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Game vs game · side by side

Total War: WARHAMMER II vs Total War: WARHAMMER III

Total War: WARHAMMER II is a strategy game from CREATIVE ASSEMBLY (2017) while Total War: WARHAMMER III is a strategy game from CREATIVE ASSEMBLY (2022).

Total War: WARHAMMER II

2017 · CREATIVE ASSEMBLY

8.4GamingPickz Score

$59.99

Steam: Very Positive

Total War: WARHAMMER III

2022 · CREATIVE ASSEMBLY

7.3GamingPickz Score

$59.99

Steam: Mostly Positive

What each one is

Steam files Total War: WARHAMMER II under Strategy. In contrast, it files Total War: WARHAMMER III under Strategy.

Total War: WARHAMMER II

The forces of Lustria await your command. Choose your Legendary Lord, expand your armies, forge alliances in a strategic turn-based campaign, and unleash the might of your monstrous forces in fast-paced real-time battles.

Description from its Steam store page

Total War: WARHAMMER III

The cataclysmic conclusion to the Total War: WARHAMMER trilogy is here. Rally your forces and step into the Realm of Chaos, a dimension of mind-bending horror where the very fate of the world will be decided. Will you conquer your Daemons… or command them?

Description from its Steam store page

At a glance

Total War: WARHAMMER IITotal War: WARHAMMER III
GamingPickz Score8.4/107.3/10
Steam ratingVery Positive (93%, 121,450)Mostly Positive (71%, 147,877)
Critic aggregate87/10086/100
Price$59.99$59.99
Install size60 GB120 GB
Steam Deckplayableunsupported
Released20172022
DeveloperCREATIVE ASSEMBLYCREATIVE ASSEMBLY

Prices and Steam ratings are read live and move over time.

Total War: WARHAMMER II vs Total War: WARHAMMER III, point by point

Each facet side by side. A round is marked won only where a figure settles it; feel and "which is better" carry no mark, because no number we hold decides them.

  1. Genre and premise

    Total War: WARHAMMER IIStrategy game
    Total War: WARHAMMER IIIStrategy game

    What each is filed as. Each game describes itself in full above; we do not judge a premise.

  2. How it plays

    Total War: WARHAMMER IIStrategy, Fantasy, Turn-Based Strategy
    Total War: WARHAMMER IIIStrategy, Turn-Based Strategy, Grand Strategy

    The tags players apply most, in order of votes. A read on feel, not a verdict.

  3. Reception

    Total War: WARHAMMER IIScore 8.4 · 93% on Steam · 87 critic
    Total War: WARHAMMER IIIScore 7.3 · 71% on Steam · 86 critic

    The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.

  4. Content and scale

    Total War: WARHAMMER II121,450 reviews · 23 add-ons · 60 GB
    Total War: WARHAMMER III147,877 reviews · 38 add-ons · 120 GB

    Reach and footprint, not quality: more reviews or a bigger install is not a better game.

  5. Price

    Total War: WARHAMMER II$59.99
    Total War: WARHAMMER III$59.99

    Read live from Steam and subject to change.

  6. On a Steam Deck

    Total War: WARHAMMER IIPlayable
    Total War: WARHAMMER IIIUnsupported

    Valve's own Deck compatibility rating.

Total War: WARHAMMER II takes 2 of the marked rounds to 0. That is only what a number can decide, not which you will enjoy more.

The two on the grid

Compare the whole catalogue

Total War: WARHAMMER II and Total War: WARHAMMER III on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so each dot is its real position. Change either axis to compare them on any measure.

2 games have both

01000100PlayersPopularity

Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.

Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.

  • PC

Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.

See the whole grid

How positions are decided

No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
  • Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
  • Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
  • No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
  • A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
  • Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.

Which to pick, by what you want

  • The higher-rated of the two: Total War: WARHAMMER II (GamingPickz Score 8.4)
  • Better on a Steam Deck: Total War: WARHAMMER II (playable)
  • Lighter on storage: Total War: WARHAMMER II (60 GB)

What they have in common

Both are tagged by Steam players with:

StrategyFantasyTurn-Based StrategyRTSGrand StrategyWarMultiplayerGames Workshop

Where they differ

Total War: WARHAMMER II is also

Turn-BasedStory RichDinosaursGreat Soundtrack

Total War: WARHAMMER III is also

ColorfulPvPWarhammer 40KOnline Co-Op

Tags players apply to one game and not the other.

Difficulty and who each is for

By the tags players apply, Total War: WARHAMMER II is middle-of-the-road on difficulty. Total War: WARHAMMER III is middle-of-the-road on difficulty.

System requirements, side by side

Total War: WARHAMMER IITotal War: WARHAMMER III
Minimum GPUNVIDIA GTX 460 1GBNvidia GTX 900/AMD RX 400 series
Minimum CPUIntel® Core™ 2 Duo 3.0GhzIntel i3/Ryzen 3 series
Minimum RAM5 GB6 GB
Install size60 GB120 GB

Can your PC run them? Check each against your own kit: Total War: WARHAMMER II · Total War: WARHAMMER III.

Accessibility features

Steam store pages declare 8 accessibility features for Total War: WARHAMMER II and 8 for Total War: WARHAMMER III. A declaration is a floor, not a review.

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Common questions

How different are Total War: WARHAMMER II and Total War: WARHAMMER III in scope?

Total War: WARHAMMER II has drawn 121,450 Steam reviews, ships 23 add-ons and installs in 60 GB. Total War: WARHAMMER III has drawn 147,877 Steam reviews, ships 38 add-ons and installs in 120 GB.

Is Total War: WARHAMMER II or Total War: WARHAMMER III better?

By the GamingPickz Score, Total War: WARHAMMER II rates higher (8.4 to 7.3). That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, not our taste. "Better" also depends on price, length and platform, which the table above lays out.

Which is cheaper, Total War: WARHAMMER II or Total War: WARHAMMER III?

Total War: WARHAMMER II is cheaper right now at $59.99, against $59.99. Prices move, so this is read live from Steam and can change.

Do you rank one above the other for a fee?

No. Neither game, nor anyone else, pays for placement or a verdict here. The order and every figure come out of the same public data the rest of the site uses.

How we compare, and what we will not do

The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment (adjusted for sample size), the critic aggregate and popularity, computed by the same code every ranked list on this site uses. The Steam rating label is Valve's own, reconstructed from the positive percentage and review count. Prices are read live. We do not write an opinion of which game is "better": we report the numbers and say which wins each measurable question above.

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