the hands of more players; Chaos Warriors and Beastmen. That’s a fairly strong indication that one of those two will be the next faction to get such a rework. Indeed, some of the wording in the dev blog dropped hints that it might be Chaos Warriors. In that sense, the Savage Edition makes sense as a marketing move. It helps to ensure that as many people as possible own the original DLC which will entitle them to bonus content, as and when the new DLC featuring that race arrives for the second game.