On a recent trip to Creative Assembly, brand director Rob Bartholomew gave an overview of the current state of the Total War franchise. He said that the next historical Total War game will be set in “an era we haven’t tackled yet”, will include a number of “new and exciting” features, and that there might be more content for other historical games before it is released.
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As to the nature of that content, Bartholomew said it might take the form of more DLC for Attila, or possibly another small follow-up game built in the Attila engine. Reusing the engine and assets enables CA to turn out such games relatively quickly; Napoleon came out less than a year after Empire, for instance. Bartholomew was careful not to make any promises, but it’s something that CA are considering to keep historical fans happy before the next full-scale historical release.
And on that subject, Bartholomew said at the Yorkshire Games Festival last week that the next Triple-A historical game is due “in a couple of years’ time”. Besides the news that it will be set in a new era, which franchise creative director Mike Simpson confirmed when speaking to Eurogamer, this is all the ‘official’ information that we have. However, it’s clear from their rhetoric that CA have big ambitions.
Previous blogs have said “it will be huge“, and during our visit, Bartholomew said that sales of Total War: Warhammer and its DLC have exceeded expectations – the phrase “off the chart” was used. They were clear that this has enabled them to be more ambitious than ever: “We have more capability now,” Simpson told us.
We’ll have more for you tomorrow on the future of the whole Total War franchise, adding what we learned on our trip to what we knew already, and filling in the blanks with a little speculation. Check back soon.