As always, the Total War teams have been hard at work on their respective projects – and this month there’s quite a lot of things to update you on. Over to them!
Total War games take place in a wide variety of settings both historical and fictional. However, there is one thing all Total War titles have in common: some truly epic facial hair.
Join us as we round up some of our top Total War beard wearers – who’s your favourite?
The Total War teams have been very busy with some very exciting stuff in the time since we last updated you, and with E3 on the horizon you can be sure there’s plenty to look forward to.
Without further ado, let’s turn you over to the teams themselves…
It’s been a long hard winter for the Total War teams, but there’s not been a lot of hibernating with Empire Divided, Tomb Kings and Desert Kingdoms all sprouting through the snow. What’s more, there’s a new crop of releases just starting to blossom, and even a new team being added for an interesting new project.
Can you feel that chill wind still blowing from the North though?
With Mortal Empires released last week, there’s a hotfix on the way for that Chaos Invasion issue some people are having. We want to make sure that’s sorted out before we add more Total War: WARHAMMER content.
However, in this week’s blog we wanted to take a moment to look at our Historical projects; because you’re about to hear a lot more about them.
The next year is packed with new stuff and, as we ramp up for some big announcements, I took a moment to chat with our history project directors; Maya, Jack and Janos…
I sent a few questions to the fastest man in Wales, Mr. Third Place himself and now regular stream guest – Mitchell Heastie for our next meet the team segment! Check out his answers below:
What’s your role at CA?
I’m a designer, currently working on the Warhammer new content team. The first thing I worked on after joining was the Empires of Sand DLC for Total War: Attila, and I’ve worked on every single DLC for Attila and Warhammer ever since!
How long have you been working here?
2 years and a half years.
… but I was a modder for many years before that, and had visited the studio many times for 5 years on and off, so it feels like a lot longer!
What’s your favourite thing about working at CA?
For me Total War is my favourite game series of all time, my dream jobs were always to either become a fighter pilot or to create Total War games. It’s still a bit surreal, the feeling of waking up in the morning and realising the job I’m about to go to is my dream job – this is my first job too, making it even crazier! I don’t think the feeling of walking through the doors at CA every day, excited to start work, is ever going to get old, as they say do a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. So yeah, stopping to think about how lucky I actually am is my favourite thing, it’s all a bit mad really.
What’s your favourite Total War title and why?
The original Rome: Total War holds a lot of nostalgia for me, it was the game that really made me become a fully-fledged PC gamer, and it is a very very very close second place. Ultimately though I can’t look past Shogun 2 as the best of the series, it’s such a fantastic display of getting the core elements of the series right, and I can’t help but feel if ever the perfect Total War game was to be made it would use the design of Shogun 2 as at least the framework.
Which historical period is the most interesting to you?
I love the Roman era, and that is totally due to playing Rome: Total War when I was younger. Ultimately though I have a real interest and passion for the history of World War 2. The time surrounding that war is so full of stories that are utterly captivating, horrifying and unbelievable that it’s hard not to learn about the period without coming away wanting to learn more.
What kind of games do you enjoy the most?
Grand strategy games have captivated me more than any other throughout my gaming life I think. Generally anything that makes me think, and something that I can really sit down and know I can sink hours into and feel progress each time I play will always interest me. I’ve always loved the promise of what space games offer, games such as X3 for instance, but no space game has ever delivered the kind of experience I’m after to date which is intriguing.
Tell us one interesting fact about yourself that people might not know:
My one interesting fact is that I used to be an extremely fast 100m sprinter, I never lost a tournament I competed in. For some reason though nobody at work believes me, which is annoying as it’s my one interesting fact…
I sat down with one of the chattiest members of the Cinematics team for Total War. Jack tells us some stories from his time with Creative Assembly and gives us an insight to what its like to work on Total War.
This week we’re celebrating a massive 17 YEAR anniversary of the birth of Total War! Way back in the year 2000, on the 13th of June, Creative Assembly released their breakout title in Shogun: Total War. It was a revolutionary blend of turn based, empire building strategy and real-time, detailed battles with hundreds of men. The game focused on the rich and fascinating period of Japanese feudal history known as the Sengoku period which would later be revisited in Total War: Shogun 2.
In June of 2000, Elliott Chin had this to say for Gamespot-
“Shogun has a great subject, and a perfect melding of strategic and tactical gameplay. The strategy portion is simple but very engrossing, while the tactical battles are very realistic, challenging, and entertaining exercises in military tactics. Shogun is a difficult game even on the default setting – but what’s so great is that the challenge is grounded on the basic, real-world tenets and common wisdom of warfare. Spreading yourself too thin is an invitation for disaster; alliances cannot be trusted for long; feigning weakness is one of the few ways to goad your opponents to overextend themselves; and so on. When you get beaten in battle or outmaneuvered on the strategic map, in hindsight it’ll be clear to you why you lost and thus easier for you to figure out how to do better the next time. Shogun is a very enjoyable game, as it keeps you honest by punishing you for your mistakes and richly rewarding you for your well-thought-out successes.”
As we get warmed up for E3, we thought it would be good to share a little about what the teams are working on in the meantime.
Let’s take a look…
We have had many questions on when our next historical title is going to be available, so we thought we would try to clear up any confusion and give you some information on what our historical teams have been up to these past few months.
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