Creative Assembly developers make the case for Total War: Arena
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I met Creative Assembly’s James Russell and Gabor Beressy on the last day of GDC at a convention center cafe underneath Moscone North. Both men had the worn look I’d seen on most media and developers that day, the toll of five days of meetings, sessions, and interviews. After a weary greeting, the three of us slumped at a table for our last interview of GDC, while all around us workers were tearing down exhibits and overeager security guards started shooing loiterers toward the exits.
Russell is the lead designer for the Total War series, while Beressy is the series’ lead multiplayer designer and the point man on Total War: Arena. Worried we were about to be thrown out by security, I got right to the point: “So the problem I’m having is: I don’t really get how Total War: Arena is going to work."
They nodded. That’s the problem they’re facing. It’s not easy to explain how the Total War formula can be adapted to a MOBA, and anxious Total War fans are reading their own worries into the news about Arena. Russell and Beressy wanted to set things straight.
Just a hint of elephants; Creative Assembly sure know how to tease us. Even with 10 minutes of gameplay footage, showing off the invasion of Carthage by a large Roman force, formed of both land and sea units, we don't see the ancient world's tank-equivalent. We know they must be there, somewhere, chewing grass, waiting for their moment to strike, like a two tonne cruise missile with a payload of ivory death.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Total War: Rome 2 is all about the siege of Carthage, because right now 
“One of the things that was challenging about playing Empire: Total War, which was 2009, was that the starting situation for the player was quite complicated because it was set in 1700," Total War: Rome 2 lead designer James Russell told 
Total War: Rome 2 has had a budgetary pant-expansion, say Creative Assembly.
