14 DAY TRIAL // The Total War series has been successful because of the way it managed to use technology to re-create some of the most interesting conflicts in the history of mankind. When the first game in the series, Shogun, which now seems crude and limited, arrived, it managed to really make the player believe that he was a Japanese feudal warlord, through little touches like the war room of the ability to cut off the head of a diplomatic envoy.
Now Empire: Total War, the fourth game in the series, aims to bring the same feeling of immersion when it comes to the age of nation building and constant warfare that was the Europe of the XVIII and XIX centuries. As technology has advanced, the team can do much more than offer atmosphere through clever and minor elements. It can now provide immersion directly through gameplay.
One of the clearest changes from the previous game, one facilitated by the new game engine, is that of animations. Even if Medieval 2 Total War introduced individuality to the soldiers and a sense of uniqueness to each engagement between regiments, Empire will take the duel between two individual soldiers to a whole different level.
The people at Creative Assembly, like Greg Alston, who is the lead animator on the Empire project, are using real life stunt men to recreate thousands of different possible attacks, parry moves and grips so that each time two people engage in a duel, the game engine can recreate a fight that is as close to reality as possible. Depending on the environment and on the type of troops engaged, we will see fights that take more to resolve than the engagements from previous games and we will also get to see how the victor of the duel moves on after defeating his adversary in search of a new opponent.
Empire features a host of other new additions, from naval battles, which were absent from the series up until now, to a more varied unit rooster and more diplomatic options. Look for more details as the game approaches its launch date.