Gather Your Party

I played Rome: Total War when it released in 2004, and at first I thought it would just be another strategy game, but I gave a good chunk of my life away to that game, especially after playing the Barbarian Invasion expansion. Strategy games prior to Rome: Total War accurately portrayed historical battle scenarios, where you could control an outnumbered, or losing army and attempt to win.

If you haven’t read, seen or heard about the news, The Creative Assembly has announced the release of Total War: Rome II for PC slated for a 2013 release. The screenshots of the game are few, but they are enough to show off that this game is eye candy.

In an interview with vg247.com’s Stephany Nunneley, the lead designer of Total War: Rome II Jamie Russell explains how the game will be more close-up. In the interview Russell emphasizes that “It’s all about a darker vision of war. We want the combat to feel more brutal, more visceral. And we want the form-combat to really get a sense of that Roman war machine, that unique fighting style of the Roman meat grinder legions.”

In the Interview with Nunneley, Russell hinted at political rivalries in the game whether they should “save the Republic or become Emperor.” This does give way to the involvement of political intrigue, which could be interesting. The feature of family in the original game was both a neat concept, but also an annoyance- in the campaign your family members were rated in their ability, and unless you put a family member in a settlement to rule, you couldn’t select which buildings and units could be produced, which became a little frustrating. That in combination with not having any sort of control in your family development was completely random, made it a good concept that needed some tweaking.

Below is the Live Action Trailer of Total War: Rome II.

The trailer obviously doesn’t give much information on gameplay, but it does give an idea of political intrigue that will be featured in the game. If Creative Assembly can refine the family feature from the original game, and incorporate political intrigue and espionage, Total War: Rome II could make for an immense gaming experience.

PC Gamer’s Chris Thursten’s interview with Russell tells us about the level of detail, and new graphics engine featured in Rome II.

There are few things that could be done to improve Total War: Rome II, but one thing I would like to see is the addition of playing more factions. The expansions did provide more factions to play with, but it would be a nice touch to play as a barbarian horde of Vandals or Huns early in the campaign and storm the gates of Rome.

The PC Requirements for the game aren’t out yet, but if you played Rome: Total War, you have an idea that this game is going to push your PC build to the limit.