A part of me was expecting not to like Total War Saga: Troy. At Gamescom last year I got to speak to Todor Nikolov, the lead designer on the game, about its central 'truth behind the myth' concept, and while I thought it sounded amazing on paper, like many of us, I was a little skeptical. But the truth of Troy is a little more complicated.
It's certainly a better game than Thrones of Britannia was, and far more successful if you view it through the lens of the Total War Saga mission statement - to represent flashpoint conflicts throughout history. Everything about Troy's setting feels focused towards Ancient Greece, from the gorgeous visual aesthetic, to the papyrus fog of war which burns away as you uncover the map.
But it's slightly less successful in other regards. Let's start at the beginning...
Total War: Saga Troy is a game about the Trojan War, the mythic period immortalised in Homer's Iliad. But rather that going full blown myth, Creative Assembly Sophia took what history was known about the period, and used it to rationalise those myths. If Three Kingdoms is history as myth, Troy is myth as history, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Legendary heroes like Achilles or Hector may be powerful, and have strong battlefield abilities, but they won't be tanking entire units without a scratch.
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