14 DAY TRIAL // One of the main aims of The Creative Assembly development team for the upcoming Total War: Rome 2 is to create a darker take on war, emphasizing the impact it has both on the population and on the men leading armies.
Jamie Russell, the leading designer working on Total War: Rome 2, tells the audience at Rezzed that, “We’ve got facial animations, emotional interactions between men, so that if the guy next to me gets hit by an arrow, I’ll react to that.”
“It’s all about a darker vision of war. We want the combat to feel more brutal, more visceral. And we want the form-combat to really get a sense of that Roman war machine, that unique fighting style of the Roman meat grinder legions,” he says.
The development leader also mentions that the overall strategic map will be larger than that of the first Rome game and that more environments and cultures will be introduced in order to provide variety.
Russell then discusses the relation between realism and gameplay, saying that the team will respect historical truth but only as long as it can create an interesting experience for the player.
“This was a time when the personal decisions of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra shaped empires, they forged history with their personal decisions. The game our player base really wants us to make, and the game we want to make,” he goes on to say.
Total War: Shogun 2 was focused just on the Japanese isles and only on one type of warfare, and The Creative Assembly wants to show via Rome 2 that it can deliver a larger experiences without losing its focus on the real-time tactical battles.
Total War: Rome 2 is currently set to arrive during the second half of 2013 on the PC.