Total War: PHARAOH Reviews
Total War: PHARAOH is a smashing success as a grand strategy game and brings the hit franchise to a new historical era. Fascinating leaders and subplots with mechanics to match help make each play session fresh and enjoyable.
Total War Pharaoh is a fun game, but one that lacks ambition. It squanders its potential with meagre gameplay, story, soundtrack, and performance, and fails to add anything of note to the Total War series, or leave an impression of its identity.
Is Total War Pharaoh a worthy successor to the historical franchise? Yes. Total War: Pharaoh takes more steps forwards than back, and I can live with that. At least, it didn’t crash and burn like so many civilizations it portrays, so that’s something.
Total War: Pharaoh's battles may be limited by history, but Creative Assembly compensates for this with a complex, thematic, and highly dynamic campaign.
Total War Pharoah doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does introduce a handful of promising and sometimes deep new ways to approach the familiar formula. Combat is still hit-and-miss, but the approach to history and empire-building are among the best in the Total War series.
Every single change Pharaoh makes to Troy is for the better, and some changes are so good that it's going to be difficult to play any Total War without them going forward. But the fundamental issues of Total War - mainly enemy battle AI - are far too entrenched to fix in a few years, and the bronze age setting doesn't allow for enough unit variation to make up for them.
There are some design (and marketing) choices about Total War: Pharaoh that are still unexplainable, but some of the innovations that the game introduces are what we hope to see more in the future of this glorious saga.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Total War: Pharaoh lets you play your way, and throws a lot at you to deal with. Fans will lap it up once they get to grips with its new mechanics.
In the end, Total War: Pharaoh stands atop the pyramids of grand-scale RTS. It takes the franchise in a bold new direction, adding a slew of new systems and features that enhance the gameplay. Despite choosing to play it safe with battles, the new systems are a big step forward. And while it has its flaws, Pharaoh features one of the best campaigns yet in an exciting and beautiful setting.
A splendid campaign mode with many systems working in conjunction to offer a varied experience without losing the focus on the military conquest. Few cavalry units are partly compensated by a renewed attention to different types of infantry, but to be honest I do miss a good old cataphract charge.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Old issues return and some of its new ideas are less effective than others, but Total War: Pharaoh remains a strong and exciting addition to the series' historical catalog.
From a brand-new campaign with exciting new features to a battle system that has been shaken up with new mechanics, Total War: Pharaoh has a lot to offer players looking for a new strategy experience to sink their teeth into. Some of its unique features may feel a bit bland, but it makes up for it by offering players unprecedented freedom to shape game and history how they see fit. And even though it may be smaller than Total War: Warhammer 3, it is still a worthy entry in this iconic franchise.
Overall, despite its shortcomings with performance and AI pathing, Total War: Pharaoh has been one of the most enjoyable Total War games I’ve played for quite some time. Its refined focus on a smaller period of history has allowed for experimentation elsewhere, with dynamic weather and terrain, resource generation on the campaign map, and a wave-based invasion system with the Sea Peoples that constantly keeps you guessing. I hope that some of these mechanics can be taken and expanded on for future, main series releases for Total War.
When playing Total War: Pharaoh, time simply goes by easily. Creative Assembly delivers another outstanding strategy-game, that connects all its aspects well and motivates with constant progression. Despite some minor flaws in the user-guidance-department, Total War: Pharaoh is a must-have-game for every RTS-fan.
Review in German | Read full review
Total War: Pharaoh introduces a number of great new systems and mechanics for the long-running strategy franchise, and there's plenty of fun to be had staving off an ancient apocalypse, but a large number of bugs bring down the experience.
Total War: Pharaoh's interesting battles complement an impressively rich campaign centered on the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
Total War: PHARAOH will be another must-play for fans of the series or those who can’t get enough of Ancient Egypt, but hopefully you have a top-notch PC, because at least for now, the game chugs pretty badly, crashes are frequent, and load times are atrocious.
Total War: Pharaoh is a successful return to pure history for the series. While some may not like aspects, such as a limited unit variety and a map that can feel a little narrow in areas, the gameplay is enhanced across the board thanks to a variety of features, increased tactical options in combat, and more.
Like its predecessors, Total War Pharaoh is extremely time-consuming. It delivers a truly colossal punch. In addition to being visually very pleasing, it has the luxury of offering numerous new features in terms of gameplay, which fit perfectly into the setting of Ancient Egypt.
Review in French | Read full review
Total War games spent so much time trying to do more. There are countless clever strategy games out there, but this series always prided itself on having a massive scale. Pharaoh totally changes that formula as it scales down and rethinks the gameplay flow of the series. Everyone has their favorite Total War game (mine for the record is the original Rome Total War). I’m sure that someone out there will be quite unhappy with some of the Total War changes. But from where I sit as a long-time player, Pharaoh is a total blast, and has me more excited for the future of the series than ever before.