14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher SEGA and developer The Creative Assembly have announced that their upcoming Shogun 2 strategy title will, for the first time in the series, have the series moniker Total War label placed head of the official name, rather than behind.
This means that gamers will be buying Total War: Shogun 2 rather than the other way around.
The name change will not apply retroactively and previous editions of the game like Empire, Napoleon and Medieval 2 will still have the Total War brand attached after the official name.
A spokesperson from SEGA has explained to Eurogamer that, “Both Creative Assembly and SEGA have intended to invert the Total War naming convention for some time. The Total War series of games spans over 10 years of titles. We wanted to identify all of these as one series using a more obvious naming convention for players.”
He added, “Revealing the new title with the Shogun 2 box art was the opportune time to do so.”
The name change might be a way to signal the fact that with Total War: Shogun 2 both the developer and the publisher are aiming to fundamentally change the nature of the long running strategy series, which combines a turn based strategic layer with a real time battle based tactical one.
The new Shogun will return the series to its roots both in terms of subject matter and, to some extent, in terms of mechanics.
Total War has abandoned the gunpowder age, which could be slow and very tactics heavy, and returned to the land of dueling samurai, where steel ruled supreme in the hand of skilled warriors.
The new game will include naval battles and more complex siege mechanics than previous titles in the franchise and the developers at The Creative Assembly have also sought to make the diplomatic game more complex.
The creators of Total War: Shogun 2 are also aiming to create a more competent Artificial Intelligence.