Norsca Race Delayed To May For 'Total War: Warhammer II'

The tribes of Norsca are one of the most anticipated post-launch additions to the “Mortal Empires” campaign that combined factions and parts of the two campaign maps of Total War: Warhammer and Total War: Warhammer II into one huge board. However, Creative Assembly revealed in a recent blog post that the Norsca won’t be available in the game mode until May due to the difficulties it encountered when attempting to put it in the new game.

The initial plan was to simply copy the Norsca content from the first Total War: Warhammer game and merge it into the build for the sequel. The addition of new content, according to creative director Mike Simpson, was supposed to be easy, but it was quite the opposite due to the different codebases between the game.

Improvements to the base infrastructure of Total War: Warhammer II meant that the “containers” that would house the Norsca data had major changes that could cause issues. The first attempt to put the add-on content into the build was met with a “tsunami of bugs.” On the second try, Creative Assembly had a slower, yet more careful approach with integration, but it ran into issues with integration tools and processes.

Rather than forcing the old Norsca content into the new game, Creative Assembly decided that it would instead work on Norsca from scratch so that it’s easily compatible with the underlying code for Total War: Warhammer II.

“This won’t be quick, but it is guaranteed to work,” Simpson wrote.

While fans wait for the northern tribes to arrive, brand director Rob Bartholomew revealed a new roadmap for future updates and content drops. Later this month, you’ll get access to the “Reprisal” update for the Mortal Empires campaign. This includes skill and campaign improvements to Legendary Lords and the Chaos faction from the Old World in addition to general changes and fixes for the lengthy campaign. Creative Assembly will also release a new and experimental game mode, and the studio will reveal more about it later this week. In January, fans should expect the first Campaign Pack. The developers are still mum on its content, but they did it has a “hugely characterful and significant addition to both Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires.” The Norsca will finally arrive in May along with updates to numerous parts of the northern race such as its interactions and technological upgrades.

The delay of the Norsca is a disappointment to the community. However, some credit should go to Creative Assembly for providing a clear and detailed reason for the additional work. Its actions are to blame for the longer wait, but at least fans have an idea of the lengthy and difficult process of adding new content to a game already full of content.