Creative Assembly unveils its new “Warcore” engine for Total War
Total War’s new engine will bring the series to consoles
During their Total War 25th Anniversary Showcase, Creative Assembly unveiled a new Total War engine called “Warcore”. This is a new proprietary game engine that will act as a new technological foundation for the Total War series. It is designed to enable better visuals for gamers, enable new features, and give developers new tools to utilise.
For starters, the new engine aims to deliver stronger visuals. Lighting techniques are improved, as are dynamic shadows and screen space ambient occlusion. Improved textures and meshes should also improve graphical fidelity alongside new VFX rendering techniques. A new “ribbon technology” should also improve projectile and overlapping particle behaviour, making it more crisp and performant.
DirectX 12 support and Havoc Physics
With Warcore comes DirectX 12 support. While some prior Total War games have supported a DirectX 12 “Beta” mode, Warcore was built with DirectX 12 in mind. With modern API support should also come easier support for modern upscaling technologies, like DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. Warcore is designed to deliver across-the-board improvements for gamers and developers, building a strong foundation for the future of Total War.
Havoc Physics has also been added to Warcore. This enabled new features like dynamically destructible buildings. This can allow players to destroy structures to create new paths through terrain. The game’s AI can also respond to these changes, allowing both sides to exploit terrain changes for tactical advantages.
Warcore also features a new animation system, which has been rewritten to include a “graph-based node system”, allowing animations to be layered, enabling higher levels of fidelity and variety. More complex movement systems also enable more complex “vehicle movement” and actions like “strafing”. This opens up new gameplay opportunities and the possibility of more vehicle-based combat.
Building on 25 years of strategy innovation, Warcore is the next evolution of Total War’s proprietary engine. As the most advanced technological foundation in the franchise’s history, it empowers developers with a suite of tools that allows for gameplay to be more immersive, dynamic and responsive than ever before. Designed to evolve over time, it will continue to unlock new capabilities, ensuring the franchise stays at the cutting edge of strategy gaming for years to come. In a franchise first, it also enables future games to be released on PlayStation and Xbox, welcoming a new generation of commanders to the scale, immersion, and tactical mastery that defines Total War.
– Creative Assembly
Warcore will bring Total War to consoles
Through Warcore, the Total War series will debut on consoles for the first time. Future Total War games will be coming to Xbox and PlayStation, as well as PC. This will open up the Total War series to new players. Furthermore, it suggests that Total War will support alternative control schemes in the future. Console versions imply controller support.
As controversial as console support will be to some of Total War’s fanbase, it is undeniable that Warcore will give the Total War series a stronger technological foundation moving forward. Future Total War games should feature improved visuals and more features. Let’s hope that this new engine is performant, as today’s Total War games are already taxing on PC hardware. That said, console support should ensure a level of low-end hardware support. After all, the Xbox Series S exists.
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