Wargaming and Creative Assembly are launching a free-to-play game, Total War Arena, which mixes the strategic/tactical gameplay of a regular Total War with the gameplay mechanics of a free-to-play title like World of Tanks.
The Total War series games have been known for complex strategy and tactics since the first Shogun game, where you plan campaigns on a large map and then engage in real-time battles with thousands of soldiers.
The Total War spin-off, Total War Arena, takes the exciting tactical real-time battles and packages them in a fast-paced free-to-play model like World of Tanks!
Total War Arena – Epic Moments through Chance
Total War Arena completely ignores the strategy part and throws you straight into battle. Before the fight, you choose your leader and three units to accompany him. The commanders come from antiquity and can be Romans, Greeks, or Barbarians. You have infantry, cavalry, catapults, or archers available as units.
But you are not fighting alone with your units against a single opponent. Rather, you start with nine other players, each commanding a leader with three units. This creates a decent horde of troops on each side, and under the right circumstances, epic mass battles can occur like in the movies 300 or “The Lord of the Rings”.
Total War Arena – Friendly Fire and Progress
To succeed in Total War Arena, you must work well as a team. Otherwise, it can easily happen that you lose your archers because your teammate didn’t keep them well protected with his hoplite phalanx. Or you might position your game-changing catapults so poorly that they hit your allied troops. Friendly fire is always an issue in Total War Arena.
After each match, you receive resources and experience, with which you can upgrade your units, just like in World of Tanks. This way, you gradually improve the abilities of your soldiers and teach them new tricks, such as the extremely strong tortoise formation of the Roman legionnaires. Game progress shall be able to be accelerated with real money, as is common with free-to-play games. However, the developers promise not to allow pay-to-win.
Total War Arena – Not a Competitor to the Main Series
The gameplay of Total War Arena is said to be much faster and more dynamic than the rather leisurely battles of series entries like Rome or Medieval. In just under ten minutes, the whole spectacle can already be over, and tactical mistakes are punished quickly. With this different focus in the well-known concept, Arena aims to appeal to Total War fans while not posing any competition to upcoming entries in the regular Total War series.
Rather, Total War Arena should be understood as a complement and not a replacement. Unfortunately, a release date is not yet known, nor whether there will be a console version. However, Wargaming does not want to rule that out.
Also interesting: Total War Arena – World of Tanks with Romans?
