As the Total War series finds itself in a position where it juggles fantasy and realism, developer Creative Assembly Sofia is preparing to deliver the next historical entry, in the shape of Total War: Pharaoh.
Although it returns to the late Bronze Age, which the studio also explored in its previous effort, Troy, the title ventures into uncharted territory, focusing on the Egyptian New Kingdom period and the turmoil that marked it.
During a recent preview event, I got the chance to learn more about the game and go hands-on with three real-time battles, which you’ll find covered towards the end of this article.
The death of Pharaoh Merneptah sets things in motion for Total War: Pharaoh’s Campaign. As a period of prosperity comes to an end, players have to navigate societal disarray, invasions, and natural disasters, while embodying one of several faction leaders vying for the throne.
The developer wants to “unearth the beauty and brutality of the period,” noting that it has worked with historical experts to guarantee authenticity while taking some creative liberties for gameplay purposes.
Total War: Pharaoh’s campaign map stretches across three regions – Egypt, Canaan, and Anatolia. These distinct areas host a variety of biomes and terrain reflected both on the campaign map and in battles.
They’re inhabited by three playable cultures: the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Hittites. Within these cultures, players have the choice of eight faction leaders between them.
Four of them are Egyptian, a culture that broadly favors light units and hit-and-run tactics. Two are Hittites, relying on armored units and sheer force, with the remaining two being adaptable Canaanites.
Total War: Pharaoh’s campaign boasts a handful of mechanics that aim to keep things interesting. One of them, the Pillars of Civilization, comes in three stages that change the mood of the world while also impacting gameplay.
The Prosperity stage is marked by lush visuals. The Crisis stage drains the color from the world, while also prompting the appearance of natural disasters and invasions. Lastly, Collapse brings with it even more instability.
Faction leaders can also unlock Crowns by fulfilling certain goals, allowing them to benefit from effects like the removal of building restrictions. They can also set their sights on following ancient legacies that focus on bloodshed, building wonders, or replacing the existing pantheon of gods with a strong monotheistic belief system.
Total War: Pharaoh features what could be the series’ most customizable campaigns yet, with multiple settings to choose from that offer plenty of flexibility. You can opt for more relaxed or difficult playthroughs by tweaking elements such as the types of natural disasters that can occur, how often they happen, and more.
On the battlefield, Total War: Pharaoh aims to “evoke classic historical Total War gameplay whilst creating a more realistic battle simulation that is dynamic and engaging,” according to the developer.
Their pacing is slower overall, in an effort to make tactical decisions play a bigger role. Unit weight, terrain, and exhaustion have a bigger impact on how armies perform.
One major addition is dynamic weather. Marching towards your opponent with the sun shining above you doesn’t mean you won’t have to deal with a sandstorm as the two armies clash.
Weather is governed by the climate of each region and comes in several flavors. Where fog reduces the ability of units to see foes, rain limits the spread of fires while reducing the accuracy and reload speed of missile units.
Sandstorms then greatly lower visibility, while also slowing movement speed, fatigue replenishment, and giving missile units a harder time to hit their targets. In addition, they deal a tiny amount of damage per second to everyone involved.
Certain units can use fire arrows or torches to set things alight. Fire can spread from grass patches to forests and buildings, while wind can also influence its speed and direction.
Various terrain types provide bonuses and penalties by default, but terrain can also change with the weather. Certain parts of maps can become muddy as it rains, just like muddy sections can dry up when the weather is sweltering.
Total War: Pharaoh’s updated animation system gives all units matched combat animations. Players can build unique bodyguards for generals based on the armor, shields, weapons, and mounts they equip.
Unit stances also return. Set units to Hold and they’ll do all they can to maintain their position. Give ground keeps them in the fight, moving backward while facing the enemy. Shield Wall then increases defense at the cost of speed.
Not all stances are available to all units, but you can toggle between them as the battle progresses, quickly adapting to different situations.
Pharaoh also introduces armor degradation as a new statistic. It indicates how many hits a unit’s armor can withstand before it breaks, rendering it vulnerable.
Siege battles are set to feature “some unique layouts reserved for iconic maps such as Men-nefer, the capital of Egypt,” the developer said.
In addition, siege equipment like ladders, battering rams, and towers also need to be constructed in advance, which sounds like infantry units might no longer be able to spontaneously pull ladders out of their pockets.
The victory point system has also been reworked, which should translate to minor settlement battles that are “more engaging, strategic, and fun to play by making use of the entirety of the battle space.”
It “makes sure more parts of the settlements are used for battle and makes the defender play more interactively as it is no longer possible for them to simply defend opportune checkpoints.”
All three battles which I got to play put me in control of premade armies led by Ramesses, one of Total War: Pharaoh’s playable leaders.
The easiest one pits me against Setti, our armies clashing in the open desert, with mighty pyramids looming in the background. A more basic roster of units, focused solely on melee and ranged infantry, made it a straightforward enough encounter that harkened back to the early stages of a Total War campaign.
It started with us marching under the scorching sun before our units inevitably clashed. While whittling down enemy infantry from afar, my archers’ fire arrows set small patches of sand alight.
I could also use Ramesses’ Inspiring Shout ability to replenish a small amount of morale, keeping soldiers in the fight for longer. The battle was tactically tame, mainly revolving around looking for opportunities to flank or overwhelm weakened enemy units and support troops which didn’t have the upper hand in their engagements.
Midway through, a sandstorm rolled in, but it didn’t really seem to have a noticeable influence on the battle’s outcome or my archers’ effectiveness, resulting in an effortless victory.
The second battle saw me going against a normal-difficulty army belonging to Hittite leader Suppiluliuma. A raging thunderstorm had already engulfed the battlefield, making for a drastically different mood. It also created a patch of muddy terrain on my right flank, next to a small stretch of ground covered in palm trees.
I controlled a handful of new units, in the shape of armored axemen and sword-and-shield infantry, while Rameses led a ranged chariot unit, perfect for swiftly moving around the battlefield and harassing foes from afar.
This battle required more micromanagement than the last. I tried and failed to pin down the enemy general in the muddy area on my right, while also proving too slow to take advantage of the trees which could hide my troops.
The battle quickly devolved into small separate skirmishes that favored the enemy’s better-armored units. It was, again, my archers and chariots picking off enemies that helped me obtain a hard-fought Cadmean victory.
Perhaps it’s down to this being an early alpha build of Total War: Pharaoh (or my love for Warhammer III’s over-the-top charge effects), but it was disappointing to see that charging chariots into enemy infantry barely did anything.
The third battle, labeled as very hard, had me defending Memphis from an invasion of the Sea Peoples. Due to how massive this visually impressive siege map was, I had to split my troops in order to hold back attacks targeting different parts of my wall.
Unsurprisingly, the siege was comparatively slower, starting with watching the enemy get pelted by towers and archers as it brought both army and siege equipment closer to my gates. I fought both on the walls – where formations are disabled – and throughout the city. I succeeded in pushing back three out of four attacks, but my weaker northeastern defense force fell quickly.
As the enemy breached my gate, his troops also set fire to buildings on the outskirts, which burned for the whole remainder of the fight, because of the sweltering heat.
Defending gates and walls can be an appropriately sluggish affair, as units get funneled into tight spaces. When the battle moved into the city, the pathways of its poorer outskirts district and the marble streets near the center allowed me to attack the advancing enemy from multiple directions.
Inside Memphis, The Sea Peoples’ army was made up of one larger contingent advancing from the northeast alongside a few weak, scattered stragglers that did, nonetheless, end up successfully taking over one victory point.
Although the high temperature didn’t play favorites, exhaustion set in quicker for the invaders, which gave my fresher troops the upper hand in the long run.
Defending Memphis was by far the most engaging battle of the three, but the big question is how Total War: Pharaoh handles the rest of its sieges, which may not benefit from these unique, sprawling layouts.
This small taste of its real-time battles showed a slower, more down-to-earth approach to combat and unit rosters that mainly caters to historical fans of the series.
The idea of dynamic weather sounds more promising than its execution in the early alpha build I was given, but I am interested to see how big of a role it ends up playing in battles in the full build and how controlling different factions – particularly the heavily armored Hittites – feels.
Total War: Pharaoh will let us bring glory to Egypt or watch it burn in October 2023, when it launches on PC.
Most Anticipated Feature: Seeing the full dynamic weather system in action.
