Ancient Egypt has always felt like an obvious home run for historical strategy games, yet Total War Pharaoh proved very divisive at launch. An overall feeling of tiredness with the TW formula, combined with a particularly low point in the perception of the ongoing Total War Warhammer 3's DLC rollout, severely impacted the new game's reception. With TWW3 now having redeemed itself, developer Creative Assembly has turned its attention to Pharaoh, and is deploying a huge, free update packed with new factions, units, and combat improvements.
CA community manager Steve Coleman and lead game designer Milcho Vasilev sit down in a new video to outline all the new features coming in the strategy game is built on. With 150 new and reworked units alongside 60 new and reworked maps, there's a ton of fresh additions here, too.
The biggest change to combat revolves around a new system, lethality. Essentially, this acts as a percentage chance on all unit attacks for any given blow to be outright lethal. It applies across melee and ranged units, and everything in the game has been adjusted to include this stat, which comes with a selection of new finishing animations.
Alongside this comes a rework to missile weapons. While archers previously favored dramatic, high, arcing shots, Vasilev notes that in actual combat, lower-angle arrows can offer much more effective results in some conditions. As such, trajectories have been made more dynamic, allowing for a mix of higher-lethality straight shots and bombardments from high above.
Visibility has also been changed, giving you more ways to outmaneuver your foes by keeping units hidden. The biggest adjustment is that forests and other battlefield obstacles will now block sight of units that are on the far side of them, rather than just those ing through the trees. In addition to this, units wearing heavier armor that affords less vision will have greater trouble spotting enemies approaching them from the flanks.
Then there's the hefty round of new inclusions. This includes all the battle maps from Troy: A Total War Saga – in particular, the City of Babylon itself – and many of the units, all of which have been reworked to suit the style and pacing of Pharaoh. These are mostly spread across the four new Total War Pharaoh factions.
The region of Mesopotamia is split between the Assyrians, who favor elite units ed by cavalry, and the Babylonians, who favor cheap, numerous forces. Over by the Aegean Sea, you'll encounter the Trojans, excelling in their defensive stoicism and boasting "almost unbreakable lines," and the Mycenaeans, who charge in with aggressive shock units that hit hard but can't hold out for long, sustained engagements.
Total War Pharaoh Dynasties launches on Thursday July 25 as a free update for all players. You can also pick up Total War Pharaoh at a 30% discount through Tuesday July 30, meaning you'll pay just $26.79 / £20.09 if you decide to pick it up now.
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