Lords of the End Times Lets Players Rewrite Warhammer's Most Controversial Lore

Total War: Warhammer's Lords of the End Times expansion has made Immortal Empires, the trilogy's largest campaign, more accessible than ever. Players can now access the full campaign for $9 by purchasing any single character from the expansion, down from requiring all three games or just the third installment.

The expansion's standout feature addresses one of Warhammer Fantasy's most contentious storylines. The End Times lore, which concluded the setting after 30 years of development, faced significant backlash from fans. The narrative reduced beloved characters to off-screen deaths or brief mentions while the world collapsed, treating fan-favorite figures as checkbox items rather than meaningful conclusions.

Lords of the End Times inverts this problem by letting players rewrite the entire ending. A player controlling the Fay Enchantress, who was sacrificed to resurrect Nagash in the original lore, can instead fight to his Black Pyramid and defeat him in battle. The expansion enables countless alternative outcomes: Karl Franz defeating The Glottkin, Grimgor triumphing over Archaon, or characters like Volkmar and Balthasar Gelt receiving different fates than the published timeline provided.

The expansion introduces three endgame scenarios that trigger apocalyptic invasions. Archaon's Chaos invasion makes the Everchosen functionally immortal until players destroy his fortresses and weaken his host, with settlements he razes remaining destroyed until his defeat. The Great Ritual of Nagash and the Skaven Vermintide offer undead and rat-themed apocalypse alternatives. Players can activate multiple endgames simultaneously for the most lore-aligned End Times experience, or play as Archaon to initiate the Chaos invasion and bring ruin to the world themselves.

The campaign represents the largest and most ambitious Total War effort Creative Assembly has attempted, combining 110 legendary lords and factions across three games into a unified map. Developer Creative Assembly continues supporting the trilogy with planned additions of more characters and units, though acknowledged issues with campaign AI and factions like Bretonnia's power level remain under development.