I don't buy every iteration of FIFA, but I do want to give each entry a whirl to see how it has rebalanced the balls, tweaked the kicks, and polished the grass. Xbox Game Pass now helps me in my tests by, eventually, adding each iteration, and FIFA 22 is now available through the subscription service as part of June's haul of new games.
Also added this past week: the Shadowrun Trilogy, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Naraka: Bladepoint. And Far Cry 5 will arrive on July 1st.
]]>Ultrawide gaming monitors can seem excessive compared to regular 16:9 gaming screens, especially when their demanding resolutions often require powerful and expensive graphics cards to make the most of them. Once you try one, though, there's no going back. I've been a big fan of ultrawide gaming monitors for years now, as their extra screen space not only makes them great for juggling multiple desktop windows, but supported PC games also look uttery fantastic on them - and to prove it, I've put together this list of the best ultrawide games on PC.
]]>Strategy games is an enormous genre in PC gaming, with real-time, turn-based, 4X and tactics games all flying the same flag to stake their claim as the one true best strategy game. Our list of the best strategy games on PC covers the lot of them. We like to take a broad view here at RPS, and every game listed below is something we firmly believe that you could love and play today. You'll find 30-year-old classics nestled right up against recent favourites here, so whether you're to the genre or want to dig deep for some hidden gems, we've got you covered. Here are our 50 best strategy games for 2023.
]]>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.
]]>Following a string of smaller DLCs, Creative Assembly have announced the first full expansion for Total War: Three Kingdoms. Named The Furious Wild, it's inviting you to delve into the jungles of Southern China to meet four new warlords. They each lead a new playable faction - I'm a big fan of the one who brings tigers to the battlefield, she definitely looks cooler than the dude with the elephants (you'll see him in a minute). Launching on September 3rd, the expansion will also extend the game's map into this region.
]]>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?
]]>Total War: Three Kingdoms is rolling the clock forward. The old warlords are dead - leaving behind a brand new generation of bloodthirsty scamps looking to make the most of China's power vacuum. Dropping today, the new A World Betrayed Chapter Pack adds two new factions, a new time period and some brand new units - but really, it's all about those rascals Sun Ce and Lü Bu stepping out of their fathers' respective shadows.
]]>A new generations of warlords will rise with the next Total War: Three Kingdoms DLC later this month, Creative Assembly announced today. A World Betrayed is its name, and it's one of those 'Chapter Pack' DLCs bringing new factions, story events and missions, and units. It'll have a new starting date too, kicking off in the year 194 when, the developers explain, "Lü Bu himself has just assassinated Dong Zhuo, Sun Ce is beginning his conquest of Jiangdong, and Liu Bei has succeeded Tao Qian." Plenty to fight about, then. You can see some of their griping in the announcement trailer below.
]]>Creative Assembly roll back the clock of Total War: Three Kingdoms in the new expansion released today, letting players start eight years earlier in a wee prequel campaign then keep that same save on rolling through regular history. Mandate Of Heaven is its name, and getting stuck into the Yellow Turban Rebellion is its game. Whether you buy it or not, more characters, units, and other newness also arrived today for all players in a free update.
]]>The next story DLC for Total War: Three Kingdoms will be a wee bit of a prequel, bringing new starts a scant eight years before the main campaign kicks off. Creative Assembly today announced Mandate Of Heaven for a January 16th launch, bringing six new factions and dozens of new units. Starting in the year 182 just before the Yellow Turban rebellion, it'll tell more of the Han Empire's struggle with that.
]]>Winter brings out a part of me that immediately seeks a mountain of blankets in which to burrow. Even in my seasonally confused state of Texas, the weather has tended towards the chilly and left me with little excuse not to have a kettle boiling interminably as I layer on socks and pull the biggest comforter from the top of the closet. But this presents a problem likely familiar to other cozy connoisseurs: how does one game while properly bundled?
I will admit it does limit possibilities considerably. That's why I've curated a small selection of games perfectly playable while your other hand keeps coffee or tea always within sipping range.
]]>How curious it was the first DLC following the mega-hit launch of Total War: Three Kingdoms (the fastest-selling of the series so far, they boast) skipped past the end of the Three Kingdoms era to tell a story of a follow-up civil war. Developers Creative Assembly now suggest that the Eight Princes DLC was perhaps a misstep, and say they're bending their plans following player feedback. They also assure they are working on DLC that "adds significantly to the main campaign."
]]>Eight Princes - the latest expansion for Total War: Three Kingdoms - has launched, bringing with it eight playable princes with the singular aim of carving their legacy into the sinewy flesh of history. None of them are from Minneapolis though, I've checked.
Taking place in the year 291CE, a generation has passed since the events of the Three Kingdoms period and while power between the kingdoms has been divided into three, civil unrest is coming to a rolling boil. Check out the launch trailer after the jump.
]]>The strategic armyman management of Total War is being flattened into digital cardboard with Total War: Elysium, a collectable card game made by Creative Assembly. The series overlords call this "a multiplayer strategy game based on Total War background," a background which is... history? That's just history isn't it? Unless Napoleon's next match after Sun Ren there ↑ is against Thorgrim Grudgebearer, mind. I'd watch that face-off.
Elysium will will debut in China as part of a partnership with megapublishers NetEase, then Creative Assembly say they want to launch it globally later once it's proper good.
]]>Usually after the Steam summer sale horror show, the Steam Charts offer us some respite in the lull between AAA releases and allow us to celebrate the successful release of a bunch of indie games. But as you'll have noticed if you've looked at 2019, nothing follows the rules of sense and decorum any longer. So it is that last week and this, we've had charts that feature only a single recently released game.
So this week we're taking a trip!
]]>A new wave survival mode coming to Total War: Three Kingdoms will pit three heroes against hundreds of enemy soldiers. Dynasty Mode is its name, and it's coming in a free update next week. It looks to be inspired by the more fantastical side of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms as well as, y'know, probably the Dynasty Warriors games (which are also based on the historical epic). If you want magical lords murdering a dozen men with a single swing of their blade, baby, they're coming. Have a look in the trailer below.
]]>Here's a fascinating fact: Steam Charts has never won an award. I KNOW. If there's nothing else that demonstrates the corruption of the entire system, it's this. High quality, groundbreaking, Woodwardian journalism, are just some of the terms I use to describe this most esteemed of columns. And yet the silverware shelf gathers dust. It's a disgrace.
]]>Apparently conquering ancient China once isn't enough for some of you. Fortunately, those still hungry for conflict in Total War: Three Kingdoms only have a few weeks to wait until its first big DLC. Due on August 8th, the Eight Princes chapter pack adds a new campaign continuing some years after the events of the main story, and resumes the war-totalling from the year 291 CE. Unsurprisingly, given the title, Creative Assembly are giving us eight power-hungry princes to play with, and a land once again needing unifying. See the very dramatic debut trailer below.
]]>It's another dire old week in Chartland, with the last breaths of the Summer Sale ensuring, with the exception of spots #4 and #5, that all the usual suspects dominate. But we won't let that change us! We're better than this! We're going to have fun anyway!
]]>Yes, yes, it's me. I know, I know, but calm down. While it's obviously very exciting to have a celebrity as handsome and excellent as me writing you some Steam Charts, I'm still just a regular ordinary guy underneath it all. I leap into my trousers both legs at once, same as anyone else.
]]>Official mod support launched for Total War: Three Kingdoms this week, letting players create new units, add new battle maps, tweak balance, pretty it up, and more. Who knows what else we might see over time? And can someone add a proper dating sim to meet hot new kingdoms in my area? The tools do have some big limitations, mind, so don't expect mods with things like new campaign maps.
]]>If there's one thing that's guaranteed to sweep through the Steam Charts like a giant fart, it's a Steam Sale. Blowing out all the fresh, original or interesting new releases, the mid-year discount warehouse (Junction 45 off the M91) ensures it's a top 10 of games you already bought or decided you don't want to buy.
So who is buying them? Baddies. You lot are the goodies. It's the baddies who do this to us.
]]>Total War: Three Kingdoms wants you to get procreating and projectilin' in its new 1.1.0 patch. The patch list includes stability fixes, expanded tutorials, and a higher likelihood of marriages resulting in babies among its highlights. The patch arrived yesterday just in time for the extremely metal-sounding 'Reign Of Blood' DLC, which is out Thursday 27th. Have a trailer. The trailer has some blood in it.
]]>Hello friendly people! Welcome to the always-lovely, always-cheerful soft-play-of-fun-and-hyphens that is Steam Charts!
Today we're going to laugh together, learn together, and maybe, just maybe, if we're lucky, laugh and learn a little. Please, pull up a trouser, take a seat (take as many seats as you need - we have too many seats), and prepare to enjoy, laugh, and maybe even learn.
]]>I'm declaring it: this is the Worst Week Ever for Steam Charts. And let's face it - this is entirely your fault. If you were a better person, you'd buy better games. But instead you buy the same eight bloody games every bloody week, and then buy a game that isn't even out for over a year. A YEAR! You are awful, and you do not deserve me. This is your punishment.
]]>This week: Rude swears! Writing about more interesting games than the ones you boring people keep buying! And battle advice to people who've been dead 1,800 years! It's some Steam Charts.
]]>Good hello. Please, grab hold and sit, for this is some Steam Charts.
]]>Hello person. This is the Steam Charts, the weekly round-up of the top-grossing PC games on the online store Steam. We write it cynically to collect your clicks, and then we take those clicks and we use them to poke innocent orphans in their stupid orphan eyes.
]]>Playing a Total War game has always been a bit of an uphill battle on PC. With their detailed maps and densely-populated armies, they're some of the most graphically-intensive games around today - and if you've read any of the graphics card reviews I've done here at RPS, you'll know that Total War: Warhammer II is one of the regular games I use for benchmarking. Well, now we have a new big Total War in the form of Total War: Three Kingdoms, and man alive it's one fierce opponent on the old graphics performance front.
But worry not, PC foot soldiers, as I've gone and hurled every last one of today's best graphics cards (plus a couple of oldies) into battle to see what kind of performance you can expect from Total War: Three Kingdoms, as well as how to get the best settings possible to help bring that elusive frame rate of 60fps within reach. Together, we are stronger. Now we fight!
]]>In case you're running low on good feels, this news packs a healthy dose: In the last week, two players got their dying wishes answered thanks to the help of Reddit. In one of those too-rare instances of the internet being a pretty ok place, users rallied and now a 26-year-old cancer patient will get his hands on Borderlands 3 ahead of its September release. Another campaign secured an early copy of Total War: Three Kingdoms, due to come out later this week, for a player diagnosed with leukemia before he passed away Sunday.
]]>Our former John (RPS in peace) has vanished in odd circumstances, last heard claiming he'll be flying through the sky in a big metal snake, so I'm taking over this week. Not even an employee anymore and he's still making work for me.
Join me for a stroll down the hit parade to inspect last week's top-selling games on Steam.
]]>My eldest son died horribly at the Battle of Yangzhou in 198 CE. Cao Ang led a small retinue in General Xiahou Yuan’s army. Xiahou’s army was the best I had: disciplined troops, carefully selected and commanded by heroes. At Yangzhou they were mauled by a massive army of peasant rebels led by the Yellow Turban He Yi. My defeated army escaped, but He Yi challenged Cao Ang to a duel and personally killed my son. Though my son was not a great commander or, obviously, duelist, his death is a tragedy for my whole faction. Cao Ang commanded a third of the defeated army, and without a substitute general his retinue will disband. The only candidate has no military experience and has never left court: Lady Bian, the boy's mother. She assumes command in tragic, desperate circumstances; in 201 CE she will march back to Yangzhou to duel the rebel who killed her son and become my greatest general.
Total War: Three Kingdoms is a historical strategy game set during China's Three Kingdoms period. The campaign is divided into two layers: players build towns, recruit soldiers, declare war and move armies across a map of China each turn. When two opposing armies fight, players command units in real time. You're a warlord in a shattered kingdom, and every campaign begins with the same instruction: China must be united.
Three Kingdoms is the best historical strategy game in a very long series, and certainly the most dramatic and personal.
]]>WARNING: If you're reading this, there is a very strong chance you're looking at news on your favourite game. Please, it's imperative you click on to discover crucial information.
]]>By default, Total War: Three Kingdoms doesn't look like a gritty, realistic simulation of ancient Chinese warfare. Sure, the political and espionage systems make my head spin, but its heroic generals give it some of the same feel as Total War: Warhammer. Enter Records mode, an alternate, more historically accurate way to play Three Kingdoms. Creative Assembly's new mode reduces generals back to mere mortals, assigns them bodyguards to keep them safe, and makes battles a slower, more strategic affair. See how it works in the videos below, including a 23 minute battle.
]]>It’ll be a little longer before you can get to strategising, spying, and skirmishing in Total War: Three Kingdoms. Publishers Sega have announced that the next instalment in the tactics series won’t be bringing players into the ancient Chinese Han dynasty until the 23rd of May.
]]>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.
]]>Once about people in the aggregate, Total War is increasingly a series about the antics of individuals. There's something of the slippage from RTS to MOBA in how Creative Assembly has edged towards a more intimate breed of strategy, built around asymmetrical relationships between overdressed oddballs rather than mere economic considerations or the splash of army on army. Total Warhammer is the obvious play-maker there, with its vast archive of Games Workshop celebrities, but in Total War: Three Kingdoms, we may have reached a new tipping point. Where even Twarhammer's crusty old lords and heroes are more structuring devices or combat specialists than characters, Creative Assembly's latest often feels like the stabbier kind of daytime TV.
]]>Total War: Three Kingdoms is already making me paranoid, and I've not even played it yet. Spies have always been a minor part of the Total War series, but the number of options for espionage in Creative Assembly's take on ancient China is making me dizzy. Characters can leave your service under false pretence, acting as double agents after being hired by a rival faction. Play your cards right, and they can rise up the ranks, be adopted into a rival leader's family, usurp rule and even turn over control of a kingdom to you. See how it all works in the video breakdown below.
]]>War may never change, but diplomacy sure could use an overhaul in the Total War series. The upcoming Total War: Three Kingdoms is going to be shaking things up a bit, if Creative Assembly's massive two part dev-blog post on the subject is any indication. Personal relationships are going to be important if you plan on uniting China under your reign, and while two nations may be friendly, their leaders may have their own axes to grind, souring negotiations. Take a peek at the how all this 'not sending soldiers to stab people' stuff works in a pair of explanatory videos below.
]]>Let me tell you about Ed and Peter. Those aren't their real names, because they don't have any. When I spoke to Creative Assembly’s development and communications manager Al Bickham, he didn't give any to the hypothetical heroes he used to explain how relationships work in the upcoming Total War: Three Kingdoms. He did explain that one of them might be trying to kill you.
]]>An army of ten thousand makes camp for the winter, preparing to unite China as the snows thaw - Creative Assembly's Total War: Three Kingdoms finally has a release date: March 7th, 2019. Below, a new trailer introducing us to the Yellow Turban Rebellion, expendable early-game enemies in many a Dynasty Warriors game, now turned fully playable DLC faction. The Yellow Turban pack will be free for those who pre-order or buy within a week of launch.
]]>“Spearmen before archers,” I mutter to myself, as the Gamescom build for Creative Assembly's Total War: Three Kingdoms spins up. “Spearmen before archers.” In 20 years of playing Total War games set everywhere and when, from feudal Japan to medieval Europe, that magic mantra has never steered me wrong: it's the equivalent of “i before e except in c”, or “always hit the treasure chest before opening it” in Dark Souls. A Total War battle in which placing spearmen before archers doesn't at least get you through the opening five minutes is, probably, a sign that Armageddon is imminent. Will Three Kingdoms be the installment that breaks the chain and brings about the fall of civilisation?
Of course not. As the demo battle - a night-time skirmish in the mountains - begins, hundreds of uncouth sword dudes stream from a bamboo forest above the road where my army is innocently ambling along. I dutifully stretch out a welcome mat of the second century's finest polearms, slide my ranged units behind it, and watch with satisfaction as the ambushers are poked and pecked to a bloody standstill. Then I run a couple of cavalry units up the slope, and swing them round and down into the enemy's rear in the tactician's equivalent of a golf clap, scaring the other general off-map in the process. It's over in seconds, the carnage daubed lavender and orange by combusting trees and the flying lanterns that, in Three Kingdoms, stylishly telegraph the discovery of hidden units. But wait, what's that unholy trumpeting in the distance?
]]>While most of what I know about ancient Chinese history comes from the Dynasty Warriors games, that's a pretty good foundation to start with, judging by Total War: Three Kingdoms's new trailer below. We get to take a whirlwind tour of its impressively pretty campaign map, courtesy of warlord Sun Jian. If nothing else, it's very pretty, and it being rendered in-engine gives us a brief peek at what the game will look like, assuming you have a decently beefy PC.
]]>They’re climbing the walls. Hundreds of tiny warriors are using grappling hooks to scale the stone barriers of a Chinese settlement, as I look down on the battlefield from my perch at E3. I bite my lip and pretend to know what I’m doing. Yes, swordsmen, through the breach. Spear dudes, down the middle. Grappling hook men, up you go. Only stinky Romans use anything as primitive as a ladder to assault a city. But oh no, I’ve forgotten my heroes. Three horsemen that are now hundreds of metres away from the action. These units are what Total War: Three Kingdoms is all about. Special warriors, similar to the powerful hero units of the Total War: Warhammer spin-offs. I send them in and they slaughter dozens of soldiers, holding entire battalions at bay. But the enemy has one of these heroes too – Lü Bu. And he LOVES to kill.
]]>Total War: Three Kingdoms is the latest outing from Creative Assembly's series of best selling strategy games that educate you about fun historical times and places and all the different ways that you can CRUSH their people under your iron will. TW:3K is set for release in spring 2019, and transports the series to Ancient China during the reign of child Emperor Xian of Han, as I'm sure you all remember from history class. I hate to rehash 190 AD when we all know it like the back of our hands. Anyway, like you already know, the child Emperor was manipulated by regent Dong Zhou and various factions would need to rise and fall and make fragile alliances to fight back against this tyranny. You know: Total War basics.
Today, we get a look at some of the pre-alpha gameplay via a new video. They didn't have video in 190 AD. That's a fact I know. A history fact.
]]>Bad news: the launch of Total War: Three Kingdoms will come in spring 2019, pushed back from autumn 2018.
Good news: a new trailer has a selection of moving shapes, colours, and sounds that you might find comforting.
The Creative Assembly's first foray into Chinese history for their strategy series needs a little more time to finish up properly, see. Better a better game later than a wonky one sooner, right?
]]>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.
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