If you’ve played any of the Dawn of War titles, this will look very familiar. Space Marines battling against Orks with tanks colliding against Stompas, and it’s not long before the Imperium of Man brings orbital lasers into the fray. Several worlds are showcased with war raging throughout the system, and suffice it to say that diplomacy might not be much of an option.

A brief look at pre-alpha in-engine gameplay highlighted the various battles taking place on a massive scale alongside the various Chapters players can control. It’s also worth noting that two more factions – Aeldari and Astra Militarum – are also included.

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 doesn’t have a release date, but it’s coming to PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5.

In a Twitter post looking back on the first game and how it was a “dream project brought to life by a brilliant team,” creative director Al Hope said the studio has “heard your distress calls loud and clear.” The sequel is currently in early development with more details to be revealed when the team is ready.

Alien: Isolation launched in October 2014 for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC. Set 15 years after the first film, it follows Amanda Ripley as she ventures to the Sevastopol to search for her mother. Unfortunately, she runs afoul of an intelligent Xenomorph who relentlessly pursues her. Unlike other enemies, it can’t be killed, thus stealth and running away are the only options.

Alien: Isolation receive generally positive reviews at launch and sold over two million copies as of May 2015. Check out our review for more details.

Citing reliable anonymous sources, a DualShockers report claims that as of October last year, Creative Assembly was working on three Total War games. Interestingly enough, one of those games is a Star Wars spinoff. Currently, however, there’s no word on which of the three titles is the furthest along in development, and what Sega and Creative Assembly’s plan is for their release dates.

Meanwhile, this isn’t the only Star Wars game strategy fans have to look forward to. A Star Wars strategy titles is currently also in the works at Bit Reactor and Respawn Entertainment. It has yet to be fully unveiled.

Creative Assembly was one of several Sega studios to be hit with layoffs earlier this year, which was preceded by another round of job cuts following HYENAS’ cancellation last year.

The expansion is being released as three separate packs, each focusing on a different Legendary Lord for a specific faction. This include the Elspeth pack featuring the Legendary Lord Elspeth Von Draken for the Empire, the Malakai pack featuring Malakai Makaisson for the Dwarfs, and the Tamurkhan pack featuring Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord for Nurgle.

These Legendary Lords can be used in both the Total War: Warhammer 3 Realm of Chaos campaign, as well as the Immortal Empire campaign that spans a combined, gigantic map featuring factions from all three Total War: Warhammer games.

The new Legendary Lords will feature their own unique mechanics, as well as a host of new units that players can make use of throughout their campaigns.

The release of Thrones of Decay is part of Creative Assembly’s attempts to do better with its expansions when it comes to quality, quantity of content, and price. The studio had revealed plans to improve DLC offerings for the game in a blog post back in December last year.

That will entail layoffs at Total War studio Creative Assembly, mobile specialist development team Sega HARDlight, and Sega Europe. Currently, the status of other UK-based Sega-owned studios – such as Two Point Studios (Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus) and Spots Interactive (Football Manager) – is unknown.

“I want to sincerely apologise for the worry and understandable distress this news will cause, particularly for those directly affected,” Sega Europe’s newly-appointed Jurgen Post told staff. “These decisions have been incredibly tough to make, and they follow meticulous consideration and deliberation with leadership teams across the business. Change is necessary to secure the future of our games business, and to ensure that we are well placed to deliver the best possible experiences to our players going forward.

“We need to streamline, focus on what we are good at, and position ourselves as best we can for the road ahead. In order to do that, we need to respond to the changing economic landscape and the challenges we’re facing in the way we develop our products and bring them to market.”

This isn’t the first time Sega has had to resort to layoffs in recent months. Creative Assembly was impacted by job cuts last year when Sega cancelled the studio’s long-in-development multiplayer shooter HYENAS, which reportedly had the largest ever budget for a Sega title. The publisher said in the aftermath that Creative Assembly would go back to focusing on strategy games.

Earlier this month, Sega America also laid off 61 employees (roughly 13 percent of its workforce).

Meanwhile, Sega has also announced that Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment is splitting from the company and going independent.

High Tide is the first major update released for Total War: PHARAOH, and brings with it a host of new content to the game, including 2 new factions (Sherden and Peleset), more than 30 new units, and new unique mechanics to play around with.

The new mechanics now allow players to pick between different paths thanks to the new “Forge your own path” tradition. This allows players to pick either the Path of the Marauder, or the Path of the Sea Peoples. Each of the these paths come with their own unique bonuses and playstyles.

The addition of Sherden and Peleset brings the total number of playable factions up to 10, and the new factions even come with 5 new Deities, along with realm-specific pantheons of Local Deities.

Total War: PHARAOH was released on PC back in October 2023.

Total War: PHARAOH Patch 1.1.0 notes:

• Implemented various stability improvements and performance optimisations. 
• Addressed an issue causing the game to freeze when alt-tabbing in fullscreen mode. 
• Addressed several one-time crashes that could occur during the end turn phase. 
• Addressed a specific crash when a player’s general held the High Judge position in the Hittite court and would choose to adjudicate grievances in a town while said general was embarked at sea. 
• Fixed a rare crash when using the court mechanic. 
• Fixing a Lua error when clicking Force Surrender rapidly in the Thutmose panel. 
• Addressed a crash occurring when changing stances after auto-resolving a battle. 
• Addressed a potential soft-lock scenario when attempting to move an army within the zone of control of an enemy army. 
• Fixed a crash that occurred when attempting to load an Ambush Battle, which would also load a Land Battle map. 
• Resolved a rare crash occurring in the Custom Battle screen when removing units from army setups. 
• Resolved a crash occurring during the Character Development tutorial within the tutorial campaign. 
• Resolved a tutorial soft-lock issue when the player opened the Power of the Crown panel too quickly, before the legitimacy advice had commenced. 
• Addressed a soft-lock occurring on turn 10 of the tutorial, after introducing stances to the player. Now, when a character is deselected, Ramesses is highlighted, prompting the player to select him to display the text pointer and progress the game. 
• Addressed a soft-lock occurring during the tutorial campaign on turn 12. 
• Resolved performance degradation issues that could occur after extended gameplay sessions (6-8 hours). 

• Implemented a shortcut to undo a turn with <Ctrl + U>. 
• The UI scale at 4K is now limited to a minimum of 50 percent. 
• Fixed an issue where the Strategic Overlays panel disappears at maximum height when any other UI element is open. 
• Resolved the issue of screen flickering when loading a save file. 
• When incremental save is disabled, save files now adopt names generated with the historical year format (e.g., 1205 BCE) instead of the total year (e.g., 8795). 
• Resolved an issue with the map displaying the owned starting territories of other Rulers on the new game screen. 
• Addressed several visual effect issues on the campaign map. 
• Addressed the scaling issue with the Sacred Hatti land indicator on 2k/4k resolutions. 

GENERAL/GAMEPLAY

• Added new tooltips for locked features due to Shemsu Hor. 
• Corrected a minor server-side issue that was preventing the Bay Ultimate Victory achievement from being awarded. 
• Changed the required number of soldiers for the Colonize settlement option to be based on the current health of the army instead of the full health. This addresses an issue where a severely damaged army could end up with units having 0 entities. 
• Fixed an issue wherein selecting an enemy army and then your own would result in a distorted army movement range. 
• Post-Battle campaign intervention after a settlement victory now triggers correctly. 
• Addressed an issue where, in a new campaign, the starting forts of other factions would lack garrison armies until their faction’s first turn. 

CAMPAIGN AI 

• Elevated the priority of Campaign AI actions for attacking forts. 

FACTION LEADERS/TRAITS/ANCILLARIES/COMMANDMENTS 

• Suppiluliuma’s starting enemy is now shown on the faction selection map. 
• Fixed an issue with Suppiluliuma’s unique trait that prevented it from unlocking. 
• Fixed a bug where the notification on completing a royal decree after executing Bay’s Command was not displaying. 
• Included the previously omitted territory of Nekhel in Ramesses’ faction selection map, under the Neutral category in Amenmesses’ faction. 
• Excluded the Kerma region from Amenmesse’s faction selection map, as it is unrelated to him. 
• Implemented accurate 2D portraits for Ramesses in his prime skin. 
• Corrected the Underhanded trait to be appropriately awarded when sacking a shrine. 
• Added an indicator for ancillaries that cannot be equipped. 
• Damascus’ starting army was relocated from Sedad to Damascus, slightly easing Irsu’s initial starting position in accordance with the original design. 
• Adjusted the available commandments in the province of Ugarit and reduced the negative happiness impact of Irsu’s unique commandment. 
• The Royal Gardens Commandment now correctly affects coastal port settlements, aligning with the design intent. 
• Fixed the events list in the Faction Summary panel. 

SETTLEMENTS/BUILDINGS 

• Improved both the quantity and quality of garrison units provided by Main and Garrison buildings in settlements. 
• Added a clearer scope effect for the Ramesses command bonus provided by the Military Academy building. 
• Irsu will no longer have access to a Smuggler’s Market building in Ugarit, as intended. 
• Enhanced the information displayed by the Corvee Labour button in the settlement panel. 
• Resolved the issue that disabled the Save button when razing a settlement on the first turn of the campaign. 

DIPLOMACY 

• The warning for issuing an ultimatum will now display the penalties the player will suffer in both cases: when the AI accepts the ultimatum (no war) and when it rejects it (war erupted). Previously, it only showed the penalties in the case where the AI accepted the ultimatum. 
• Pretender and Ruler factions will no longer be valid targets for vassalization or confederation. 
• Corrected a bug where invading armies would occasionally fail to declare war on the player and other factions. 
• Fixed an issue where the Forced Annexation tooltip was not initialized when the Diplomacy panel was opened via a double-click on a faction. 
• Implemented a change so that clicking the end-turn notification for Barter Expired now directs the player to the Treasury panel instead of initiating diplomacy with the other faction. 
• Raised the default campaign map zoom level in the Diplomacy Panel to display the 2D strategic map upon the panel opening. 

COURT 

• The first batch of AI plots for each Shemsu Hor is now limited to level 3, as intended. 
• The Embezzle and the Assassinate plot now start at a higher level if Pharaoh wears the Pschent crown, aligning with the intended design. 
• Fixed an issue where the Strongarm request boosts were incorrectly triggering threaten plots against you when you didn’t have any of your own. 
• Removed the negative diplomacy event for visiting settlements with Court actions. 
• Updated the tooltip for the Threaten plot to include information about the requirement to pay for claiming the position. 

ROYAL DECREES 

• The Enlightened Society effect no longer applies when converting a Temple. 

LOCAL DEITIES 

• The Local Deities UI now showcases the cultural attributes of the selected god. 
• In the animation of the newly discovered gods, you can now click on individual gods, and it will direct you to their corresponding panel in the UI. 

• Implemented overlays and scripted tours for the Local Deities feature. 
• Adjusted the prayer effects of Anubis to reduce their impact on lowering enemy morale. 
• Resolved a bug where the Devoted General status was not updating correctly after being wounded and rehired. 

ANCIENT LEGACY 

• Added feature-unlocked alert icons for the HUD buttons. 

Akhenaten 

• Fixed an issue where certain effects were displaying as unique for the different tiers. 

Hatshepsut 

• Pamuna the Digger now correctly grants income from mines. 
• Updated the Workforce Growth granted by items to make them more impactful. 
• Quality Miner’s Hammer now also grants wood income from Ports. 
• Removed redundant UI elements for Items in Expedition’s Cart on the left panel. 
• Addressed a bug where the player was unable to end an expedition when no general was available, even if the item could be converted to an Effect/Resource; the option to receive ancillaries in the faction pool has also been added. 
• Resolved an issue where players were unable to end an expedition if they did not own any cities. 
• Addressed an issue wherein converting an item with no generals alive incorrectly allowed you to gain both the resource and ancillary. 

Khufu  

• Completing all the stages of construction now displays the proper visual in the Khufu panel if a wonder Outpost has been damaged. 
• Added a UI indication for Ancient Legacy Khufu when the wonder’s slot has been occupied by another building. 
• Fixed the texture of the pyramidion on the Black Obelisk. 

• Resolved an issue where siege equipment was missing when attacking a wonder that had its settlement razed and occupied by another faction. 
• Wonders in Khufu the Builder now accurately grant 16 Legitimacy when the province they are in does not have a high influence of the building’s owner. 
• Resolved a bug in Khufu’s UI where the progress of stages would display incorrect information when the player switches from wonder A to wonder B and then back to A. 

Muwatalli 

• Fixed a bug where the tooltip for Embed Informant incorrectly stated that the Embed Informant action was free to use, courtesy of Expert Builders, instead of Hidden Informants. 

Tudhaliya 

• Fixed a bug where Princely Authority was not showing a tooltip when neutral or negative. 

Tuthmose 

• Corrected a text string to accurately specify that certain units are now added to Special Recruitment, not as reinforcements in battle as previously stated. 
• Corrected another string to accurately specify that the effects will be applied to the target city’s owner faction, not to the target city itself. 
• The Train Natives conquest action button now properly provides +20 Melee Defence (reinforcing army). 

OUTPOSTS 

• Fixed an issue where the construction of the Egyptian Outpost did not provide an extended line of sight for the region. 
• Added new visual effects for when an Outpost is razed or an empty Outpost under construction is destroyed. 
• Fixed an event feed message that incorrectly stated that a settlement has been besieged instead of the outpost being besieged. 
• Resolved an issue where an army that besieged a fort would persist in the Laying Siege state even after the settlement was razed. 
• Addressed an issue with action point replenishment when interacting with an Outpost from a very short distance. 

UI/UX 

• Implemented a number of UI enhancements, addressing various visual, text (incl. localisation) and hyperlink inconsistencies, bugs, and missing elements in tooltips and interfaces. 
• Fixed a bug where the settlement garrison UI incorrectly displayed full HP for the garrison units when they were damaged. 

• Fixed a bug where the Common Small Shield ancillary was missing from the pre-battle screen icon list. 
• Fixed an issue with the faction summary panel for Kurunta where the Encyclopaedia entry for Kurunta (deity) would not open properly. 
• Fixed an issue where toggling the flavour text information panel for a unit in the Encyclopaedia would cause the flavour text for units in other panels to disappear. 
• Removed incorrectly used Unique text in the title’s tooltip. 
• Fixed an issue where the Confederation cooldown information was missing from the Quick Deal Confederation button. 
• Fixed a bug that prevented the display of Pharaoh Powers on the settlement panel when opened by selecting an Outpost. 
• Fixed an issue where there was a -1 legitimacy per turn for categories that were empty and did not provide any legitimacy in the Power of the Crown panel. 
• Help Overlays have been added to the Power of the Crown, Pillars of Civilization, and Settlements panels. 
• Added “This settlement/outpost doesn’t have a garrison” to the tooltips for garrisons with 0 units. 
• Resolved an issue where the Vassalize button in Diplomacy Quick Deals would not immediately appear after a player joined a Civil War. 
• Corrected a misleading effect condition in the Chief Fletcher Title tooltip – it now accurately states that all bowmen will receive the ammunition increase. 
• Fixed the description of the Lawgiver’s discounts in the Hittite court. 
• Fixed dilemmas for the High Judge to properly show up in the Court UI. 
• The Read More button in the Royal Traditions panel now correctly states Select for each tradition. 
• Clicking on the Ancient Legacy icon in the Faction Summary panel now correctly opens the corresponding Ancient Legacy panel or the Legacy Selection panel. 
• Resolved an issue where the movement range indicator failed to display after winning a sally-out battle. 
• Resolved an issue where, at times, the offer to be subjugated was incorrectly placed in the Negotiations panel instead of the demand to Subjugate. 
• Tooltips of gods in the Local Deities UI will now showcase their highest tier effects. 
• Resolved the issue with restoring the Character Details panel when it has been temporarily hidden. 

CAMPAIGN CUSTOMISATION 

• Campaign customization settings listed under the General tab now correctly feature a notification informing the player that they cannot be saved as part of setting presets. 
• Fixed an issue where turning off the Ironman campaign customization option from inside a campaign would not revert the Battle Realism mode setting back to its state before Ironman had been turned on. 
• Resolved an issue where the Faction Discovered event message, with Random Faction Starting Position enabled, would occasionally point to the wrong location on the map. 
• Addressed an issue where, with Random Faction Starting Positions enabled, Akhenaten could be owned by the faction leader at the beginning of a new campaign. 
• Added explanatory text to several campaign customization strings to notify users that if an option is modified during play, it will take effect on the following turn. 
• Implemented a check for the campaign customization option Faction Destruction to ensure proper execution upon enabling. 
• Rebalanced the campaign customization option for Disaster Frequency across various states of the world. 
• Corrected the campaign customization option for Ranged Units Ammunition Capacity to accurately apply percentages. 
• Resolved issues with the campaign customization option for Unit Replenishment to ensure it functions as described. 

GENERAL 

• Standards now use the same colours as the banners. 
• Fixed a bug where a routing unit would trigger a flank, negatively impacting Defence. 

ARMOR DURABILITY 

• Reworked armour durability to now be affected differently with various weapons and projectiles, and to scale properly with unit size changes. 

BATTLE AI 

• Changed how the AI deploys in Land Battles. Now, the AI will spread out its army and will aim to have a core of front-line units with chariots and flankers on the sides and archers on either the front or the back, depending on the specific composition of the army. 
• Fixed a pathfinding issue on ladders when reversing direction. 

• Routing units on the defending side in a Siege Battle will not necessarily flee toward the nearest gate. 
• Fixed an issue where regular arrows could be fired at the ground; this capability is now limited to fire arrows, aligning with the intended design. 
• Enemy units can now use a gate if it is open, but not destroyed. 
• Fixed a bug where entities would not move as a single unit when ordered to climb siege equipment. 
• Units will no longer pursue routing units if there are other enemies in close proximity. 
• Changed how the AI deploys their armies to align with the intended design. This includes establishing proper front and back lines, correct positioning of units, and more. 
• Improved how the AI reinforcements use the vehicles left by the player when attacking a walled settlement. 
• Missile units will not be initially assigned to siege equipment if a sufficient number of melee units are available at the start of the battle. 
• Improved pathfinding for faster unit climbing on enemy siege ladders. 
• Resolved a bug where AI units would erroneously switch between tactics and states when their sole siege ladder was destroyed. 
• Fixed a bug where units would automatically pursue enemies exiting the settlement. 
• Enhanced AI gate defence mechanisms. 
• Resolved a bug where the AI was deploying in an excessively narrow formation during Land Battles. 
• Fixed a rare bug where the AI left only one ranged unit as a reserve in Siege Battles. 
• The AI will now react faster to taking missile damage when sallying out.  
• The AI will now prioritize gate attacks even without a ram when it possesses an abundance of units, but an insufficient number of ladders or siege towers. 
• Fixed a bug where the AI overlooked the presence of attacker reinforcements when deploying to defend a walled city. 
• Enhanced AI scouting during Land Battles when the player is hidden. 
• Fine-tuned AI group formations during line defence to align with the intended design. 
• The attacking AI will now strategically split chariots between gates and wall breaches during deployment. 
• Resolved an issue where the AI general was assigned to operate the battle ram. Now, they will refrain from doing so if there are other melee units present. 

BALANCE ADJUSTMENTS BASED ON COMMUNITY-DRIVEN FEEDBACK OR INITIAL DESIGN OBJECTIVES 

• Unit Morale system has been slightly reworked to now consider individual entity health when counting overall losses.  
• Altered the morale progression of unit tiers to have smaller bonuses on lower tiers and higher bonuses on higher tiers, due to morale now being more susceptible to overall impact and ensuring that standard 1-on-1 engagements now align with the originally intended pacing. 
• Increased the damage caused by fire. 
• Increased the range at which buildings can catch fire from each other. 
• Reduced the HP of General entities. 
• Reduced the size of chariot collision to align more closely with their models; decreased the masses of all chariots by approximately 10%. 
• SWORD UNITS 
  • Increased AP Damage by ~10% across all tiers. 
  • Increased Melee Attack by 4. 
  • Increased Melee Defence by 2. 
  • Reduced Charge Bonus by 2. 
• KHOPESH UNITS 
  • Increased Melee Defence by 3. 
  • Reduced Charge Bonus by 1. 
  • Set Bonus vs. Shields for all tiers to 4. 
• ONE-HANDED SPEAR UNITS  
  • Increased Total Damage by ~10% across all tiers. 
  • Increased AP Damage by ~5% across all tiers. 
  • Increased Melee Attack by 1. 
  • Increased Melee Defence by 2. 
  • Increased Bonus vs. Large by 5. 
• ONE-HANDED AXE UNITS 
  • Reduced AP DMG by ~10% across all tiers. 
  • Reduced Melee Attack by 2. 
  • Reduced Melee Defence by 2. 
  • Increased Charge by 1. 
  • Set Bonus vs. Shields for all tiers to 5. 
• ONE-HANDED CLUB UNITS 
  • Increased Total Damage by ~20% across all tiers. 
  • Reduced AP Damage by ~40% across all tiers. 
  • Reduced Melee Attack by 1. 
  • Reduced Melee Defence by 2. 
  • Reduced Charge by 3. 
• TWO-HANDED AXE UNITS 
  • Reduced Total DMG by ~10% across all tiers. 
  • Reduced Melee Attack by 5. 
  • Reduced Melee Defence by 5. 
  • Increased Charge by 2. 
  • Set Bonus vs. Shields for all tiers to 7. 
• TWO-HANDED CLUB UNITS 
  • Reduced Total Damage by ~5% across all tiers. 
  • Reduced AP Damage by ~40% across all tiers. 
  • Reduced Melee Attack by 5. 
  • Reduced Melee Defence by 4. 
  • Reduced Charge by 3. 
  • Increased Armour Degradation from successful hits by ~50%. 
• TWO-HANDED SPEAR UNITS 
  • Increased Total Damage by ~25% across all tiers. 
  • Increased AP damage by ~5% across all tiers. 
  • Increased Melee Attack by 1. 
  • Reduced Melee Defence by 2. 
  • Increased Charge by 2. 
  • Increased Bonus vs. Large by 5. 
• Increased Base and AP Damage for all missile units by ~10% across all tiers. 

UNIT ABILITIES 

• Slightly changed the text of the Furious Charges attribute to provide more specific information. 
• Fixed a bug where the Heedless Charger ability would trigger prematurely when the unit was attacking a gate. 
• Corrected the position of the standard bearer entity when the unit is in the Redoubt formation. 
• Fixed an issue where the effects of the Aim True and Blot Out the Sun abilities would incorrectly appear as negative. 
• Addressed a bug where the attribute Charge Reflect wouldn’t appropriately increase the mass of a unit when bracing. 
• Fixed an issue where units were sometimes not bracing, resulting in a lack of the mass multiplier effect for being in a braced formation. 

UNIT STANCES 

• Improved backward reform of units in the Advance stance when changing the destination to ensure that no men are left behind. 
• Fixed an issue where ordering a unit in Redoubt to switch to the Advance/Retreat stance would stop the stance once the unit had reformed. 
• Reduced the fatigue cost of the Fall Back stance. 
• Fixed an issue where certain entities in the Give Ground/Fall Back/Retreat stances failed to reform with the rest of the unit when changing the direction of the stance. 
• Added a missing animation for Nubian spearmen when executing the Spear Wall Formation. 
• Resolved a bug where, after players ordered their ranged units to engage in melee, the units would subsequently retreat with skirmish mode enabled. 

CHARIOT IMPROVEMENTS 

• Improved chariot behaviour and collision mechanics to prevent them from getting stuck with each other. 
• Enhanced various aspects of chariot collision damage. 
• Decreased the delay that chariots experience when given a move order. 
• Chariots now incur weather damage during sandstorms in alignment with the intended design. 
• Chariots will now refrain from firing beyond their displayed range when caught in range-reducing weather. 
• Skirmisher Kaskian Chariots will now have drivers. 

ANIMATIONS 

• Fixed a few issues with multiple unit animations. This includes addressing problems observed when units climb down ladders, hold two-handed weapons, and resolves instances of a flag clipping through the ground during death animations. 
• Resolved several intersection issues in matched combat animations. 
• Fixed an issue where archer entities on walls would stop shooting if hit by an enemy missile, preventing them from falling on the ground as intended. 
• Resolved the issue of characters rising from their grave in the post-battle screen after being killed. 
• Addressed an issue where, during certain animations, an additional weapon would appear on the back of some Generals during battle. 

DYNAMIC WEATHER 

• Ranged units now have their range affected by all weather types. 
• Fixed an issue where unit morale effects from weather or victory points were incorrectly displayed as being affected by an ability. 

ENVIRONMENT 

• Addressed multiple visual issues, encompassing terrain gaps and misplaced or misaligned assets, as well as battle catchment areas in various maps. 
• Fixed multiple texture issues. 
• Resolved the water plane intersection issues in various maps. 
• Fixed LOD issues on the Mennefer battle map when using LOW graphics settings. 
• Fixed an issue where fire can spread inside the settlement if the terrain in front of the walls has been ignited (all major settlements). 
• Fixed a bug where units defied physics by merging with a cliff on the Ra-Ked city walls. 
• Flattened the terrain in front of wall pieces to resolve issues with ladders docking onto the wall. 
• Fixed a bug where Pharaoh’s Bluff map would have the wrong deployment zones. 

BATTLE UI  

• Fixed an issue where unit effects from victory points did not display the effect source. 
• Fixed tooltips from cutting off icons. 
• Reworded the text in the Morale Penalty panel to explicitly state that the defender will incur the penalties that follow. 
• Longer combat status texts in unit tooltips will now be displayed in a single row. 
• Fixed a bug where the battle effects/phases tooltip displayed a large empty space if there was no label for the applied effect. 
• Removed redundant buff/debuff tooltips from Unit IDs in battle. 
• Fixed a bug where capturing a tower victory point would display the wrong notification. 
• Resolved a bug where swapping 2D and 3D unit cards during battle was not functioning properly. 
• Resolved an issue where the Skirmish Mode button was missing.

• Resolved an issue in the Multiplayer head-to-head campaign where, if one player is a vassal of the other, they were unable to take command of battles against the opposing player, leading to AI control instead. 
• Addressed an issue in the Multiplayer campaign where the player awaiting their turn would not see the panel notifying them that it is not currently their turn upon loading. 
• Resolved an issue where the faction summary button was not being greyed out when it was not the player’s turn. 
• Fixed a multiplayer campaign issue where if the second player selected anything on the campaign map, panels would incorrectly open during the matched combat post-battle scene of the other player. 

BATTLE 

• Adjusted the price of all non-bodyguard chariots in Custom and Multiplayer battles, increasing it by approximately 100 to align with the intended design. 
• Reformatted and centred the text indicating which players are ready and when the battle will commence.
• The Looking for Match indicator in Quick Battle will now maintain consistent positioning across various resolution settings and screen ratios. 
• Added the Gates of Order siege battle map to Custom and Multiplayer battles. 
• Removed the Realism section from the list of battles. 

• Deactivated the Battle Time Limit option when Auto-Resolve All Battles is enabled on the Custom Battle screen. 
• Resolved an issue where bodyguard equipment in Custom Battles were lacking weight class icons. 
• Activated Battle Advice functionality for Custom Battles. 
• Resolved an issue where setting Predicted Weather to Random could trigger a Sandstorm in maps that don’t have the Sandstorm weather option. 
• Resolved an issue where the pre-battle balance of power occasionally displayed inaccurate predictions. 

• Addressed an issue where the game failed to generate start-of-turn saves if the player had played the Tutorial campaign first. 
• The objective step to select a settlement before hiring a General now appears as intended. 
• Addressed the issue where Amurappi remained idle in the Tutorial after being respawned. 
• Removed advice for achieving the title of Great King for Suppiluliuma, as he already begins with this status. 
• Merneptah is now restricted from vassalizing enemy factions during the Tutorial campaign to prevent potential blockers. 
• Selecting Guide Me in the Tutorial prompt and then navigating to Options will no longer cause the Confirm button in several menus to remain highlighted. 
• Changed the Advisor information trigger for Pillars of Civilizations from the Turn Start to the Opening Pillars of Civilisation panel. 

UI 

• The advisor text for Minor Settlement Battles no longer includes a line linking to the Encyclopaedia. Instead, the Encyclopaedia button has been added to the top right corner of the advice box. 

• Nekhel now has a disaster VFX on turn 2. 
• The Tutorial ping indicator will now showcase distinct icons based on the context of the Tutorial step. 
• A text pointer reminder has been added for the player to rebuild Neb-Gehes after its colonization. 
• The objective to open the Power of the Crown is now triggered when the pulsing highlight on its button begins. 
• Information regarding capturing Victory Points is now updated in the info texts. 
• The Local Deities campaign intervention can now be closed, no longer hindering the player from effectively choosing a deity to worship. 
• Resolved an issue where highlights over Campaign Advisors would not disappear as intended.

PHOTO MODE 

• Fixed restoration of environment parameters after exiting Photo Mode. 
• Addressed the issue of the Sun Disk reloading when changing environments in Photo Mode. 

AUDIO/CINEMATICS 

• Addressed a few minor audio and sound bugs. 
• Fixed VO lines for Outpost Campaign Advice. 
• Resolved an issue where cinematics were not saving to the Movie Viewer.

“It has been a difficult few months, and we recognize that we have made mistakes when it comes to our relationship with you all,” says the statement. “It’s been a constant conversation internally on how we can get back to solid ground. What’s clear is that it won’t be easy and that it will take time and effort.”

“We see the confusion, the frustration, and the distrust of us across the community and honestly, it breaks our hearts. We make games to bring you joy, to inspire a love of history, of fantasy, and strategy games. Total War is our everything, we care about it as deeply as you. Recently, it’s clear that we have failed to demonstrate that in our actions.”

As part of its plans going forward, Creative Assembly has announced that Total War: PHARAOH players on Steam will notice a partial refund having been processed, with funds being added to players’ Steam Wallet. This is due to Total War: PHARAOH getting a price cut down to $39.99. The first planned DLC for the game will also be released for free in early 2024.

Going forward, Total War: PHARAOH will also see incremental updates. Plans regarding these updates, which will bring in new features like expanded campaign map size and new factions, will be revealed once the new year rolls in.

Total War: Warhammer 3, on the other hand, will see an ongoing series of updates. With complaints having stemmed from the last DLC for the game, Shadows of Change, being considered not worth its asking price because of a lack of content, the studio has announced a major update for the DLC. Slated for release in February 2024, the update will flesh out the Shadows of Change DLC.

This also means that the planned Thrones of Decay DLC, originally set for a Winter 2023 release window, will now instead be released in April 2024. The studio says that it wants to ensure that Thrones of Decay doesn’t repeat the mistakes of Shadows of Change.

“Where we make mistakes in this next part of our journey, we’ll work hard to act faster to address them, to iterate whilst we learn from those moments, and to always be taking steps in the right directions,” says the studio. “We hope that you can find patience for us as we find our footing again, and we hope in the coming months we can prove to you with actions along with words.”

Total War: PHARAOH and Total War: Warhammer 3 are both available on PC.

During Sega Sammy’s recent quarterly earnings call, CEO Haruki Satomi touched on the topic of the shooter’s cancellation, and implied that Creative Assembly – a studio that has traditionally had expertise in offline-focused and real-time strategy games – was unable to convincingly transition to working on a live service multiplayer shooter. Now, following HYENAS’ cancellation, Satomi says Creative Assembly (and other Sega studios) will once again focus on their strengths.

“Each studio has its own strengths and weaknesses, but the favorable winds of the early COVID-19 period, coupled with the strong performance of each title, led us to adopt a strategy of accelerating more, even in areas where those studios have not tried yet for further growth,” Satomi said (transcription via VGC). “However, some studios did well and some did not, so we have decided to focus again on the strengths of each studio.

“To put it simply, Creative Assembly was good at offline games in the RTS genre, but they took on the challenge of developing HYENAS, an online game in the FPS genre.

“However, although the game itself was good, we decided to cancel the development of HYENAS because we did not think it would reach a quality that would satisfy our users when we considered whether we could really operate this as a competitive online game for a long period of time.”

Following HYENAS’ cancellation it was claimed that the game had the largest ever development budget for a Sega title, but struggled with behind-the-scenes production issues like a lack of clear direction from the leadership a switch in engines partway through development.

As its name might imply, Total War: PHARAOH takes place in ancient Egypt. The game features three distinct factions based on Bronze-Age Cultures: the Egyptians, the Hittites, and the Canaanites. Each of the three factions has multiple options for leaders, and features distinct play styles, ranging from a focus on infantry during battles, to more diplomatic options.

Total War: PHARAOH also features the new Campaign Customisation feature, which gives player a greater level of control to decide just how their campaign will play out. Options include random starting positions, settings for resource distribution, and the ability to toy with natural disasters.

For players new to the franchise, the title also features a new tutorial system that teaches the game’s basic and more advanced mechanics.

However, it seems development faced more than its share of issues. YouTuber Volund spoke to anonymous former developers who revealed a lack of direction, with much of the leadership “asleep at the wheel.” An alleged engine change “part way” through the process and “not committing to do anything adventurous” despite entering a saturated market. VGC corroborated all this with its sources.

It gets even worse – former developers also revealed to the site that this was reportedly the biggest budget for a Sega game (which Volund also heard). Such was the alleged importance of the project, that “towards the end, there were people from Sega Japan more or less permanently at the UK office,” according to a developer.

“This has NEVER happened the whole time I’ve worked at Creative Assembly,” the developer said. “They occasionally visited and checked how a game was looking, but as I said previously, generally hands-off.”

Creative Assembly’s layoffs also allegedly involved cutting those from departments that weren’t involved with the shooter, with frustration towards leadership. VGC reached out to Sega for an official comment, so we’ll see what it has to say in the future (if anything) about the same.