Total War Saga Thrones of Britannia was originally slated to be released on April 19th, 2018. However, it has been delayed to release two weeks later on May 3rd instead. It will be the first Total War game to launch under the new Saga banner. Creative Assembly representative Michael Whelan announced the delay via blog post: “We’d like to buy ourselves a bit more time for the final push, so we’ve made the call to nudge the release date back by two weeks, from April 19th to May 3rd. Alongside our usual prelaunch procedures, we’re adding and tweaking a few features we wouldn’t otherwise have time for.”
Those additional features and tweaks for the upcoming game include further refining the UI, such as showing players a breakdown of sources contributing to their current War Fervour level. There will also be multiple shades for plus-and-minus effects regarding different food levels of the player’s faction, as well as how each level interacts with upkeep and supplies. This will definitely increase the game’s quality of life since food is extremely crucial to the player’s faction growth.
Additionally, there will be more balancing work done on campaign AI. This includes its aggression levels for different difficulty levels, as well as the number of armies and its composition of recruits. This is good news for veteran Total War players, as the AI has always been a bit problematic in the past and sometimes only recruits weaker units although it clearly has access to stronger and more advanced units.
The biggest area that Creative Assembly will be working on is arguably the most important aspect of the game, the battles. The AI will have improved flanking and targeting behavior. Certain battle animations for units will also be tweaked so that soldiers now hold their shields out as they walk to reinforce the era’s shield wall focus and ensure better unit coherency on the move.
Other highlights include changes to collision damage, unit stats, maximum drag-out widths, collision radii, unit mass/spacing and more. The purpose of these alterations is to make the battles feel tighter and more authentic.
That’s quite a lot of improvements and updates they’re going to implement in Thrones of Britannia, further proving that it’s more than just a re-skin of Total War Attila. For more details on Thrones of Britannia, we reported on a Reddit AMA where the game’s director himself answered several questions about the upcoming game.
Total War Saga Thrones of Britannia will be released for the PC on May 3rd, 2018. Here’s the most recent cinematic faction reveal trailer for Thrones of Britannia.