Total War: THREE KINGDOMS poses the player with a simple question: What if the legends were true? While the game’s “Records” mode presents a more historically accurate portrayal of the THREE KINGDOMS period in Chinese history and the warlords that led it, its “Romance” mode — based on the partly historical and partly fantastical 14th-century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms — grants the game’s heroes special, mythical abilities that make them formidable in combat.

The game’s new “Dynasty” mode, however, takes this principle a step further. Players begin by selecting three heroes to fend off wave after wave of enemies, each one more difficult than the last. Yet in Dynasty mode, the heroes are given more superhuman strength, elevating them from adept war generals to the stuff of legends.



“In the base campaign game, we pitch these characters’ battlefield prowess so they’re not too overpowered, even in Romance mode; that would reduce the tactical importance of rank-and-file units, which is, of course, the foundation of Total War battles,” Creative Assembly’s Development Communications Manager Al Bickham said. “Dynasty mode is where we basically get to turn them into war-gods. It’s a lot of fun!”

Heroes in Dynasty mode are so powerful, in fact, that they’re capable of taking down multiple troops in one fell swoop. This results in a battlefield that can be littered with dozens of enemy corpses within minutes.

Combat revolves around active special attacks and abilities that differ from hero to hero. Defeating a wave earns you experience points, which can be spent on upgrades to your heroes’ abilities. For example, Ma Chao the Vanguard favors a melee-heavy combat style and starts the game with an ability called “Flaming Fury,” an area-of-effect attack that has a radius of 10 meters. Upon upgrading, he can earn the “Phoenix Rising” ability, which triggers a buff and instant heal once he retains critical damage.

Success in Dynasty mode depends not only on your skill with a single hero but on hero compositions and synergies, as well. Pairing the Vanguard with a Strategist, for instance, will allow your Vanguard to dive head-first into enemy lines and inflict massive damage, while your Strategist is free to sit back, sharpshoot with their bow, and apply debuffs to enemies. Throw in a Champion and you’ve got area-of-effect healing for the whole squad.

These meaningful synergies demonstrate a new dimension to the game. It allows the player to feel godly without compromising challenge. There’s still plenty of strategy going on, and with enemy heroes to defeat every third wave, there’s a lot of incentive to build compositions that can stay flexible from situation to situation.

To up the ante even further, players have the option of increasing the size of enemy units to up to 600% their normal size. This is sure to live up to the expectations set by Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as 100s of enemies topple before the might of THREE KINGDOMS’ warlords. Of course, you’ll need to make sure your CPU can take the extra workload.

“Increasing unit sizes hits the CPU significantly harder than the GPU, given the massive amount of unit interactions and calculations that are performed at the individual entity level, but Total War: THREE KINGDOMS’ battle engine multithreads very well,” Bickham explained. “So while per-core CPU speed is always important, you’ll see better performance per-tick the more cores you have. Moving from a quad-core to a hex- or eight-core CPU is where you see the best frame rate gains.”

Overall, Dynasty mode is designed to inspire the same awe and wonder in the player that Luo Guanzhong must have felt while writing Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The legends are alive and well in Total War: THREE KINGDOMS — now, it’s up to you to command them.