Creative Assembly have issued an apology to Total War: Warhammer players over the bungling of a plan to give people earlier access to the Bretonnia DLC. The free Total War Access program should now be up and running (rather later than scheduled), but has left many of the eagerest players with botched keys that may not activate until the official release time tomorrow.

According to the update from Creative Assembly’s ‘Bart’, the initial burst of keys given out through the system (at around 4pm UK time) were for the standard Bretonnia DLC release (ie; tomorrow). CA shut the system off to replace the keys with proper Early Access ones, but by that time a great many had already been given out.

The bad news for the people who actually tried to get in on time with Total War Access is this: “This may mean that you are blocked from getting a new one (Steam thinks you already have it) and will have to wait till the official go-live time tomorrow at 4pm to get it working.” That’s certainly the case for me, which is a shame. Bart does add “we are working with Valve to see if we can sort this out faster for you.”

“Of course, we’re intending [Total War Access] to be a good thing, and this was supposed to be a neat test of it, so clearly I’m pretty annoyed that it’s not got off to the best start and I’m furious we’ve let you, our biggest fans, down,” he concludes.

So, in summary, if you want to pick up a Bretonnia DLC key through Total War Access, it should be available and safe to do so now. If you got one earlier (or rather on the scheduled time), then you’re probably stuck until CA figure out a solution. There’s a workaround on the Total War subreddit , but it involves asking Steam to permanently remove something from your account so attempt that at your own risk.

Update: I can confirm the workaround linked above should work if you’re stuck with a bad key. Be sure to follow the steps very carefully.

Go to Steam support (Help -> Support), choose TW: Warhammer, then choose ‘I want to permanently remove this game from my account’, make sure you select Bretonnia, then confirm. It will look like it’s saying Steam will remove TW: Warhammer from your account in its entirety, but if you were able to select Bretonnia at the correct step, only Bretonnia will be removed.

You can then use the Total War Access panel to get a new (functional) key. If that doesn’t work, you can probably just make a new Total War Access account and get a fresh code that way. Again, I hate to be over-cautious about this, but because it involves potentially screwing yourself out of the main Warhammer game, then do be careful. Alternatively, you can wait for CA to come up with a solution, or just wait for the DLC to officially come out tomorrow.

Update 2: Watch us play the Bretonnia DLC