Creative Assembly has the Total War Saga series set up for more experimental takes of the Total War series of strategy games. And the latest one, Troy, is making some interesting decisions.
For one, it’s coming to the Epic Games Store with a one-year exclusivity, a first for the Total War franchise.
The developers posted a full blog post explaining the reasoning of such a move. Here’s a quote from that:
“As developers we truly value our existing fans, but at the same time we want to reach new audiences and have as many people as possible experiencing the thrill of Total War for themselves.
“As a business that means putting Total War onto new platforms so that it can reach more players. This is part of that and in principal we’d like future Total War titles to be simultaneously available, from launch day, on as many store fronts as possible.”
The developers also assured that this is one of the experiments they are doing in line with the Total War Saga series, with the end goal is to have Total War games launch on multiple PC platforms including Steam on the same day. Having it on more platforms should give the opportunity to reach to more players.
Which leads to the other bit of the deal: on the game’s launch date of August 13, it will be free. For 24 hours Troy: A Total War Saga will be free for everyone.
This is the earliest of a promoted free game on the Epic Games Store we’ve seen, with the shortest window to claim yet. And yes, as explained in the blog post, the free-for-a-day idea came from Epic Games themselves, and they will be putting the bill and pay for it all.
Unfortunately, there are no plans to support cross-play between Epic and Steam players, and there will be no mod support on Epic- which is in the roadmap of many much-needed features on the Epic Games launcher.
Creative Assembly is well-aware of the possible backlash, and has stated on the blog post that all criticisms should be directed to the company, not to any single individual.
Troy: A Total War Saga focuses on the 20-year Trojan War period, which will see it portrayed with historical accuracy- to a degree. There are not many historical accounts that would inform all the details the game needs, so parts of Troy will see myths like Homer’s Iliad being used to portray this time period.
Troy: A Total War Saga will be out on August 13 on PC via the Epic Games Store and Summer 2021 for Steam.