Total War Saga: Troy

Total War Saga: Troy is a strategy game from Creative Assembly, the second entry in the Total War Saga sub-series, this time set in the late Bronze Age and the legendary siege of Troy. The game draws on Homer's Iliad and Greek mythology, and the player takes on one of the warring sides – whether Achaean kings like Achilles, Agamemnon, or Odysseus, or the defenders of Troy around Hector and Priam – in a conflict that deliberately balances between the historical grounding of the Bronze Age and openly mythological elements, such as the legendary unique abilities of individual heroes.

Compared to the main entries, Troy stands out for its emphasis on heroic figures inspired by myth, who have more distinctive and colorful abilities than ordinary generals and represent key, almost irreplaceable units in both battles and on the campaign map, complete with their own story quests. The game keeps the series' classic core – turn-based territory management and diplomacy combined with real-time battles – but the mythological flavor, a much smaller and more compact map compared to the main entries, and the focus on a single central conflict push it closer to a story-driven experience centered on the siege of one specific city. Shortly after release, the game was given away for free for twenty-four hours through the Epic Games Store as part of a promotional campaign, which gave it an unusually broad first wave of players compared to the rest of the series. The Bronze Age also brings a different style of combat than the classic historical entries – armies are smaller, fights are more personal, and the role of individual heroes on the battlefield is noticeably more prominent than in the mass formations of later periods.

Why play it: Total War Saga: Troy is a good fit for players drawn to the combination of ancient myth and historical strategy who want to experience the siege of Troy from the perspective of individual legendary heroes with powerful abilities. It will also appeal to those looking for a shorter and more thematically focused Total War campaign centered on a single story rather than the series' sprawling main entries with their continent-spanning maps.