Total War Developer Creative Assembly Apologises to Its Community, Issues Partial Refunds for Pharaoh
Creative Assembly has addressed the disgruntled Total War community, apologising for what has admitted were a series of missteps this year with the release of Total War: Warhammer 3 DLC and the struggling Total War: Pharaoh.
In a blog post written on behalf of the Sega-owned company, Roger Collum, Vice President at Creative Assembly, said it had been a “difficult” few months for the studio, which also recently saw a devastating wave of layoffs following the cancellation of live service heist shooter Hyenas.
“It has been a difficult few months, and we recognize that we have made mistakes when it comes to our relationship with you all,” Collum said. “It’s been a constant conversation internally on how we can get back to solid ground. What’s clear is that it won’t be easy and that it will take time and effort.
“We see the confusion, the frustration, and the distrust of us across the community and honestly, it breaks our hearts. We make games to bring you joy, to inspire a love of history, of fantasy, and strategy games. Total War is our everything, we care about it as deeply as you. Recently, it’s clear that we have failed to demonstrate that in our actions.
“We are sorry.
“We cannot fix our issues overnight, but we will work towards a more transparent, and consistent relationship with you all.”
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To that end, Creative Assembly is giving owners of the controversial Shadows of Change DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3 more content after players complained it didn’t offer enough value. A big update to the DLC is planned for February 2024 to add this content for free. As a result, the Thrones of Decay DLC is delayed from winter 2023 to April 2024. “We’ll make sure that you know exactly what’s coming in Thrones of Decay before pre-orders are available, and make sure that you have full transparency around the content before you see ‘Buy Now’ buttons,” Collum promised.
After Thrones of Decay comes out, more content will be released. “Our work on this beloved series isn’t finished yet,” Collum said.
Moving on to the recently released and struggling Total War: Pharaoh, Creative Assembly said it will issue partial refunds to all customers via Steam Wallet funds because it has lowered the price of the game to $39.99/€39.99/£29.99. “We don’t think it’s fair that our fans, who put their trust in us on Pharaoh, should in any way feel disadvantaged for buying the game at the previous price,” Collum explained. Meanwhile, Creative Assembly has pulled the higher priced editions of Pharaoh from sale, leaving just one edition to buy.
Pharaoh launched in October and has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, which is unusually low for Creative Assembly games. Concurrent player numbers on Valve’s platform are particularly bad, with just 370 players at the time of this article’s publication, from a 24-hour peak of 500. In contrast, Total War: Warhammer 3 was at the time of this article’s publication the 79th most-played game on Steam, with 14,386 concurrents.
The next Pharaoh update, originally planned as the game’s first paid DLC, is now free and set for launch early 2024.
Will Creative Assembly walk away from Total War: Pharaoh? Collum said the studio is working out what comes next for the game, but said it’s not “closing the door” on other, bigger updates in the future. “We’ve still got big plans, but we want to be honest with you in saying that we need to spend more time with them before putting them out on show.”
Last month, Sega admitted Creative Assembly’s live service push was a mistake, and said the veteran UK studio will focus on RTS games from now on. The developer has yet to announce its next project.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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