Total War: Rome II will show a “darker vision of war”, promises dev

The thing about war is that it’s actually not very nice and Total War: Rome II developer The Creative Assembly wants to show you that. It’s so easy to forget that those little guys on your screen are actually real men with real homes and real families and real dreams and… well, they would be if they were real men, but gaming is all about pretending anyway.

“Close-up, we want the men to feel more human,” lead designer Jamie Russell told attendees at the Rezzed event in England over the weekend. “We’ve got facial animations, emotional interactions between men, so that if the guy next to me gets hit by an arrow, I’ll react to that.”

It’s such a tragedy when a man’s adventuring days are ended just like that.

“It’s all about a darker vision of war. We want the combat to feel more brutal, more visceral. And we want the form-combat to really get a sense of that Roman war machine, that unique fighting style of the Roman meat grinder legions,” Russell explained.

“Our aim is for Rome II to deliver some of the most spectacular sights you’ve ever seen in a video game, and I really believe that we can deliver that – I’m not being hyperbolic there.”

Total War: Rome II is scheduled for launch sometime next year.