Total War: Three Kingdoms unleashes war tigers in The Furious Wild expansion today

Tigers and elephants join the battlefields of Total War: Three Kingdoms today in its first expansion, The Furious Wild. It expands the Three Kingdoms map into the jungles of Southern China and adds four playable Nanman factions, with dozens of new units including the aforementioned beasts. The expansion costs cash but a free update launching alongside has brought plenty of newness for all players, including new playable character Shie Xie, a rework of the campaign map, and new battles to control gates in key passes.

The Furious Wild extends the campaign map into the jungles, where we'll find four factions of Nanman folks. They have unique missions and narrative events, their own tech tree, and new units ranging from tigers and fleet-footed slingers unimpeded by terrain to big lads with flaming two-handed maces and full-on war elephants. Creative Assembly have released a handful of Three Kingdoms DLC packs before, adding new factions and historical moments, but this is the first big enough for them to declare it an "expansion".

You can get The Furious Wild on Steam now for £15/€19/$19.

As for today's free update, it sounds a good'un. The overhauled campaign map gives all regions unique names, has added new commanderies, has shuffled resources around, has added new mountainous areas to reduce the number of pathways, and has added nine gate passes. These passes are at choke points, and taking them involves new siege-ish battles where attackers will need to overcome walls, towers, and other fortifications to capture them. New playable character Shi Xie has arrived as free DLC, and he's out to accumulate Splendor by stacking the court with family members. New legendary characters are in too. Plus balance changes, bug fixes... lots of stuff.

See the v1.6.0 patch notes for more on everything. Changes are far-reaching enough that the devs warn saved games from the previous patch might be wonky, and won't have the new campaign map. They recommend you start over with a new save.