As it turned out though, I would never have to. While community feedback on the campaign was mixed, in time I would’ve likely come around to enjoy it more. While I still enjoyed it, it was kind of jarring to play in a much more conservative direction, as it wasn’t always a great idea to expand your empire too much. Instead of through vast and unchecked expansion, victory was achieved by gathering resources and conducting rituals across your empire. While the real-time strategy side of TW:WH2 was the same – you control thousands of units to rout and kill enemy forces – the wider, turn-based map was different. The Vortex campaign took Total War in a slightly different direction to the usual sandbox style that fans expected. There were only four races available to play as, none of which resonated with me as much as those in the first game, and fan reception was a little lukewarm surrounding the Vortex campaign. On launch, four years ago today, it was a completely different story. Nor do I remember a magical turning point, where the fantasy strategy game became the beloved behemoth that it is now. I don’t actually remember making a conscious decision, or any moment, where Total War: Warhammer 2 suddenly became my favourite game.

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Instead I’ll stick with the violent and weird world of Warhammer, because for the last four years, there’s been no better place for a strategy fan to be. Earth would be a boring planet to travel anyway.

For comparison, it’s also roughly 25 non-stop flights around the world, but I’ve got no interest in doing anything like that. Broken down, that’s 54 days – a month and a half – of uninterrupted warmongering. I‘ve played Total War: Warhammer 2 for 1,300 hours.

Warhammer total war 2 playable factions