Sega's phenomenal co-op strategy game, Total War: Shogun 2, may not have been lost to time, but it's certainly fallen a bit by the wayside in light of Sega's more recent iterations on the Total War franchise. Thanks to the current pandemic, though, it's been given one more shot at the limelight.
Many RTSs and strategy games boast extremely enthusiastic and creative communities who love to create their own mods for the game. Happily, many of the heavy hitters in the genre allow them to do just that, and Total War: Shogun 2 can now be numbered among them. Via "the Editor," or "TEd," Shogun 2 players can now create their own custom maps for both co-op and multiplayer battles. TEd works for both the original Shogun 2 as well as its stand-alone expansion Fall of the Samurai.
Fall of the Samurai, the expansion to Total War: Shogun 2, released earlier this week. What may have escaped your notice, however, is the huge patch that was applied on the same day. While it was considered a Fall of the Samurai patch, most of the changes/additions applied to the base Shogun 2 as well. Highlights include improved AI (and drastically reduced AI turn time) as well as a whopping 22 new battle maps! A large number of fixes and unit balance tweaks were rolled out as well.
We first learned that Total War: Shogun 2 would be receiving a standalone expansion pack back in December. Now that expansion - Fall of the Samurai - has a concrete release date and a nice new trailer to go along with it. Fall of the Samurai officially lands on March 23.
A bit over a month ago, we told you guys about the upcoming stand-alone expansion for Shogun 2, entitled Fall of the Samurai. Now we have some word about some preorder bonuses for said game. Whether you preorder online from Steam or the SEGA Store or preorder a boxed copy anywhere else, you'll receive one of three exclusive preorder faction packs. Steam will get you the Tsu Faction Pack and the game's soundtrack while the SEGA Store will net you the Obama Faction Pack (and no, I don't mean you can send batallions of the president's clones into battle). If you don't like digital versions, preordering a boxed copy from another retailer will grant you access to the Saga Faction Pack as well as grant you a double-sided poster. Full details on these packs are as follows:
Total War: Shogun 2 is a pretty amazing strategy game, combining turn-based planning and diplomacy with amazingly huge-scale real-time strategy battles. It also features a great co-op campaign for two players. There is much more co-op strategic warfare awesomeness to come, as Sega has announced Total War: Shogun 2 - Fall of the Samurai, a full standalone expansion pack.
September will be keeping a lot of us busy with its crazy amount of releases, but let's not neglect to check out the new DLC for for some great co-op games that will be releasing that month as well. Shogun 2: Total War will be receiving a new piece of DLC (Rise of the Samurai), and it sounds to be pretty hefty. It will introduce a whole new campaign set 400 years before the events of Shogun 2, focusing on the feud between the six clans of the Taira, Fujiwara, and Minamota families. The DLC will provide players with 6 new clans to play complete with 4 new hero units, 4 new agent units, 16 new land units, and 10 new naval units. An example of one of the new hero units, the Onna Bushi Heroine, is pictured above.
Are you loving Shogun 2: Total War, but wistfully longing for the presence of more warrior monks? Don't worry, the Creative Assembly has you covered. The Ikko Ikki Clan Pack was announced and released today via Steam. It primarily adds a new clan to play in the Campaign, Custom, and Multiplayer modes of the game, bringing the total number of playable clans up to 11. The Ikko Ikki are the warrior monk clan, complete with eight new unit-variants, new skills trees, and a new special agent, the Ikko Ikki Monk.
Earlier this week an enormous patch was applied to the lately installment of the Total War series, Shogun 2. The bulk of the update seems to be fixes, but there's some unit tweaking, DirectX 11 support, and even four new multiplayer maps included as well. We found the game to be a great co-op strategy/RTS game, giving it an impressive 4.5 out of 5. For the full list of patch notes, read on:
The Total War series is a well-known and well-respected name out there in the strategy game world. A cooperative mode, however, is pretty new to the series. How does Shogun 2: Total War fare as a co-op strategy/RTS game?
March is sneaking up on us, bringing a bounty of games. Among the titles of games landing in March is Shogun 2: Total War. If you're still on the fence about this strategy game from the Creative Assembly, digitial distributor Steam gets the demo tomorrow for your demo-ing pleasure. Relatively little is known about what exactly the demo will contain, aside from allowing "all armchair samurai to test their skills in epic land battles and on Total War: Shogun 2’s gorgeous new campaign map." Maybe it will include some crazy weather phenomena - who knows?
We've got another trailer for you today, this one for Total War: Shogun 2. This trailer doesn't feature any gameplay at all, but is really sweet and totally worth a watch anyway. I learned a couple things watching the video. 1, apparently the weather changes very quickly in Japan. 2, the historical Japanese quivalent of "don't bring a knife to a gun fight" is "don't bring a katana to a longbow fight". Shogun 2 releases on PC next month, and will feature two player online or LAN co-op.
