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Total War: Three Kingdoms has attracted lots of new players to the series, says developer Creative Assembly

Total War: Three Kingdoms has attracted lots of new players to the series, says developer Creative Assembly

The latest entry in Creative Assembly's Total War series of strategy games is breaking records left and right, but the studio also says that it is seeing a large number of new players that are new to the franchise.

Speaking to PCGamesInsider.biz, chief product officer Rob Bartholomew (right) said that both China and the Total War series' existing userbase were factors in Three Kingdoms' strong sales, but he also says that new users also played a part.

"All Total War games pre-order strongly, but this did set a new record for us," he said.

"China was certainly a factor. From our previous titles, we knew we had an established player base there but for Three Kingdoms they turned up in droves and brought their friends. We’ve also been live streaming the game for months and earned great reviews. Those are important factors in helping players feel confident in making a day-one purchase."

The game's director Jason Gaspar (above far right) added: "Based on these first few days, we’re seeing a lot of first time Total War players coming to Three Kingdoms. We have a great opportunity to show them our high standard of post-launch support. Even though we’ve launched with plenty to keep players busy, we’re already working on Chapter Packs that will bring in even more of the stories and characters from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

Total War: Three Kingdoms was released on May 23rd and sold one million copies in less than a week making it the fastest-selling entry in the strategy franchise to date. That's in addition to breaking records for both concurrent players on Steam for a new launch in 2019 and for the strategy genre in general, as well as the game seeing a new high for pre-orders for the franchise, due in part to the title's popularity in China.

You can read more about Total War: Three Kingdoms' success next week


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.