DECLARATION OF WAR

How SHOGUN: TOTAL WAR started a 20-year legacy… but almost didn’t.

- Fraser Brown

Two decades ago, Shogun: Total War spawned a history spanning strategy series, several spin-offs and even a detour into Warhammer. Almost all of them are unified by tactical real-time battles, turn-based empire-building, and a foundation that was established all the way back in the late 1990s, during Shogun’s development. But the first concept for the game looked very different.

In 2000, Creative Assembly released its hybrid. There was diplomacy, trade, ninjas going around murdering people; then you’d quickly have to switch gears so you could micromanage individual units and crush your enemy in real-time scraps. These fundamentals haven’t been changed, but before the studio came up with the enduring formula, it was creating a traditional Command & Conquer-style RTS.

SHOGUN CONTROL

The first change came when graphics cards started appearing, giving the team the freedom to build 3D maps with more realistic terrain. When, on a whim, the camera was changed so that it pointed at the horizon, the traditional top-down perspective was also thrown out. But one vital ingredient was still missing.