Hello, Total War community!

Welcome to the first of our dedicated design blogs for the free update coming to Total War: PHARAOH later this year. We’re excited to once again dive into the ancient world as we unveil details on the expanded campaign map, alongside some commentary on the learnings that underpin our design direction.

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We'll also be hosting a Discord Q&A about this topic on May 16th - join our official Discord server!

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—The Total War Team

Hello, Total War Community!

We hope the valiant Montu has brought victories to those of you who braved the battlefields of Ancient Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant, while the wisdom of Toth will bolster the decisiveness of those who are yet to thread those ancient fields of destruction.

In January we launched the High Tide Update for Total War: PHARAOH, welcoming the harbingers of the Bronze-Age Collapse, the Sea Peoples, as a new playable culture alongside their two dedicated factions, bringing the core roster up to ten. We were delighted to see your positive reception to this free update which was part of our post-launch ambitions to create a vast Bronze-Age strategy experience.

As mentioned in our Leadership Message back in December, the vision for Total War: PHARAOH since the outset of the project has been to increase the size of the campaign map and introduce even more cultures and ways of engaging in glorious strategic conquest. Today, we’re excited to announce that this will come courtesy of a vast free update that significantly reworks the existing campaign mode already available in PHARAOH’s base-game. This update will usher in a host of exciting new additions whilst also implementing some familiar content from its Bronze-Age brother, A Total War Saga: TROY. We want to improve your experience of this most iconic age, and we’re working hard to deliver it later this year.

In terms of the content you can expect to experience, prepare to embark on a conquest across a map that has greatly increased in size as we add the renowned and highly requested regions of Mesopotamia and the Aegean to the conflict alongside the playable cultures of Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Troy. Whilst within the strategic campaign layer, you will have access to all new mechanics such as the Dynasty system which adds mortality and succession to the faction leaders’ quest to leave behind a legacy that will survive the ages. And finally, within battle you can expect over 80 new units for the Mesopotamian factions, alongside the addition of over 70 reworked units from a Total War Saga: TROY.

Given that this update will make some big changes to the way in which Total War: PHARAOH plays, we will be taking steps to ensure that you still have the choice to experience the original campaign should you wish to. We’ll reveal more information on how this will be achieved in a later instalment.

On another note, we’ve made it clear that we’re keen to improve the level of transparency we exhibit across all our products to ensure that you have a better understanding of what we’re working on, as well as how and why we make certain design decisions. With this in mind, we want you to come on this Bronze-Age journey with us to help us begin to find the right path to a greater developer-community collaboration.

Starting next week, we'll be kicking off a series of conversations around the creation of this update, starting with a deep dive looking into the expanded campaign map and how we're aiming to bring this long-lost world to life, before inviting you all to send us your questions for a Q&A session the following week.

Every couple of weeks, we'll have a new topic featuring a variety of voices from across the project, first detailing how we're approaching the work, and inviting you to share your thoughts and feedback on that vision. We'll then come back to you the week after to dive into more detail on the topic over on the official Total War Discord - so make sure you join today and keep an eye out for new channels to post your hotly anticipated questions.

Thanks again for your support, and for your candid feedback - we want Total War: PHARAOH to be an incredible experience for everyone!

—The Total War Team