25 YEARS OF EPIC BATTLES
TOTAL WAR
THE FIRST TOTAL WAR GAME WAS THE BREAKOUT HIT THAT CREATIVE ASSEMBLY NEEDED TO FREE ITSELF FROM ITS WORK-FOR-HIRE SITUATIONSHIP WITH ELECTRONIC ARTS. SINCE THEN THE SERIES HAS GONE FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH, COVERING EVERYTHING FROM THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE NAPOLEONIC WARS TO SKAVEN AND UNDEAD LORDS
KEVIN
MCDOWELL
■ Having been an artist on the Total War series since Rome, Kevin has since gone on to lead the franchise as art director at the studio.
When all is said and done,
Total War
hasn’t really changed in the 25 years it’s been around. But that’s not a criticism, not in the slightest. No, it’s a testament to the inescapable love of watching hundreds of little men hitting each other with swords, of setting up ambushes or initiating a perfectly timed cavalry charge. It’s a recognition of the perfect blend of macro and micro, of broader empire management and precise real-time battle tactics. Few gaming franchises can survive so long with their foundational gameplay at the core without a radical makeover, brand reboot or a concerted effort to diversify.
Yet to pay tribute to one of gaming’s most iconic RTS games is to also acknowledge the impressive efforts of its creator, who has been at the helm since the very first game in the series, Shogun: Total War, released in 2000. Since then it’s been adaptable, touching on broader eras of war from the Roman empire and the Age Of Discovery to more focussed periods as seen in Napoleon or Attila. It’s even reached into fantasy having turned the Total War series to the Warhammer brand, too.
Total War is a formula that has proven to work time and again but as the franchise has evolved, its developer Creative Assembly has grown alongside it.
IAN ROXBURGH
■ Total War was Ian’s passion even before joining Creative Assembly to handle their PR and marketing for Medieval. Over time he switched to design and is now game director.
SHOGUN:
TOTAL WAR
PC • 2000
■ The boom of the real-time strategy genre, and specifically Command & Conquer, was the very early starting point for what would go on to be Total War: Shogun. But with the advent of 3D graphics cards on PCs, Creative Assembly stumbled across a new perspective for the genre. It brought the camera down closer to the ground and, looking out onto the horizon, it was not unlike the same perspective a commander might have had over a battlefield. This changed the scope of the game completely, shifting Shogun from what was planned to be a ‘risk-free’ project intending to capitalise on the popularity of the RTS genre to something much grander in scale.
Further inspirations behind the game came not from videogames, but from Kurosawa movies, the Shogun TV series and even Sun Tzu’s Art Of War. That last one even inspired a gameplay element where birds could be seen flying out of a forest at locations where the enemy were waiting in ambush. The Shogun board game was also present in the office, which likely fed into the higher level strategic half of the game which was always intended from the start. With the two pieces of the game feeding into each other symbiotically, Total War as we know it was born and history was made.
KEVIN’S MEMORIES
“When I came for my interview at CA, they took me upstairs and showed me a build of Shogun running. I guess the novelty of Shogun was that with the camera you could see into the horizon, and you’re controlling these groups of men, like a proper little war game. In my sketchbook at the time, which I had with me at my interview, I had like a sketch of a game that I would really love to work on, which was pretty much the same kind of game design as Shogun, except it was Vikings and Ragnarok. I also have always been a very big fan of Japanese culture and Japanese art and everything. I was like, “My God, I gotta work at this place. This is amazing.” So it was kind of awesome to work at this company that was making this cool game even though I wasn’t planning on working on it, I was working on sports games.”
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
THE KEY ELEMENTS THAT MAKE UP A TOTAL WAR GAME
COMMAND…
■ Core to the gameplay is the high-level strategic planning and execution of the large-scale battles, where unit type, positioning and strength all factor into your success.
…AND CONQUER
■ The campaign map is where the player must expand and grow their empire in search of resources for stronger armies, advance their technology, or to just defeat opposing powers.
PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE
■ While diplomacy was weaker in the earlier games, it was still important to build alliances, trade resources and generally work to make sure you weren’t fighting battles on several fronts.
TAKING AGENCY
■ On top of diplomacy there is the Agent system, which could indeed be diplomats or assassins and spies. In later games princesses could be married off, bishops spread religion, champions boosted morale and so on.
IAN’S MEMORIES
“When I joined the company it was still gonna be called Crusader: Total War. And then 9/11 happened. I think George W Bush gave that speech going “this crusade, this war against terror”, so we couldn’t really call it that.”