If I can play Mass Effect on my PC at the highest performance ratings I think I can handle this
Empire: Total War advances on March 3
By
Tom Magrino
Creative Assembly's 18th-century global domination strategy game deploys exclusively for PCs in two months.
Between Empire: Total War and its first console real-time strategy game Stormrise, Creative Assembly is in for a busy 2009. In December, the British developer's workload proved to be a bit too ambitious, with Creative Assembly opting to bump Empire a month beyond its projected February ship date to March. Lucky for Total War fans, Creative Assembly is delivering the game sooner in March, rather than later.
Sega announced today that Empire: Total War will arrive exclusively for the PC on March 3 in North America, with a global rollout slated for March 4. The publisher noted that retail and downloaded copies of the game will require activation through Valve's online storefront, Steam. Those who purchase Empire through Steam will be able to preinstall the game 48 hours before its official release.
Along with dating the game, Sega laid out Empire's minimum tech requirements. The game will need at least a 2.4GHz single core processor and a 256MB DirectX 9.0c-compatibile video card. Windows XP users will require at least 1GB of RAM, while Vista owners must have at least 2GBs of RAM. The game will also need at least 15GB of hard-drive space.
Empire modernizes the Total War experience by focusing on the establishment of many European civilizations during the 18th century, touching on such subjects as the industrial revolution, the United States' Revolutionary War, and Asian trade routes. The game features the same style of turn-based global strategy mixed with tactical real-time 3D battles. Notably, however, Empire will introduce the long-requested naval-combat component to the Total War franchise.
Previously, Creative Assembly said that, by popular request, it plans to implement a multiplayer campaign mode in Empire. As it currently stands, the game maker plans to patch the mode in postrelease, with early adopters gaining access to a one-on-one multiplayer campaign mode beta.
For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Empire: Total War.
By
Tom Magrino
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
62 comments
Excellent news. I'm not surprised it is such a big game. I hope their naval warfare battles are as good as they have looked.
My PC can play it (very surprising), at least after I get the motherboard problem fixed.
gogogogo~ETW...March 3 March 3 http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=oFdBHsvbkCw http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=HQfuGH2UNzs
I just really hope they've fixed the path finding bugs which plagued M2TW and even Rome to an extent. As well as the archer bug where they shot straight up? (since I'm pretty sure muskets aren't effective when shot vertically.)
Yeah, probably delayed because it was unfit to play in its' current state. I know the Total War series is good, but I am tired of this release it early, get the money; and worry about fixing the issues later.. The developers don't care if they release a complete game anymore. They say...We'll get all the gamers to find the bugs.. Yeah, I bought Medieval 2, and the expansion... and then there was another patch for the expansion.
@Hillsy_ Don't be so negative! That was true with Medieval 2, but come on... They delayed it TWICE this time! I'm really expecting NO EXTREME BUGS to be shipped at first release. In fact I expect the game to be released with just a few bugs. That's how optimistic I feel about this game.
Yeah great, probably ship with countless bugs and need a 500mb patch.. Maybe I'll grab it in about 6 months time, or a year.
This game is going to be so awesome. I just upgraded my rig so I can play it with out any problems.
"The game will also need at least 15GB of hard-drive space." Wow that's big. It's awesome that hard drives cost so little now though!
Ouch... I have PLENTY of HD space for this... but a 2.2GHz processor and exactly 2GBs of RAM. :-( Mine will struggle with this one.
I can't wait for this new Total War, Ever Since Rome Total War I've loved these games they have such a great amount of scale and there is so much you can do, its gonna be a great game. Tho i wish they coulda made a new Shogun Total War
Medieval 2 + Kingdoms is also 15GB on harddisk space. And GTA4 is also 15GB+. It can be expected that amount of harddisk space required. And with these systeem spec's it wil work here!!
Actually, high hard disk space usage means a lot of graphical resources - images being the simplest example. ETW is likely to have a huge campaign map, with each battlefield requiring its own resources. Hence the large hard disk space. I was anticipating this. I have 30 GB kept free in a partition purely for this game.
Medieval 2 with Kingdoms took close to 15... it's the other specs that delighted me. It'll work on my system!
15 GB!!! Woah! That is enormous amount of disk space for a game without any patches installed. That's.... Out of this world. I hope the theory that "the more space taken on the computer, the better the game is" works.
Can't friggin wait. 15 GB is not THAT bad, however downloading it from Steam would take forever.
It's interesting to see a third-party developer require Steam activation of retail box copies. Seems like a decent enough alternative to SecuRom.
I can't wait!!! But 15GB's hard-drive space? Wow, I've never seen a game that high, but I still can't wait for this game.
I'm not looking forward to many games this year. Empire, however, will have my full attention when it's released.
Probably going to get this. Either this or DoW2. The multiplayer campaign definitely sounds pretty cool.
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