Creative Assembly News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The games industry has been hit with wave after wave of layoffs for well over a year at this point, but the job cuts are not, unfortunately, slowing down. As reported by GamesIndustry, Sega has now announced that it’s cutting 240 jobs across its UK-based studios.

Publisher Sega and developer Creative Assembly have revealed that the next expansion for Total War: Warhammer 3, titled Thrones of Decay, will be releasing on PC on April 30.

A week after being sold by Sega and becoming an independent studio, Relic Entertainment has announced a round of layoffs.

Relic Entertainment has said it will continue supporting its existing games following the news that it’s to be sold by current owner Sega.

Sega will shed 240 staff across its European studios, and sell off Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment as part of a cost-cutting drive.

Sonic Dream Team developer Hardlight and Total War studio Creative Assembly have been hit with a round of layoffs by publisher SEGA Europe, affecting around 240 roles across Creative Assembly, SEGA Europe, and Hardlight, via IGN.

Sega has announced plans to sell Relic Entertainment and cut 240 jobs in Europe.

Sega has sold Relic Entertainment, and will cut 240 roles across Sega Europe, Creative Assembly and Sega HARDlight

Creative Assembly has announced the release of a new major update for Total War: PHARAOH. The update, titled High Tide, is being accompanied by patch 1.1.0 of the game, as well as a launch trailer. that you can check out below under the full patch notes.

Creative Assembly has announced a free update for strategy game Total War: Pharaoh will be available from next week.

Back in December, Creative Assembly posted a lengthy apology to players for their recent handling of the Total War strategy series, in particular Total War: Warhammer 3 and Total War: Pharoah. Seeking to smooth down feathers ruffled by overpricing and buggy launches, to pick out two of the biggest fan complaints, the developers offered to - amongst other things - make Pharoah’s first paid DLC pack a free update.

I haven’t been keeping up with player reaction to the latest Twar and Twarhammer games, but it seems players are none too pleased with Creative Assembly right now. In a rather dramatic open letter, the company's vice president Roger Collum has acknowledged that Total War: Warhammer 3’s Shadows of Change add-on and the recent historical strategy outing Total War: Pharaoh did not ship in a desirable state, with complaints ranging from wobbly execution to overpricing. The studio will try to make things right by offering partial refunds to Pharaoh owners and giving away DLC on top of the usual updates.

Creative Assembly has apologised for «missteps» it made with the Total War series and is offering partial refunds of Total War: Pharaoh on Steam.

Developer Creative Assembly has released a statement regarding recent negative feedback concerning the pricing for Total War: PHARAOH, as well as the Shadows of Change DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3. In its statement, the studio acknowledges the mistakes it made with the game as well as communication surrounding it, and as a result, both Total War: PHARAOH and Total War: Warhammer 3 will see some changes.

Sega has a new financial report that, like so many companies in the industry, discusses layoffs and project cancellations. Creative Assembly, as noted in the report, saw in-development FPS Hyenas canceled in large part over concerns that the team wasn’t up to running a live service FPS long-term. 

Troubled developers Creative Assembly will double-down on their strength in making offline real-time strategy games, following their failed attempt to break into the competitive shooter market with extraction FPS Hyenas.

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UK developer Creative Assembly will refocus on making real-time strategy games following the cancellation of online extraction shooter Hyenas.

Multiplayer shooter HYENAS was in development at Total War and Alien: Isolation studio Creative Assembly for quite some time, and Sega was clearly positioning it as a major tentpole title in its lineup of upcoming titles. In September, however, the company announced that the game had been cancelled, leading to layoffs at Creative Assembly. Now, in the aftermath of HYENAS’ cancellation, the Japanese company says that Creative Assembly will go back to focusing on development of strategy games.

The core premise of manga-turned-anime series Attack on Titan has always been fantastic: humans armed with swords and equipped with mechanical grapple guns that basically turn them into Spider-Man take on enormous naked giants who are trying to eat them. With the series’ action built around the incredible manoeuvrability and momentum of the Omni-Directional Mobility gear, the genuine unnerving threat of the titans, and the relatively fragility of its human heroes, it’s just primed to be mined for video game inspiration.

Creative Assembly and Sega‘s launched on October 11th, taking players to the ancient Near East. CA accompanied Pharoah’s launch with a new cinematic trailer featuring some of the game’s playable rulers.

Turn-based and real-time hybrid strategy game Total War: PHARAOH is out now on PC. The game—a return for the studio to making history-based titles—is available on Windows and macOS, and has a new trailer which you can check out below.

Sega announced its cancellation of last week, which developer Creative Assembly attributed to overambition and a saturated market. Reportedly the most expensive game Sega ever published, it briefly had a big-name Hollywood filmmaker on the project aswell. District 9 and Elysium director reportedly gave input on Hyenas’ story, massively influencing the game’s direction.

Developer Creative Assembly has released a new deep dive trailer for upcoming strategy game Total War: PHARAOH. This time around, the studio has decided to focus on the Hittite faction, giving us a look at some of its gameplay, as well as tidbits of the real history behind the faction. Check it out below.

Sega recently announced that as part of its efforts to “improve profitability” where its European business is concerned, it had cancelled HYENAS, Creative Assembly’s upcoming multiplayer shooter (along with other, unannounced titles). In the wake of that cancellation, the developer has shared further bad news.

In a recent press release regarding structural reforms in its Consumer Area, Sega Sammy announced the cancellation of Creative Assembly’s HYENAS. This is after it reviewed “the title portfolio of each development base in Europe.” Some unannounced titles have also been cancelled, and the company will implement a write-down of work-in-progress titles.

Publisher Sega and developer Creative Assembly have announced that the Epic Games Store release of upcoming strategy game Total War: PHARAOH is being delayed to early 2024. Curiously, the game is still coming to PC through Steam on its original October 11 release date.

Total War: Pharaoh , by Creative Assembly, arrives on October 11th. Players will have the chance to take on the role of a leader from one of three different origins: Egyptian, Canaanite, or Hittite. The time period chosen by the developers focuses on the Bronze Age collapse of Ancient Egypt. The preview build I had access to was limited to choosing the Ramesses campaign; the progress ended after 50 turns, and the game build was a month old. Given those limitations, I still enjoyed my time with the game as I am a fan of this time in history, and this rendition of Ancient Egypt was fun to explore.    

Developer Creative Assembly and publisher Sega have announced that Total War: PHARAOH will be released on PC on October 11. The game will be available early—on September 29—for those that pre-order the game.

Since developer Creative Assembly unveiled its Shadows of Change DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3, the studio has come under criticism from the game’s playerbase because of high pricing for the upcoming DLC. For context, Shadows of Change is priced at $24.99, which puts it at around 40% of the price of the full game.

Creative Assembly’s upcoming extraction shooter, HYENAS, is getting a closed beta test on PC. The closed beta, available through Steam, will kick off on August 31, and will go on until September 11. The game also got a new gameplay trailer, which you can check out below.

A closed beta for hero-based extraction shooter Hyenas will kick off on 31st August, Sega and Creative Assembly have announced, alongside the release of the latest gameplay trailer. You can register to join the PC playtest via Steam.

Developer Creative Assembly has announced that the next major DLC release for Total War: Warhammer 3, titled Shadows of Change, will be coming to PC on August 31. Check out the trailer for the new DLC below.

Developer Creative Assembly has released a new deep dive video for upcoming strategy game Total War: PHARAOH, this time around focusing on the city states of Canaan. Check out the deep dive about the Canaanite factions below.