Creative Assembly Survived, But SEGA Holds A Gun To Its Head

Creative Assembly had a tough 2024, all while SEGA continued to gut their European operation.

00:00 The Year That Almost Killed Total War
02:56 Pharaoh
04:52 Warhammer
07:33 Transparency
09:35 SEGA Europe Was Slaughtered
14:00 The Future

Sources:

[revanlord]

This is what happens when a company called "Creatively Assembly" isn't assembling something creative.

[cullain]

Every CA problem can be laid squarely at the feet of executives, both from CA and from SEGA, being out of touch, greedy and too focused on short term monetary gains over solid long term growth, SEGA doesn't just get to dump blame for everything on CA as their priorities were just as screwed up as any of the people in charge at CA...

[WelcomeToDERPLAND]

The Total war budgets compared to the hundreds of millions poured into Hyenas is fucking disgusting...

[MrAdamArce]

Total War fans did what many other franchise need to do and put their entire beloved franchise to the fire. Either value your customers or fail and go away. They chose to finally start putting a bit more value into their customers. Still needs more, but it's great to get FLC back, proper updates, and dlc sold as a package or in parts as the players wanted are all great steps. Hope they keep this as the base standard going forward from now on

[MarktheRude]

4:11 Meanwhile Medieval 2 Total War, game released 18 years ago, is still outperforming it by pulling 5000 players a day.

[rwagingsloth]

im still pissed about the TW Shogun 2 dlc expansion "Fall of the Samurai" being made into it's own standalone game at a price HIGHER than it was as a DLC despite there being no changes made other than no longer requiring the base game. from 25$ to 35$, one of the most blatant money grabs in gaming.

[rocketman]

Every total war that comes out removes several of the features the previous one had that were the reason I played to begin with. Im not interested in a company that backsteps 10 steps every step they take.

[RumpelGameSkin]

A fair bit of the negativity towards the recent WH3 dlc is because it came with an update that reworked how monstrous/large units dealt cleave damage, which itself felt completely untested and resulted in many cases even up to tier 4 monstrous units losing to tier 1 infantry very handily, that has since been reverted though, but many issues still remain.

[danilooliveira]

the sad part is that CA is basically the only company making games like this, and it's only possible because they have been building the necessary tools and assets for decades. so if CA goes under, it's possible that we will never see another Total War-like game, because it would be too expensive for anyone else to try.

[ronanwaring]

We've been asking for medieval 3 for ages and were still waiting.

[ArcturusMinsk]

This really was the year of blind incompetent leadership for the Video Game industry.

[ericm]

Honestly, CA deserves it. Bad C suite. Very bad. They need to update their engine and fix their tech debt.

[loiu]

A total war 40k sounds cool in theory, but it would be extremely hard for them to execute. Honestly I would rather they go back to the Napoleonic or Colonial period and give us a new gunpowder warfare game. Do something they know and did well, and regain some positive publicity for the total war franchise.

Further, total war inherently doesnt really work in settings like ww1, or 40k where squad and individual movements are a massive factor. Total war is more about formation warfare, which honestly really died out after the 1870s. Maybe a Victorian Age total war? That would be interesting.


Either way we need a historical total war game with large formational armies again, im sick of being force fed heros and small trash units to fill the roster.

[jasonroberts]

When I purchased Total war Warhammer 3 in 2022, I was absolutely appalled that I basically paid $60 for what amounted to or felt like a beta test(because of how buggy it was), and only 25-40% of the game being ready at launch, while waiting 7 months for immortal empires, and then the rest of the game being split up into DLCs. Not similar games, but when Elden Ring released shortly after, how amazed I was that it was the full game, full experience, yes still having some issues and bugs, but it was the full game, I didn't have to wait years to enjoy the full game.

[LordVader]

We only won a temporary victory. People thought CA had cleaned up its act after Rome 2, but 2024 proved otherwise.

[changer_of_ways_]

No more live services. No more crappy spin offs, no more half baked monthly content releases for the sake of it. No more excessive team sizes, budgets, and expectations?

Sounds like a win to me.

[piedpiper]

Refunding the difference in price to early buyers is a shockingly based move on their part. They actually put their money where their mouth was on that apology.

[ASHFAR]

Just listen to customers and youll survive. Its that simple.

[brianhouston]

Medieval III, Rome III, or Shogun III for the next historical title, or bust. Give the historical fans what we want, put in a decent effort to produce a true next-gen TW game, and Creative Assembly will have a huge hit on their hands. But they can't fake it. They can't produce less of a game than we got 15 years ago, while charging far more for it, and choosing to keep all the money made for executive bonuses or shareholder payouts rather than investment in their products, and expect to succeed.

CA just needs to make refined, next-gen versions of their most popular games, and if they do that, they have a good template for success.

[fudgin]

CA is progressively getting their s*** together but the road to recovery is still long. They burned many bridges with paying customers. I used to buy all new DLC for TW:WH day-one, no questions asked. After this year's shitshow I'm getting much more stingy with my money.