Creative Assembly has just announced Total War: Attila, the next game in their long-running strategy series. It's a new game, based on the final years of the Roman Empire. Expect political baggage, invading barbarians and a desperate cling to land and power.

Also expect Attila the Hun. It's not yet known if Attila will be playable, but he will be an antagonistic presence. His rise is charted through the game eventually leading to an apocalyptic invasion against the Western world. I went to Creative Assembly to see Attila in action, and talked to lead designer Janos Gaspar.



Highlights of Attila's feature list in addition to the inevitable and unstoppable sweep of the Huns include a returning family tree system, disease management, improved sieges and battle-phase barricades. It's a big ol' list of new stuff, sat on top of an engine only marginally improved from Rome 2.

For more on Attila, see my first look (and hands-on) impressions. Total War: Attila is due out early next year. See below for the official announcement trailer.

After a troubled start, Rome 2 is now in a much better place its patches and tweaks fixing many, if not all, of the community's major issues. The new "Emperor Edition" is set to bring even more improvements, as well as an add-on that Creative Assembly claim is on the same scale as the base game's main campaign. It'll all be released, free to all existing Rome 2 owners, on 16 September.

A new trailer sets up the events of the Imperator Augustus Campaign Pack, included in the Emperor Edition.



The DLC covers the 2nd Triumvirate War a conflict between Octavian, Marcus Lepidus and Mark Antony that ultimately led to the end of the Roman Republic.

The Empire Edition will not only redevelop the game's politics system, but also rebalance battles, improve building chains and last, and probably least upgrade the lighting for battle and campaign maps.

For more, see the latest episode of CA's Rally Point series, where they talk through the upcoming changes.

Total War: Rome II was, by our estimation, a very good game, and the coming release of the "Emperor Edition" looks set to make it even better. It will include all the free content that's been released for the game so far, plus additional features and an all-new campaign based on the Second Triumvirate War and if you already own Total War: Rome II, it won't cost you a dime.

Total War: Rome II has already seen a number of changes since its release last year but the Emperor Edition will add even more, including upgraded graphics, an improved politics system, new building chains and rebalanced battles. But the big attraction is clearly the new Imperator Augustus campaign, which adds "hundreds of hours of sandbox gameplay across a new campaign map" set during the epic struggle for control of Rome between Lepidus, Marc Antony and Octavian.

"With the Imperator Augustus Campaign Pack, we wanted to recreate the vast civil war which erupted after Julius Caesar s murder," Jack Lusted, the development lead at Creative Assembly's New Content Team, said in a statement. "You can tackle the campaign as various Roman and non-Roman factions, including Armenia for the first time. Our aim was to represent the titanic power struggle that led to Octavian becoming the first Emperor of Rome."

There's no word on when the Emperor Edition of Total War: Rome II will launch, but a beta test expected to begin soon. Whenever it happens, those who own the game will be upgraded automatically, and in the meantime you can find out more about what's coming at the Total War Facebook page.

Like a fine HBO drama, this trailer for Total War: Rome 2's upcoming Hannibal at the Gates DLC is deceptive about its charms. Sure, it looks like you'll be watching for the rousing rhetoric of arch-enemies Scipio and Hannibal. In reality, there are more carnal pleasures buried within. No, not naked people - you really have been watching too much HBO - but elephants! For a glorious few seconds you can watch them bash up soldiers like the armoured meat-sacks they are.



Hannibal at the Gates features a new campaign map, which focuses on the Western Mediterranean during the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage. The two main sides will be expanded through a diplomacy-focused civil tech tree, and they'll be joined by three new playable factions: Syacuse, the Arevaci and the Lusitani.

The Hannibal at the Gates campaign pack will be released March 27th, and will cost 10/$15. In addition, a new free content patch is planned, with details of that coming soon.

War, diplomacy and elephants? It all sounds rather dramatic. How dramatic?



This dramatic.

Total War: Rome II's newest DLC, called Beasts of War, claims to add seven new units to the game, such as Celtic Warhounds and Camel Cataphracts. But some players are angry that the units are not as new as they may appear.

For example, a Let's Play video posted to YouTube in August 2013, prior to the release of Rome II, shows off the armored camels unit (at the 7:20 mark). This in spite of The Creative Assembly's lead unit designer Jack Lusted previously stating that the DLC for Rome II will not include content cut from the main game prior to release.

As you can imagine, this has sent the community pretty angry on the official forums, especially since some players think the DLC is taking precedent over more substantial additional content and improvements to Rome II.

Creative Assembly brand director Rob Bartholomew recently told Eurogamer that there's a misunderstanding about what's being shown in the video combined with a marketing error. "The naming is unfortunate, but these aren't the same units that were then released subsequently as DLC," he says. "As with all work in-progress content, it is subject to change and revision before the final game is shipped. Content might be revised for all sorts of reasons involving balancing or quality for example."

Bartholomew also responded to allegations from modders who claim to have unlocked the units by poking around in Rome II's files. "A lot of placeholder content gets put into the game to fulfill various design, development or testing needs, but not all makes the cut for inclusion for one reason or another," he says.

Technical and DLC issues aside, our review found that Rome II was a tremendous strategy game. If you don't think the Beasts of War DLC is worth $3 but still want to adds some new units to the game, check out its Steam Workshop page, which is packed with free, additional content.

It seems like many of Total War: Rome 2's pre-launch updates have been of the "oh no, why is everything on fire?" variety. If that fire hasn't entirely been quelled, it is at least only lightly smouldering now. Hence this latest update, which focuses on features: specifically, elephants. A new African elephant model has been introduced to complement the pre-existing Indian elephants, allowing for more geographically appropriate elephantidae placement.

Quoth the Creative Assembly community update:

"We now have a beautifully-designed African elephant model, which you can see here in all its large-eared majesty. This model replaces the generic elephant model in ROME II currently used by all African Elephant units.

"We ve also rounded out the unit-roster of Epirus with some tasty extras. They can now recruit Thessalian Cavalry, Royal Peltasts and Illyrian Coastal Levies to bolster their forces. Plus, you ll find Epirus gets a brand-new Mercenary Indian War Elephant unit to hire."

The downside is that Epirus is part of the game's Greek States DLC, which means, unless you own that pack, you'll only be able to appreciate their particular additions as they're charging towards your flanks. You'll still get to play with some nice, new elephants though, and isn't that what's really important?

Thanks, PCGamesN.

When it comes to these iteratively improving patches, the change-lists can bleed into one big mass of "everything is better this time, again". Patch 9 for Total War: Rome 2 targets improvements to "performance, unit behaviours, unit balancing and much more," which seems suspiciously familiar to the summary of every patch that came before. Skim over the lengthy details, though, and you'll see that this is a substantial and wide-ranging update.

There are plenty of performance updates, targeting campaign performance and battle-screen framerates. The AI has received plenty of tweaks too, with pathfinding and battle logic seemingly the focus of CA's tinkering. Also in the patch notes... well, a bit of everything really.

Find the full change list below. Patch 9 is now live and swimming through the Steam pipes.

Technical and performance improvements:


Performance and memory optimisations in Campaign modes.
Further work to reduce the CPU costs during battles.
Improved framerates when units clash in battles.
Siege battle performance optimisations.
Eliminated several rare crashes found in battle scenarios.
Fix for rare crash related to naval boarding/disembarking
Multiplayer battle-replay desync addressed.
Issues with trees in battle-maps addressed.
Additional cost-balancing to Chariots and Elephants.
Units no longer mistake bastions for wall breaches in settlement battles.
Further battle map technical and performance improvements.


Support for AMD switchable graphics:


Game now correctly detects and reports the discrete GPU on an AMD switchable graphics configuration (primarily laptops with an Intel integrated GPU and a discrete AMD mobility GPU).
This fix ensures that the unlimited video memory graphics option is enabled correctly on AMD switchable configs.
Note that the Catalyst Control Centre Switchable Graphics UI must be used to select between the discrete and integrated GPUs for each application that the player wants to run.


Support for Virtu MVP Desktop Switchable Graphics:


Virtu MVP is a common OEM-installed application for selecting GPUs in a multi-GPU desktop configuration e.g. a desktop with an Intel integrated GPU and a discrete desktop GPU both typically routed to the same motherboard display output connector.
We now correctly detect and report the correct GPU used in this scenario.
Note that the Virtu MVP Control Panel application must be used to select between the discrete and integrated GPUs for each application that the player wants to run.
New option in the Advanced Graphics Settings menu, for selecting between graphics cards / GPUs when more than 1 is available.


Support for multi-GPUs with multi-monitor configurations:


Game now detects multiple GPUs and allows the player to pick which GPU is used to render the game.
In this configuration multiple GPUs are shown in a combo-box in the Advanced Graphics Options UI.
Improved video-memory detection to prevent the game from sometimes detecting the video memory limit from the wrong/lower graphics card in a multi-GPU configuration.


Battle AI and behavioural improvements:


Improved pathfinding of siege vehicles near walls.
Improved multiple siege ladder functionality parameters.
Improved siege vehicle docking placement.
Units now consistently disembark from ships with raised bows.
Improved AI infantry awareness of cavalry, making infantry brace when threatened by a charge.
AI controlled units are now more likely to use flaming arrows against elephants where available.
Improved logic of multiple battle maps, to allow the AI to interact with these maps better and cause fewer behavioural issues.
Improved AI General's use of special abilities.
Rebalanced AI's battle-plan analyser/attack-or-defend decision making, to take into account that the enemy alliance may have weaker but longer-range missile units, to prevent static behaviour under missile fire.
In ambush battles, the defender s units which are under missile fire that outranges their own are now more likely to respond by moving to intercept the missile unit attacking them.
Altered some of the AI's usage of various ammo types.
Pike Phalanx now reform properly once engaged in melee.
Idle units attacked when set to Formed Attack attempt to keep their current facing.
Formed attack charges will now penetrate less than free attack barbarian charges.
Attacks from units in formation are now more powerful than attacks from unformed units.
Reduced the chance of units walking while routing from the battlefield.
Routing units no longer turn around/play matched combat animations as they are being killed.
Units now no longer head through breach in a wall rather than using the siege engine they are attached to.
Artillery with special ammo now show the correct model while loading the weapon: e.g. animal carcasses.
Reduced instances of unit collision which caused jittering on the battlefield.
Eliminated a battle replay desync caused by presence of war dogs units.
Units now correctly stop firing at a building if they take ownership of it.
During multiplayer siege battles, the defender can now see the attacker's units during deployment.
Rebalanced hit-point bonuses for officers and standard bearers.
During battles, units can now burn down open gates with torches.
Men positioned on a gatehouse will no longer die when the gate is destroyed.
Artillery ships can now consistently disembark.
Added more effective collision detection to barbarian watch towers in encampment battles.
Charging at Pikemen now consistently selects the correct matched combat animation, keeping pikemen in line more effectively.
When dog handlers unleash their dogs, the handlers will no longer attack as well.
Added blood to chariot horses and drivers, and to attackers and defenders during knockdowns. (Only active if the player owns the Blood and Gore DLC.)
Artillery on ships can no longer be picked up (previously resulted in loss of unit control).
Improved unit reforming on the battlefield.
Projectiles no longer remain in mid-air when the siege weapon that fired them is destroyed.
Improvements to naval disembarking functionality.
Technical improvements across a range of battle maps (including pathfinding, deployment, general unit interaction, walls, gates, battle tooltips etc).
Multiple minor unit behavioural improvements.


Campaign AI improvements:


AI no longer underestimates its strength when ending a move in Forced March stance within a settlement.
Campaign AI now considers maintaining sieges for longer, in order to build more siege equipment.
Campaign AI now less likely to sue for peace shortly after declaring a war.
AI factions now recruit more siege units.
Revised the Campaign AI settlement occupation decision system.
Adjustments to Campaign AI Financial Management.
AI factions are now much less likely to declare war on distant factions.
Adjustments to composition of recruited forces.
Improvement to Campaign AI food management.


General Battle Improvements:


Eliminated an exploit allowing players to bypass unit-caps in custom and multiplayer battles by modifying a saved army setup.
Units can no longer use loose formation when manning siege equipment.
Buhen (Egyptian battle map) is now playable in custom battle mode.
Caltrops are now placed in more uniform rows.
Tortoise formation is now unlocked in the Seleucid faction when the player owns the Greek States DLC.
Improved multiplayer responsiveness: movement paths and attack arrows are now shown instantly upon giving the order. (Previously the game waited for all clients to confirm the issued order, causing a small delay).
Multiple combat animation blending tweaks.
Orders issued on lower framerate machines now register more effectively.
Added a horse bonus upgrade icon to show different levels of horses on their unit cards.
Improvements to group collision sounds during battles.
Pre-battle voiceover no longer occasionally cuts out.
Tweaks to some Hellenic unit looks to make them more distinct.
Missing rock/tree textures on battlefields added.
Many more siege battle map improvements (e.g. improving docking point placement on walls, joining small gaps in walls to improve pathfinding, removed obstructions from docking points).


General Campaign Improvements:


Added a countdown timer to the Exchange Panel in Multiplayer Campaign mode.
Settlements on the campaign map will no longer continue to emit smoke from damage or construction when they are no longer damaged/under construction.
Right-clicking the mouse during the end-turn cycle in campaign while an agent/army is selected will no longer trigger audio responses from the selected agent/army.
Opening and closing the pause menu, while the Declare War On *Overlord/Make Peace With Satrapies panel is open in Campaign mode, will no longer close the panel and make peace with the satrapies.
Help I'm trapped in these patch notes.
An army in Forced March stance will now have their Recruit Units button reactivate immediately when they are put back into the Default stance.
Replacing an immortal general will no longer trigger a General Wounded message in Campaign modes.
The Zoom To Location button no longer pans the camera to the bottom-left corner of the Multiplayer Campaign map when pressed with an army selected.
The Nervii faction is now immune to snow attrition in the Grand Campaign.
If a general reaches level 25 in a statistic, all of the attribute increases and abilities granted by that statistic will consistently remain.
Addressed a rare issue during campaign ambush battles where, if the user conceded defeat, they might suffer no losses and could then retreat.
When recruiting a unit on the same turn as a researched technology that replaces that unit type is completed, the unit recruitment will no longer be cancelled.
Fix to allow Praetorians to be upgraded to Praetorian Guards once the appropriate technology has been researched.
Fix for Athenian and Egyptian naval recruitment experience bonus in campaign modes.


Battle rebalancing:


Improved behaviour and benefits of Formed Attack ability.
Slightly reduced the spacing of melee units.
Widened the pike cone-of-engagement, so they can hold off units more effectively.
Reduced pike damage.
Reduced the mass (and therefore impact) of chariots and elephants.
Major adjustments to unit costs, to better reflect the combat value of units; there is a much greater spread of values now. For example Oathsworn now cost 1340, Celtic Warriors 350.
Adjustments to unit speeds, stats, and more to help diversify the unit rosters, and give more distinct roles on the battlefield.
Improved AI army compositions in campaign mode, when a faction doesn t have access to early land or navy units.
Campaign AI is now more focused on acquiring early military technologies.
Certain total casualty morale penalties have been set to 0 so there is less stacking of morale effects.
Reduced minimum hit chance, base hit chance and maximum hit chance for melee combat.
Further balancing changes based on Patch 9 Public BETA feedback:

-Reduction in melee attack for Roman melee infantry units.
-Adjusted costs of missile infantry.
-Adjustments to melee cavalry weapon types.
-Tweaks to shock cavalry costs.
-Added passive Scare ability to Night Hunters.
-Increased Wodanaz Spears melee attack.
-Reduced cost of elite Germanic and Briton units.

Auto-resolver balancing:


Smaller defensive bonus in minor settlement battles
A small global penalty for the player in autoresolved battles
Unit threshold has been increased, so severely damaged units are less likely to survive an auto-resolved battle.

Total War: Rome 2 has had Steam Workshop support since last October, but mod-makers have had to cobble together their tweaks and edits through community made tools, bits of string and frequent swearing. Now, though, Creative Assembly are providing their Assembly Kit as an open beta to community creators, giving them the chance to try out the official suite of tools before their upcoming full release.

"Following the successful launch of the Steam Workshop for ROME II," announces the Total War wiki, "we are pleased to release version one of the Assembly Kit for ROME II. The Assembly Kit is currently in Beta, and its feature-set will expand over time. If you have any questions or find any bugs to report, please visit the official forums here."

As with the Shogun 2 Assembly Kit, the Rome 2 open beta can be accessed through your Steam library's Tools section. Creative Assembly claim that they'll be adding documentation and guides over the coming weeks, providing a complete run-down of the kit's functionality. For more information on the tools available, head to the Assembly Kit section of the Total War wiki.

Welcome to the PC Gamer Game of the Year Awards 2013. For an explanation of how the awards were decided, a round-up of all the awards and the list of judges, check here.

There are always nominees that mean a lot to just one or two judges. In past years these might have been included as runners up, but this year we wanted to recognise them in a more substantial way. In addition to the main awards, we've each taken a personal pick, and written about why that game made such a great impression in 2013.

Tony Ellis - Total War: Rome 2



So Rome 2 didn t fix the flaws of the Total War series. Here s the thing: it didn t have to. The original Rome was so damn good, all they ever had to do was give it prettier graphics and not break it. I m still madly tackling armies twice my size, because I know that if I can just massacre this unit and this one before they join up, I have a chance. I m still dry-mouthed at the sight of a wavering company of Hastati, because I know everything is lost if they rout. When Rome 3 comes out, that ll probably be my game of the year too.

Andy Kelly - Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs



I could never enjoy The Dark Descent because of the sanity system. For me, it got in the way of the story. So I was happy to discover that not only would the sequel not have it, but it was also being developed and written by Dear Esther creators The Chinese Room. As someone who plays games for atmosphere and storytelling, Machine for Pigs is ideal. It spins a strange, compelling yarn, and the increasingly terrifying depths of that awful factory will stay with me forever. I haven t been able to look at bacon since.

Chris Thursten - Saints Row 4



I m easily won over by a good music cue, and SRIV makes phenomenal use of them. Its best bits made me happier than any other game released this year, and it is way funnier, more adventurous and transgressive than a game about gangsters has any right to be. The series has climbed from a GTA alsoran to gaming s answer to Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedies like Airplane! and Hot Shots!, and the fourth game in the series was my favourite mainstream game released in 2013.

Ben Griffin - Sim City



OK, let me explain. Look beyond the conga line traffic, broken leaderboards, idiot citizens, shrunken plots, saved game corruption and what might be the most catastrophic launch in gaming history, and you ll find SimCity is quite good. I love the tilt-shift aesthetic. I love how tactile it is. I love watching streams of tourists gamble at my garish casinos. Most of all I love how Maxis made the insane complexity of running a city beautifully simple. There s a brilliant game here it s just really well hidden.

Evan Lahti - Papers, Please



It hands you power and helplessness. As an impoverished checkpoint border officer in a pseudo-Soviet state, if you perform poorly at your miserable, taxing job, you won t be able to keep your family alive. But despite this low position, you re granted enormous influence over the lives of others. With one stamp, you can separate spouses, quash a conspiracy, liberate a killer, or save victims. The way the game stacks these moral quandaries atop your own instincts as caretaker is a big part of what make it worth playing.

Cory Banks - Tomb Raider



More than a reboot, this is simply a better take on Lara Croft. Previously, she was little more than an avatar, climbing poorly rendered cliffs in short shorts with a polygonal smile. Here, Crystal Dynamics turn her an actual person, a 21-year-old with faith in her convictions but fears that she s making the wrong calls. We see her struggle and suffer in the game, an aspect that made many uncomfortable, but we also see her become a hero. She s a Lara Croft I want to follow into future adventures.

Tom Senior - Assassin's Creed 4



Open-world games are benefiting hugely from new technology. Black Flag s tropical paradise is a technical marvel, a bustling archipelago bound together by dynamic oceans full of storms, colonial fleets and vulnerable trade schooners. Whether freerunning through jungles or sailing the high seas, mere traversal feels dramatic, while those islands have a knack for drawing you away from the prescribed path to hunt animals, capture forts and commit piracy. It s 2013 s most vibrant adventure.

Phil Savage - The Stanley Parable



I d played the original mod, so I thought I knew what to expect. Sure enough, I was led across the abandoned office, past the doors, through an underground complex and on to the canonical end. That was the last time across the many different branches and endings that I could confi dently predict what would happen. Nothing else I ve played this year had the same feeling of weird, hilarious and surprising discovery. The beauty of The Stanley Parable is that anything can be on the other side of a door.

PC Gamer editors are prohibited from celebrating Christmas. For the team, the end of the year is marked by an event known as GOTY Sleepover, a time where we somewhat-voluntarily sequester ourselves away from our families and loved ones in the interest of a greater good: selecting the best PC games of the year. We gather in a room with a very heavy door and very little ventilation and stay there until we ve reached a unanimous decision on every award category. It s a lot like the Papal conclave, but with more Cheetos.

So far, this is what we ve got. These are games nominated for awards in general, not just our single Game of the Year. Consider this a short-list of the games our team loved in 2013, one we ll whittle down into proper, named awards in the coming days.


Dota 2
Arma 3
Spelunky
Battlefield 4
Gone Home
Tomb Raider
Rising Storm
Saints Row IV
Papers, Please
BioShock Infinite
Total War: Rome II
The Stanley Parable
XCOM: Enemy Within

Check in each day over the holiday break to see who's victorious. In the meantime, here's our 2012 winners and some lively year-end video conversations about our best PC gaming experiences in 2013.