When Will We Get a Historical Total War Again

Last calendar week Creative Assembly posted a video entitled 'The future of Total State of war: Three Kingdoms'. This curt three-minute clip bade farewell to the game, showcasing footage from across the game's lifecycle to sweeping dramatic music, and rounding upwards some fun player stats.

The video also explained that Three Kingdoms is now "finished", the team is looking to the future, and that piece of work has begun on a new strategy game as well based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel. There'southward merely i problem with all of this: 3 Kingdoms isn't finished.

I don't mean that as a disparagement of the game's quality, but there are at to the lowest degree two things the game hasn't done yet. First, we know Creative Associates planned a 2nd expansion pack for Iii Kingdoms after The Furious Wild that was meant to build out the north of the map – it was mentioned in a dev blog in July 2020. Suddenly declaring that the team has "completed [their] content for Total War: Three Kingdoms" suggests that something changed quite dramatically in the time since. At least Mount Song and the Hulao Laissez passer were put in the right place.

Secondly, calling 3 Kingdoms complete when we don't have a campaign showtime indicate in the actual 3 Kingdoms flow, i.due east the warring states of Wei, Shu, and Wu, does seem a little strange. And that's not mentioning the other characters and events that many consider to be vital aspects of the novel which are still missing from the game.

Between Steam review bombing and noticeable online backlash I call up there'southward ane overriding reason why players are so aroused: nosotros don't need a new game to finish what Three Kingdoms started. In fact, I retrieve another game realising events and characters that could've been in Iii Kingdoms actively detracts from what makes information technology good. Back when Mandate of Heaven released I wrote most how Total War: Warhammer could use Three Kingdoms' timeline mechanic, and I nonetheless believe it'south an first-class tool for enriching a fundamental campaign. Why carve up those stories and events betwixt games when they could further expand and complement that already smashing campaign progression?

What we lack is context: If we knew what Three Kingdoms' future is existence traded for, we might experience differently

We know that this new game is standalone and that it "will not connect to the first" as Full War: Warhammer II does through Mortal Empires. Simply that raises more questions than it answers. How is this new ROTTK game going to deal with the campaign map? Are we getting a reskin similar Total State of war: Attila's Age of Charlemagne or Rome II'south Empire Divided, or will information technology be more like Total War: Warhammer's DLC mini-campaigns with different maps?

Neither seems preferable to but extending the current game. We already take a reskin in the form of the lacklustre Eight Princes expansion, and Creative Assembly stopped making those mini-campaigns to focus on bringing more than content to Mortal Empires and the Keen Vortex, a lesson which feels painfully relevant hither.

Mayhap we will get a Full State of war Saga-esque game instead? That feels like a contradiction when you consider the Saga mission argument of standalone games focused on historical snapshots. It doesn't carry the make, only in terms of mechanically representing a period, Three Kingdoms is already the all-time Total State of war Saga game ever made. Is a 2d instalment really going to do information technology more justice?

We're being told a game is expressionless, but the scale of thespian response suggests otherwise

Overall, as Indypride points out in his video on the subject area, what we lack is context. If we knew anything almost what Three Kingdoms' hereafter is existence traded for, we might feel differently. But given that we know almost nothing, nosotros've been left with aught merely our imaginations and a question: How, exactly, will a new and unconnected Romance of the Iii Kingdoms game better serve the stories that are left to tell versus extending the game we already accept?

I, for one, am drawing a blank. It's hard non to see this as an effort to revitalise the series' initial success with a new game rather than seeing through what was started. But if Rome 2, probably the most disparaged Total War always at launch due to its many issues, tin can receive DLC v years after its release, why can't 3 Kingdoms be given time to reach a more natural determination?

As someone with thousands of hours in Total War and over two hundred in 3 Kingdoms lone, I'm disappointed. This game is so uniquely playful as a historical Total State of war and allows for all sorts of fun campaigns, similar the pacifist playthroughs made more viable by Fates Divided, or the hero-only Musou campaign I'k playing right now. It's a real shame that this new game – no affair how good it may exist – won't expand and complement Iii Kingdoms' existing content.

After the initial backlash that video was renamed to 'Moving on from Total War: Three Kingdoms' and the grief that'due south implied in that statement feels accurate. We're being told a game is expressionless, but what more than bear witness is needed to suggest the contrary than the calibration of player response this latest twist has caused?

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Source: https://www.pcgamesn.com/total-war-three-kingdoms/new-game

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