Total War: Arena, det kommende gratisspil i Creative Assemblys hæderkronede strategiserie, handler kort sagt om at tage multiplayer til et nyt niveau med store kampe, hvor spillerne sammed udgør små dele af en koordineret hær. Det forklarer lead designer James Russel fra udivkleren i dette interview.
"A free-to-play, multiplayer exclusive, online game. In Arena we have up to 10 v 10 battles, so each player controls just three units. So you have a huge army, huge multiplayer battles, but you're only controlling three units. So you have to perform a very specific battlefield role, you have to co-operate, you have to unite to win. Arena is all about multiplayer action, so it's got a much more focused design philosophy.
"It's going to be free-to-play and the reason for that we really wanted to take multiplayer for Total War to the next level. We want fantastic team-based battles where one player might play the role of some archers and just concentrate on ranged attack, whereas another player might want to focus on cavalry, another player might want to focus on a mix of different troops and maybe they choose to defend the archers.
"We'll keep a broad historical theme, we're not planning on introducing fantasy elements or anything like that. But we do want to have that mix of commanders and fighting styles from different periods ultimately. Because Arena is a free-to-play ongoing service we're going to keep on supporting it and building it, building the community way after launch so we're going to be adding that content in as we go."