If last week's chat about Total War Saga: Troy has got you itching to dip into The Creative Assembly's back catalogue of Total War games, you're in luck, as Humble are holding an entire week of Total War deals right now. With savings of up to 75% in some cases (plus a very tasty 25% off last year's excellent Total War: Three Kingdoms), there's plenty to get excited about. So let's sharpen those deals swords and dive on in, shall we?
]]>After watching the trailer a bajillion more times, I am extremely excited for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. It's been around 48 hours since the announcement and I cannot possibly retain this state for much longer. By the time the Christmas-ish release date rolls around I will either have exploded like a poor little meat balloon, or gone full circle and lapsed into a coma. Like the engines of the Enterprise, she cannae hold - definitely not for around six more months, anyway.
Thank god that Vikings are an enduring and popular theme for games, then! I can inoculate myself against disaster by playing a few of these existing ones while I wait. Such is the versatility of Vikings that they pop up in almost every genre imaginable, too. So if, like me, you are already on the edge of your seat (and that seat is in a longship), here are some recommendations for varied and quality video games that will get you prepared for Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
]]>According to the Iliad, the sacking of Troy only happened after a very specific set of things occurred in the right order. So, I asked Todor Nikolov, lead game designer at Creative Assembly Sofia, would players have to set up the same set of circumstances?
"You're probably talking about the Trojan Horse?" he replied. HahaHAHAHha yes of course, that's what I was talking about, it would be ludicrous to expect that a strategy game allowed players to plan for and/or orchestrate Achilles sulking and Patrolclus getting himself killed, and then Achilles going grief-berserk over his dead boyfriend. The topic had come up because we were talking about the just-this-minute announce new Total War Saga game, A Total War Saga: Troy. Guess where it's set?
]]>According to an ancient Sussex proverb, there are as many factions in the 20-year-old Total War series as there are sand grains on a beach, as there are angels dancing upon the head of a pin, as there are grenadiers in the armies of his Imperial Majesty Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Co-Prince of Andorra. This is providing, of course, the answer in each case is “between 100 and 200, depending on whether you include the DLC and think Sicily is a real country.”
From stinky hill tribes through trim Teutonic phalanxes to bawling rivers of undead, Total Warring has certainly come in all shapes and sizes. At a recent hands-on event for Total War: Three Kingdoms, a heinous idea occurred to me: why not confuse and upset all the developers in attendance (plus a couple more over email) by asking them to pick a favourite faction? The results, which involved surprisingly few headbutts, are below.
]]>Sound the horns, call in the bannermen, and prepare for the funeral rites. Fothad, governor of Circenn, is dead.
It’s fine though, I’ve got another Fothad. I’ve actually got another two Fothads, just sat around in my kingdom’s court, the apparent result of some spectacularly uncreative naming conventions in 9th Century Scotland. It’s not just Fothads that I rack up on my playthrough of A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia, either: I also pick up two Amlaibs — one a general, one a governor — a surplus of Ailins, and I’m on my third Dubgall by the time I unite all of Scotland under my rule. I know it’s the Dark Ages, guys, but can we come up with a few new names?
]]>Today brings a big new free update for A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia, adding new Allegiance and Decree systems (well, new to Battlebrits but borrowed from earlier Total War games). Developers Creative Assemble have conceded that they got a little carried away stripping back the Total War formula (the Warmula, as I imagine the official term is) for the first of the new Saga spin-off series, see, so they've gone back to pack in more gameguts. Speaking of guts, Total War's customary gore DLC is now available for Battlebrits too.
]]>The next update for A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia will introduce an 'Allegiance' system, similar to Culture in Total War: Rome II and Religion in Twattila, and Throners can now test it out in a public beta build. The whole idea of the Total War Saga subseries is to streamline and refocus but developers The Creative Assembly concede that some changes left notable gaps in their first Saga. So, for starters, here comes Allegiance to make people say "Obviously we should burn the monarchy before it takes root but I will say this fella's a good egg", with kick-on effects for politics and provinces in the historical strategy game.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>Three weeks after its debut on Windows, A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia is now out on MacOS too. If you already own The Creative Assembly's latest historical strategy game on Steam, hey, you've now got it for Mac too; thankfully we're long past the days when Mac ports were sold separately. And sure, Macs can boot to Windows nowadays, but it's still handier to have a native version. Slip into your chainmail turtleneck to start building your empire and reshaping the history of Poundland.
]]>Hallo! John's away so I'm taking over for our latest weekly rundown of the biggest-selling games on Steam over the previous seven days. Familiar faces are here, of course, but the charts also include more survival games than I've seen in yonks. The slightest peek of sun outside and you lot start acting as if it's the end of the world, eh?
]]>A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is a twist on the usual Total War formula. There's a dozen clans, each with their own skill sets, and each with their own populations that have to be managed while you build your empire. The new streamlined game mechanics built a title that's easier for newcomers, but this has also resulted in a wave of negative feedback from longtime fans of the series. In an attempt to tackle this head-on, game director Jack Lusted has released a statement reflecting on the game's release and laying the groundwork for what comes next.
]]>Hullo! John is preoccupied with wizards right now, so I'm taking over for the rundown of last week's top ten on Steam. It was an interesting week, bringing back some welcome old games and slamming in some shiny new ones. Largely, it's all about robots and survival.
]]>Bright and early at 8 o'clock this morning, The Creative Assembly released A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia. Perhaps you started ordering soldiers around while dipping soldiers in your eggie. Swelled your coffers while sipping coffee. Had your forces spread like butter on your crumpet. Ordered a full retreat while gulping tea. Burnt your toast like Alfred and them cakes, then razed Winchester for good measure. Breakfast jokes. No matter what you're eating, the first game in Total War's new line of focused 'Sagas' is now out, travelling back to Britain in the year 878 to see who gets their face on the money.
]]>"Never pre-order," we say, then youse go and pre-order A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia right into the Steam top ten. Ah but sure, you know what's coming: it's another Total War, and you can already read Nic Rueben's Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia review for our official word on it. So hey, you cheeky pre-orderers: know that you can now pre-load Thrones Of Britannia on Steam ahead of its Thursday launch.
]]>From my vantage point, there’s something enchanting about the snow-capped palisades of Dinefwr. Although I imagine its majesty is somewhat lost on the seven hundred exhausted Welshmen I’ve just ordered to breach the stronghold’s walls, with nothing but battered wooden shields between them and a typical British forecast of flaming arrows. I’d like to pretend their sacrifices come at the bitter end of a long, failed diplomatic campaign. Truthfully though, like so much of the conflict in history, they had something shiny, and I decided I wanted it.
]]>As I drag my groggy-faced body to the monitor at 6.30 each Monday morning, I click the bookmark for my Steam Charts RSS and scrunch up my face so my forehead and nose curl over my eyes. How bad will it be? How familiar will the list of five-year-old games be? How will I think of... BUT WHAT IS THIS?!!?! FOUR new entries! Far Cry 5 taking up only one slot! No Witcher 3! No Skyrim! It's like Christmas, where Christmas is a day you just about get through without things being as bad as they were last year.
]]>If you've already ordered in a hog to roast in celebration of A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia's launch, you might want to get your meat man on the blower. Developers Creative Assembly today announced that they will not launch the historical strategy game on April 19th, as had been the plan, as they want more time to polish it up. Thrones Of Britannia is now slated to launch on May 3rd, which isn't much later really. But a fortnight is long enough that you probably wouldn't want a hog in the shed the whole time. Give the butcher a bell.
]]>It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. That's a useful motto, a pick-me-up for the smaller among us, but the truth is right now, I am a very small dog with very little fight left in it.
I'm the boss of Mide, a province in the middle of Ireland. The 9th century is drawing to a close and everything is in disarray. The coasts are saturated with Danes, there is no unification among my own people, and at the horizon's edge, England is burning. Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia has a cumbersome name but it might be the leanest and meanest game in Creative Assembly's long-running strategy series. It's a little dog with a whole lot of beautiful fight in it.
]]>Total War has been enjoying its time among the greenskins and the undead, but we've been waiting to see exactly which period it'd land in when it returns to its historical roots for its next major installment. Now the answer is here. Total War: Three Kingdoms.
The year is 190CE. China is in turmoil. The Han Dynasty crumbles before the child-emperor. He is but a figurehead; a mere puppet for the tyrant warlord Dong Zhuo. It is a brutal and oppressive regime, and as Dong Zhuo’s power grows, the empire slips further into the cauldron of anarchy... Only one thing is certain: the very future of China will be shaped by its champions. Total War: Three Kingdoms is the next major historical strategy game in the award-winning Total War series.
This is both unexpected and precisely the kind of setting I was hoping for. A mostly self-contained conflict with a clear end-goal and set of factions. The trailer follows.
]]>The first Total War Saga, a new spin-off sub-series from the historical strategy games which will focus on very specific times and places, is off to good ol' Blighty. Sega today announced A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia, which travels back to Britain in 878 AD. While the focus is tighter, Creative Assembly say it will offer "the most detailed Total War campaign map ever made." They're not showing anything of the game yet but it's broadly Total War so I'm sure your imagination can fill in the details as you watch this animated announcement trailer:
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