Total War Warhammer 3 modding is changing forever, and you can try its new-look solution right now

A new Total War Warhammer 3 mod manager is now live for testing, and you'll definitely want to take a look at it if you've ever experimented with tweaking your experience. For all the ups and downs Creative Assembly's strategy behemoth has faced over the years, the best Total War Warhammer 3 mods have always been a reliable way to make one of the biggest and most impressive Warhammer games even better. Now, however, CA is finally in the process of replacing its legacy TW launcher with a new, custom-built mod management system, and it's in the process of gathering feedback before it makes the transition permanent.

It's been almost a year since Creative Assembly announced that it would be retiring the old Total War launcher, and while we're still not quite there yet, this is a major step in the process. It's been a rocky year for Total War Warhammer 3, but you can always turn to mods to elevate your experience. You'll find people handling fundamentals like improved textures for units from TWW1 and TWW2, adding new units and gameplay mechanics, or simply overhauling functionality such as info panels, building icons, and the way the camera works.

Now, Creative Assembly is ready to share its new framework for installing and toggling mods. "From today, when you launch Warhammer 3 on Steam, you'll now be given the option to boot into the new mod manager, the original TW launcher, or straight into the game," it writes. "Our goal is to make playing Warhammer 3 with mods an easier, more streamlined process, so you can spend less time organizing your mods and more time in the game."

The new manager includes a few features that weren't present in the old launcher. You're able to save a 'mod profile' (essentially a collection of the mods you care about), which is handy if you want to completely overhaul your installed add-ons between games. You can also share these profiles with other players via either text or file. There's also functionality to select which save game should be used when you click 'continue campaign,' along with the ability to automatically activate the mods a particular save was using.

It describes the current design as "very functional and plain," promising "visual improvements as we work towards a full release." You'll be able to quickly see your list of installed mods on the left, where you can toggle them on and off. In the center you can see all the mods you've added to a profile, and it'll highlight issues such as when you're missing another add-on that one of your chosen mods needs in order to work.

Creative Assembly cautions that this is still an early access build and that you may run into some bugs or issues. There's also currently no support for uploading your mods to the Steam Workshop, although this will be integrated closer to its full release. "Feel like you prefer the original mod manager? Not a problem," CA adds, "we'll be keeping the current tool available via the TW launcher while we finalize development, so you can easily switch back if you wish. Once we're confident that players are happy with the new Warhammer 3 mod manager, we plan to look into rolling it out to other Total War titles."

The developer is also looking ahead to the launch of Total War Warhammer 3 update 7.0 and the twice-delayed Tides of Torment DLC on Thursday December 4, which will also enable the Immortal Empires campaign for players who only own TWW1 or TWW2. "This major release will require us to temporarily retire our rollback builds options," CA warns, "with new rollback builds being added as we release new hotfixes and updates in the weeks and months ahead."