The next Total War game is A Total War Saga: Troy. These smaller spin-offs began with Total War Saga: Britannia—though, if we're being honest, Total War: Attila, Napoleon: Total War, and Rome: Total War: Alexander probably fit into this series, too. Creative Assembly just struggles from year to year with how to name their games. Total War in the front or in the back? World leader's name in the front or the back? One colon or two? At this point, it's obvious they're intentionally jacking their trademark around, throwing it left to right like they're playing a game of Corners in the backseat on a curvy country road.
Troy begins, as a lot of Greek history does, in the Aegean Sea. This looks at the war between the Trojans and Mycenaeans. It starts when Prince Paris yoinks Helen of Troy from her palace. Helen's husband, Menelaus, had something to say about that. And Menelaus's brother, King Agamemnon, is ready to rock, too. But everybody on all sides have to take under consideration the gods chilling on Mt. Olympus. I hope it's worth it to Paris and Helen. Because their little amorous adventure just started a war.
Total War continues to dominate the strategy game space in nearly every way, shape, and form. Total War: Three Kingdoms launched only four months ago, yet here's Creative Assembly announcing A Total War Saga: Troy with a 2020 release date. Yes yes, ideally, if you're a large video game studio, you want to be launching something every year; it keeps the suits happy. But I've barely gotten my hands wrapped around the "easy" Cao Cao campaign in Three Kingdoms—and now this?
Admittedly, Troy is much easier to digest for western audiences than tales from the Far East. Just by existing in the Western Hemisphere, you have a much better grasp of the players involved in A Total War Saga: Troy. It's the Homerian epic, written for thousands of spear-wielding Hoplite soldiers. We know what the Trojan Horse was (and why Trojan condoms and certain computer viruses were named after it), we've heard of Helen of Troy (apparently she was a hottie), and we remember Brad Pitt playing Achilles back in 2004 or something. I'm probably conflating timelines here. but these are all things you know just by existing in Western culture.
Three Kingdoms was a harder sell, despite it being an incredible game anyway. Not too many of us, myself wholeheartedly included, don't know our Liu Biao's from our Liu Bei's. Before I played Three Kingdoms, I couldn't tell you the first thing about Kong Rong or Ma Teng—neither or which is related to King Kong or your mother. So, familiarity through osmosis will benefit Troy very well next year.
A Total War Saga: Troy is coming to PC in 2020.
