Following last week's leaks, the Creative Assembly have confirmed that their next game will be Total War: Rome II.
Details on the game are still somewhat sparse, but we know that the game will feature some serious graphical improvements over the previous titles in the series and, after the tight focus of Shogun 2, will be again opting for a sprawling, epic scale. This time around the game will cover all of Europe, extending further east than the original Rome: Total War map, although it will again feature many of the same factions. Whether the Roman faction will be split between three families as before has not yet been confirmed. Creative Assembly have said that the game is their biggest project to date, requiring a budget 40% larger than their biggest previous game.
The battle engine, although based on the same Warscape technology that every Total War title since Empire has employed, has received some serious upgrades. Combined-arms land-and-sea battles have been retained, but now expanded in scope for assaults on harbour cities. The above screenshot depicts the Roman fleet assaulting Carthage's harbour, whilst below shows ground forces attacking the city centre. Cities are now absolutely massive, with numerous 'points of control' that have to be secured to ensure the city's surrender. The old trick of racing to the city square and holding it for a couple of minutes is no longer possible, in a sop to both realism and the computer's AI (which used to either make the city square near-impregnable or simply abandon it for no good reason).
The Creative Assembly are also expanding the game's graphics and animation, with soldiers in units whose morale is slipping now reacting more noticeably, perhaps panicking or showing fear on their faces. Another major change is the addition of characters, people like Scipio or Cicero whose presence will affect the way affairs unfold (and perhaps make assassinations more necessary to proceed).
Total War: Rome II will be released for the PC in the latter half of 2013, er, sorry, MMXIII.
6 comments:
No surprise to you that I'm salivating over the prospect of this particular TW title.
Will be interesting to see how they handle the mechanics as far as "ruling families" goes.
Looking forward to this game, but it would be nice if they for once bothered to finish a game before releasing it. Shogun 2 still has a bunch of hic-ups.
I came.
I saw, I came again.
looks good. hopefully it comes without those pesky diplomats dying whenever you try to communicate between the different factions. :P
Oh, this looks awesome.
I just hope that, for once, they release a game that isn't a bug infested POS even after patching.
I only ever managed to finish a game of the original Rome: TW twice, out of 20 or so attempts. Something always happened to break my game, from a campaign where units were getting stuck in siege towers in every single battle, no matter if I reloaded from older saves to a campaign were the mere selection of a certain city (with my largest army inside of course) caused CTDs each and every time.
Empire was worse.
The Creative Assembly is actually on my list of gaming companies I don't spend money on anymore until they prove they're worth it again by actually finishing a product. Obsidian Entertainment is another.
Bethesda Softworks is getting a pass currently because of their promises of long term commitment to Skyrim.
I got burned by game breaking bugs quite enough in the past, thank you.
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