Hot to Make Empire Total War Fun Again

Last week Creative Associates posted a video entitled 'The hereafter of Total War: 3 Kingdoms'. This short three-minute clip bade goodbye to the game, showcasing footage from across the game'due south lifecycle to sweeping dramatic music, and rounding up some fun player stats.

The video also explained that Three Kingdoms is at present "finished", the squad is looking to the futurity, and that piece of work has begun on a new strategy game too based on the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms novel. There's but i problem with all of this: Three Kingdoms isn't finished.

I don't hateful that every bit a disparagement of the game's quality, merely there are at least 2 things the game hasn't washed nonetheless. First, we know Creative Assembly planned a second expansion pack for 3 Kingdoms after The Furious Wild that was meant to build out the north of the map – it was mentioned in a dev weblog in July 2020. All of a sudden declaring that the team has "completed [their] content for Total State of war: Iii Kingdoms" suggests that something changed quite dramatically in the time since. At least Mount Vocal and the Hulao Pass were put in the right identify.

Secondly, calling Three Kingdoms complete when we don't have a campaign offset point in the actual 3 Kingdoms period, i.e the warring states of Wei, Shu, and Wu, does seem a little foreign. And that's not mentioning the other characters and events that many consider to exist vital aspects of the novel which are even so missing from the game.

Between Steam review bombing and noticeable online backlash I think at that place's ane overriding reason why players are so angry: we don't need a new game to finish what Iii Kingdoms started. In fact, I remember another game realising events and characters that could've been in Three Kingdoms actively detracts from what makes information technology adept. Dorsum when Mandate of Heaven released I wrote near how Full War: Warhammer could utilise Three Kingdoms' timeline mechanic, and I notwithstanding believe it'south an excellent tool for enriching a fundamental campaign. Why divide those stories and events between games when they could further aggrandize and complement that already bully entrada progression?

What nosotros 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 Total State of war: Warhammer 2 does through Mortal Empires. But that raises more than questions than it answers. How is this new ROTTK game going to deal with the campaign map? Are we getting a reskin like Total War: Attila's Age of Charlemagne or Rome II's Empire Divided, or will it exist more like Total War: Warhammer's DLC mini-campaigns with different maps?

Neither seems preferable to just extending the electric current game. Nosotros already have a reskin in the form of the lacklustre Viii Princes expansion, and Creative Associates stopped making those mini-campaigns to focus on bringing more content to Mortal Empires and the Great Vortex, a lesson which feels painfully relevant here.

Perhaps we will get a Total War Saga-esque game instead? That feels similar a contradiction when you consider the Saga mission statement of standalone games focused on historical snapshots. It doesn't bear the brand, but in terms of mechanically representing a period, Iii Kingdoms is already the best Full State of war Saga game ever made. Is a second instalment really going to do it more justice?

Nosotros're beingness told a game is dead, but the calibration of player response suggests otherwise

Overall, every bit Indypride points out in his video on the subject, what we lack is context. If we knew annihilation about what Three Kingdoms' future is being traded for, we might experience differently. But given that we know almost nothing, we've been left with zip merely our imaginations and a question: How, exactly, will a new and unconnected Romance of the Three Kingdoms game improve serve the stories that are left to tell versus extending the game we already have?

I, for ane, am drawing a blank. It'southward hard not to meet this as an attempt to revitalise the series' initial success with a new game rather than seeing through what was started. But if Rome II, probably the most disparaged Total War ever at launch due to its many issues, can receive DLC five years after its release, why tin't Three Kingdoms be given time to accomplish a more natural decision?

As someone with thousands of hours in Total War and over 2 hundred in Three Kingdoms solitary, I'chiliad disappointed. This game is so uniquely playful equally a historical Total War and allows for all sorts of fun campaigns, like the pacifist playthroughs made more than viable by Fates Divided, or the hero-merely Musou entrada I'm playing right now. It'southward a real shame that this new game – no thing how good it may be – won't expand and complement Three Kingdoms' existing content.

Afterwards the initial backlash that video was renamed to 'Moving on from Total State of war: Three Kingdoms' and the grief that's implied in that argument feels accurate. We're beingness told a game is dead, but what more than evidence is needed to propose the contrary than the calibration of role 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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