Total War: Pharaoh

Total War: Pharaoh takes the series back to ancient Egypt at the end of the Bronze Age, during the collapse of the so-called Sea Peoples, an era that shook the entire eastern Mediterranean around 1200 BC. The player takes on one of the factions vying for the pharaoh's throne – whether the Egyptian dynasty, the Hittite empire, or the Canaanite city-states – and must handle both the politics and economy on the strategic map and the large real-time battles, in which war chariots, archers, and heavy infantry of the late Bronze Age clash. A new divine-favor mechanic lets the player draw benefits from the Egyptian gods in exchange for fulfilling their demands, adding another layer of decision-making to the campaign and forcing the player to plan their campaigns around religious festivals and rituals.

Compared to the fantasy Warhammer trilogy, this marks a return to the series' historical roots in the vein of Total War: Troy, and on a smaller scale too – Pharaoh focuses on a single region around the Nile and the eastern Mediterranean and one pivotal period, rather than a huge open world. This makes the campaign more compact and quicker to read, but it still retains the typical depth of diplomacy, trade, and province management that fans of the series are used to, including the need to keep armies supplied with water and food during desert campaigns. Historical records from the end of the Bronze Age are also fragmentary, so the developers took a degree of creative license in portraying the factions and their leaders, similar to the earlier Total War: Troy. The game also received an extensive free update after launch called Dynasties, which reworked part of the campaign systems and added further content free of charge to all owners of the base game.

Why play it: Total War: Pharaoh is a good choice for fans of historical strategy games who want a more compact and accessible experience than the sprawling Warhammer fantasy trilogy, while also being interested in the less-explored period of ancient Egypt and the Bronze Age collapse, when entire civilizations crumbled all at once.