Pharaoh’ trailer confirms ‘Total War’ is going to Ancient Egypt

Creative Assembly has announced Total War: Pharaoh — an Ancient Egyptian entry in the Total War strategy series that’s set to launch later this year.

Planned to release for PC in October 2023, Total War: Pharaoh will be set in Ancient Egypt, where factions will fight to survive the Bronze Age Collapse — a period of time in 12th century BC that saw a number of civilisations around the Mediterranean collapse.

As with other Total War games, Pharaoh will task players with building up their empire on a turn-based campaign map while dropping into real-time strategy (RTS) battles to control their armies on the battlefield.

However, one notable difference will be the appearance of “sudden and dramatic shifts in weather”, which will see the likes of sandstorms and thunderstorms that can physically change the terrain of a battlefield.

At launch, eight factions, drawn from three cultures — Egyptian, Canaanite, and Hittite —will be available, and will compete to have their ruler named Pharaoh. Additionally, a number of downloadable content (DLC) factions are planned to launch following the release of Pharaoh. You can check out the base launch packs below.

• Egyptian: Ramesses, Seti, Tausret, Amenmesse
• Canaanite: Bay, Isru
• Hittite: Kurunta, Suppiluliuma

The game is being directed by Todor Nikolov, who recently served as a lead game designer on A Total War Saga: Troy.

On Pharaoh’s setting, Nikolov shared that “there are few periods more iconic than Ancient Egypt; fraught with political intrigue, cataclysmic events and grand war campaigns,” and said it was the “perfect setting for a Total War title”.

Pharaoh will mark the series’ first mainline historical game since Three Kingdoms released in 2019, though a mix of smaller Saga-branded titles have been released since then. However, Creative Assembly has also found success in the fantasy realm with its Total War: Warhammer trilogy, with the latest game in the series receiving a five-star review from NME.

Earlier in the year, Creative Assembly opened a new studio in Newcastle, where it is currently working on an unannounced project.