Over a week after a so-called “updated, enhanced, and complete version” of Total War: Shogun 2 was released in such a disastrous state that Sega immediately pulled it from sale, Total War developers Creative Assembly have finally addressed the situation. In a post made to the company’s forum, vice president of its Total War division Roger Collum explains that the remastered game “did not meet the bar” and says that like players, CA, too, are “angry and disappointed” by the release. He also attempts to pin down CA’s position on the use of AI, but at every stage seems very keen to redirect the blame.
Shogun 2, widely considered to be one of the best strategy games of all time, had some pretty terrible damage done to its reputation with the release of what was called the Complete Edition. Receiving overwhelmingly negative reviews from Steam users for looking ghastly and running poorly, it was also quickly discovered to be riddled with AI-upscaled versions of some of the game’s original art. Despite our attempts to contact both Sega and Creative Assembly about the situation our questions went unanswered, and Collum’s forum post marks the first time the development studio has responded to the situation.
Throwing Polish developer Mataboo, which appears to have been responsible for the update, under the bus, Collum is quick to note that “this was not a Creative Assembly developed game,” and that “we took our eyes off its external development.” While he doesn’t name Mataboo, the post is very clearly structured to make clear that this was the work of an outside group, because “all our teams [are] focused on our next big projects.” He does at least note, “However, whatever the development arrangements, Total War is our franchise and our name is on it.”
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