Creative Assembly pulled off a big stunt with Epic Games for its latest release, A Total War Saga: Troy. The game was free to keep if claimed in the first 24 hours of release.
7.5 million players have decided to claim it.
“We were optimistic but we couldn’t have predicted this level of excitement,”said Rob Bartholomew, Chief Product Officer. “It’s been incredible to work with Epic on giving this brand new release away for free.”
Epic Games will be fronting the bill for all the free copies of Troy claimed. And that’s a lot of copies. To put to some perspective based on sales numbers we covered previously- Ghost Of Tsushima sold 2.4 million copies in the first three days of launch, and Final Fantasy VII Remake recently just past 5 million copies sold milestone.
Of course, it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison- Troy is made available for free after all. But consider the numbers for a mainstream AAA game versus a relatively niche strategy game, from a spin-off series of the more famous Total War line, 7.5 million copies is a lot.
The next question is how many of that 7.5 million copies are being booted up. If even a fraction of that number loved the strategy game, that’s a massive win in bringing more interest to the genre already.
A Total War Saga: Troy takes place in the Bronze Age, in particular during the Trojan War. You are leading armies of Greek men in this game, with some elements of legends integrated in this ground strategy game with turn-based overworld mixed in the trademark large-scale real-time battles.
A Total War Saga: Troy isn’t available for free anymore, but you can get it on Epic Games Store right now, or on Steam next year.