The Total War
series is known for many popular and less popular strategy games. One of the best ended much too early, but now you can at least get it for free.
Which game is meant? We are talking about Total War: Three Kingdoms. The game from 2019 is still praised by fans today, even though the abrupt end of the game casts a shadow over it.
Total War: Three Kingdoms is one of the two currently free games in the Epic Games Store. Until January 8, 2026, at 5 PM, you can get the standard edition without DLCs for free here.
Here you can see a trailer for the strategy game:
What is the game about? Total War: Three Kingdoms begins in the year 190 AD. The Han Dynasty in China is approaching its end: The Yellow Turban rebels are shaking the empire and the tyrant Dong Zhuo has taken the emperor hostage.
In the resulting chaos, powerful warlords rise up. They can usually be divided into two camps – some want to save the empire while others want to become emperor themselves.
The best diplomacy system of the entire series
What makes the game so good? If you ask fans, the diplomacy system is particularly highlighted. Just because the series is called “Total War”, it doesn’t mean players don’t desire complex diplomacy. And that’s exactly what the game delivers.
You can form coalitions with other kingdoms, incite vassals to rebel against their lords, or simply gather supporters for your goal of becoming the next emperor of China.
The diplomacy in the game continues to surprise players years after release, as they demonstrate on Reddit:
If you want to be particularly intriguing, you should play a campaign with Cao Cao – he is notorious for his deception tactics. With him, you can launch proxy wars to weaken other kingdoms – before you conquer them yourself.
The end came much too early
A strong start was followed by weak DLCs: Total War: Three Kingdoms was the fastest-selling title in the entire franchise at launch. In the first week alone, over a million copies were sold, as announced on the official Total War channel on X (formerly Twitter).
However, subsequent DLCs did not manage to convince many players. On Steam, none of them received a rating higher than “mixed”; most are rated “mostly negative”.
The DLCs mainly offer alternative start dates for the campaign as well as new characters and units. In 2020, the Nanman brought powerful war elephants, and in 2021, “Fates Divided” was the last DLC. Franchises like Korea that fans wanted are still missing.
In a message that still resonates today (which you can see here on YouTube), which was meant to be about “the future” of Total War: Three Kingdoms, the end of new content for the game was announced. However, they have at least begun the pre-production of a sequel – about which, as of today, January 2, 2026, nothing further is known.
Is the game still worth it? Total War: Three Kingdoms is still a strong strategy game, even though not all DLCs could convince. The fact that the only playable cultures are the Han Chinese and (as DLC) the Nanman is bitter, but the game still offers a lot of content.
Especially for those who enjoy diplomacy in Total War games rather than raw violence, Three Kingdoms is perfect. So far, there is no real alternative within the franchise.
Taking a close look at the shop page for Total War: Three Kingdoms in the Epic Games Store reveals that one of the displayed images does not match the rest. A screenshot from another game has sneaked into Total War – and MeinMMO author Ody would never miss an opportunity to talk about this game. After all, it is one of his absolute favorites: I have spent 300 hours in a game on Steam that almost nobody played, yet it is one of the most popular game series
