Is it just me or have all of the recent historical Total War games sucked. Even though Sega has produced fantastic new releases into the Total War franchise with games such as the Warhammer trilogy, their recent historical games track record has been pretty lacking.
This whole debate about Sega and the Total War franchise’s shift from strictly historical Total War games to mostly fantastical Total War games deserves an entire article on its own, so I’ll keep my complaints brief (for now). But, it’s pretty obvious that the Total War historical games have seen a massive drop off in quality as the Total War fantastical games have risen in popularity and demand from consumers.
Before Sega even thought about putting the Total War and Warhammer franchises together, the biggest and most popular games were always historical ones (obviously as they were the only ones that existed).
Whether one was a fan of Total War: Medieval 2 (my favorite), Total War: Rome 1, Total War: Medieval 1, Total War: Shogun 2, Total War: Attila, or even Total War: Rome 2 (yes, those people exist), the genre was always the same: historical.
Then came 2016 and some huge announcements…Sega was making and releasing a Total War game set in the Warhammer universe.
I, like many other people, were thrilled with this news as the prospect of a universe as vast and rich as Warhammer being translated into a Total War game was not only revolutionary and fantastic, but it also promised to boast of some of the most innovative game mechanics the series had ever released.
And, to all our enjoyment, the game more than delivered what it promised as it was a massive success, which has inspired the two newest releases.
Though, in the midst of Total War: Warhammer 2 (2017) and Total War: Warhammer 3’s (2022), respective, releases, Sega has not completely shunned the historical nature of the franchise and the millions of fans who only play said games as they developed three historical games in between the two releases: Total War Saga: Thrones of Britianna (2018), Total War: Three Kingdoms (2019), and Total War Saga: Troy (2020).
Unfortunately, these games were universally ranked as busts (by Total War’s lofty standards), with Troy and Thrones of Brittiana currently sharing the worst Total War game ranking on Metacritic with a score of 75/100. Now, that’s not a bad score by most companies’ standards, but it is when it is a brand-new entry into the Total War franchise.
Simply put, the Total War franchises has been built on one constant, driving factor these last 22 years: excellence.
(Game Source: Sega/Image Source: GameSpot-Total War: Warhammer 1-Karl Franz of the Empire Trailer)
All Total War games must be excellent and of the highest quality and caliber for them to be considered ‘successful’ by both the fans and Sega alike. So, when new games like Troy and Britianna have the worst Metacritic rankings out of the 16 Total War games, there’s obviously a problem at hand.
And it is an even bigger problem when you realize that the Warhammer trilogy has not been plagued with said quality issue as all three games in the trilogy have an at least an 86 (with Warhammer II and III at 87) Metacritic score.
Thus, this problem cannot be attribute to standards drop by Sega or the Total War franchise as a whole as that would be an inaccurate assessment. Rather, this should be looked at with the perspective that Sega may (key word here) be neglecting the historical game community in favor of the fantasy game community, which has brought about an enormous increase of sales and relevancy to the studio.
I mean, you can’t say the Warhammer trilogy hasn’t been a huge money-maker when Total War: Warhammer III has already sold 40M+ copies (at $59.99/game) in under nine months.
Anyway, this whole conversation needs a much bigger deep dive and investigation into it than I have the time for at the moment. Give me a few weeks and I’ll have a much more detailed ‘report’ (as if I’m some sort of CIA agent) about this worrying trend.
In the meantime, I’m going to get back to playing some more Warhammer 3. Karl Franz and Deathclaw won’t wait around forever.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Game Source: Sega/Image Source: GameSpot) (Total War: Warhammer – Karl Franz of the Empire Trailer – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Game Source: Sega/Image Source: GameSpot) (Total War: Warhammer – Karl Franz of the Empire Trailer – YouTube)
