Creative Assembly has just announced a new historical "Total War" franchise, and it seems to be made with China in mind, as the next era will take place during the Three Kingdoms history of the country.
This makes it the first new venture for the historical "Total War" franchise after the two consecutive successful "Warhammer" fantasy universe games from the developers. That said, this would not be the first time that the "Total War" franchise has tapped into oriental military history for its premise, as the first one was with Japan in "Shogun: Total War" and its highly successful sequel.
Developer Creative Assembly and publisher Sega have also released a new trailer along with the announcement of their new premise. This time around, the next historical game will see players controlling the different warring states and factions of the Three Kingdoms in 184 AD China. This should be a welcome change of scenery as most of the other historical "Total War" titles sans "Shogun" were set in Europe.
That particular time in Chinese history was one of the bloodiest and took place during the Han and Jin dynasties, where there was a division of China into three states, the Wei, Shu, and Wu. There, wars and alliances shifted often. This could mean that players will be allowed control of one of these factions as their own and see to it that it succeeds above the other two.
There could also be some other factions available for control since most of the historical titles are known for making dozens of factions available to the players, in contrast to the four initial playable factions of the "Total War: Warhammer" part of the franchise.
Based on the trailer, it also seems that the developers might just forego a bit of historical accuracy in order to embrace the legends and myths of the Three Kingdoms-era, where generals, or even emperors, can be seen charging headfirst into battle and killing enemies by the dozen. This was something never done before by generals of previous historical "Total War" games. As such, most of the heroes present in the Three Kingdoms-era like Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Ce are expected to be romanticized since they are the head of the three states.
No exact release date has been announced yet, but "Total War: Three Kingdoms" is expected to arrive sometime during Fall 2018 for the PC only.
