Creative Assembly’s recent installments in the Total War franchise were based more in fantasy than in history. Prior to the release of Total War: Warhammer, however, the studio’s main strategy titles were based on multiple eras in ancient history such as the Roman Empire and Feudal Japan. In conjunction with the ongoing development of Total War: Warhammer II, the studio is also working on a new historical game under the umbrella title of Total War Saga.
Unlike previous historical titles in the franchise, Total War Saga focuses more on specific points in history than on an entire era, but it will still provide the same mix of turn-based and real-time gameplay. Furthermore, the games in this new series are based on the studio's past historical titles, so you can expect installments to be set during the same time asTotal War: Rome II, Empire: Total War, or even Medieval: Total War.
As it turns out, Creative Assembly already released a title akin to the Total War Saga installment in the form of the Fall of the Samurai standalone expansion, which was based on Total War: Shogun 2. The game focused on a specific point in Feudal Japan, which was mainly on the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate and the incoming influence from Western cultures, specifically with firearms.
According to Jack Lusted, the game director for the first Total War Saga title, these small snippets of history will let the development team create a more detailed and accurate backdrop. But don't worry--you can still defy history to create a new outcome for your chosen clan or army.
“They’re what I like to call table-flip moments in history, where events are in the balance and could go any number of interesting and unique ways,” he said. “This makes them a perfect fit for Total War games, where we give players the freedom to depart from the actual historical events and explore what might have happened had things gone differently. When you think of the possibilities in and around those moments, some of those really classic and inspiring moments of history, there’s vast potential. Civil wars, great conquests, rebellions and uprisings, religious movements. As with Total War traditionally, there’s an almost endless list of possibilities of time periods and settings for future Total War Saga games.”
Even with this latest announcement, Creative Assembly will juggle three massive projects at the same time. In addition to Total War: Warhammer II and the new Total War Saga titles, Lusted mentioned that another portion of the Creative Assembly team is working on a new history-based title. Details are slim at this point, but we do know that it will feature a new historical era, which Lusted said is “a huge title for [Creative Assembly].”
