Total War: PHARAOH Reviews
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.
Total War: Pharaoh isn't a terrible game, but it's definitely not the grand return to the heyday of historical Total War games that fans have been desperately waiting for.
Total War: PHARAOH just doesn't impress as much as it should have. The flaw lies only with the magnitude and scope of the game and not with the game's choice of a Bronze Age or ancient Near Eastern setting. The game's atmosphere is what you'll remember most. Still, its mechanics are shallow, the level of replayability is low, the artificial intelligence is useless, and there's no opportunity for strategy in the fights. If a top-notch total war game is what you seek, you've come to the wrong place.
A Total War game proves not to be the best way to explore one of the most fascinating periods in ancient history, with boring real-time battles dragging down positive changes to the grand strategy elements.
Dull warfare mars a fascinating battle for supremacy during the late Bronze Age collapse.
I can’t say that Total War: Pharaoh is a bad game. It’s simply the same well-known game that was spruced up (again) and sold for a full price. But if you wait for a discount, Creative Assembly’s newest game should deliver dozens of hours of fun.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Total War: PHARAOH presents an interesting window into the time and place of a tumultuous historical period while handing you the reigns to make your own story out of it. While learning the ropes takes some work to get into due to poor use of tutorials and the overwhelming amount of extra mechanics in the campaign layer, buried underneath is an excellent gameplay formula that continues to stand the test of time.
It's a beautiful and enjoyable game, but I see no reason to prefer Pharaoh over any other Total War.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Total War: Pharaoh will surely benefit from the shortage of AAA strategy games with real-time battles, but it may play things too safe for the most demanding fans of the series, and given it's a full-price release, the overall scope lands dangerously close to that of the Total War Saga entries.
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 doesn't feel like a proper Total War title, but rather like a simplified grand strategy game. This is not entirely a fault of the developers, though – the historical era the game is set in is just pretty limiting.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Placing the next Total War game in Egypt was probably not the best decision. The Bronze Age simply tied the creators' hands too much, and you can see it especially during the fights. A small variety of units and battles that lack real juice drag the rating down. On the contrary, dynasty management is fun and last a long time.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
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.
Pharaoh is a solid new entry in the Total War series, although it lacks some ambition. If all you wanted was some fun playing as a general in a Bronze Age setting, you'd probably be satisfied here, but if you were waiting for the next big thing, you'd have to wait a bit more.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Total War: Pharaoh is a truly unique strategy game for those like me who love the period it's about. The Ancient Egyptian period is where the game really stands out. However, I have to say that the artificial intelligence problems that we have experienced in other games continue and it is not very appealing for those who do not like the era. Nevertheless, with the Palace system and some improvements added to the dynamic battles, it offers a very enjoyable Total War experience.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Total War: Pharaoh is not a “return to the golden age” of Total War, whatever you think it might be. Still, is an incredible accomplishment of mixing player-driven decision and storytelling, along with some much needed battle improvements.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
As a whole, Total War: Pharaoh is more than a capable entry into a storied franchise, with the grand strategy elements much more intriguing than before. While it fails to match up in bloody battles when compared to Warhammer or Three Kingdoms, everything else maintains that level of quality that fans know and love. Just like entering a new age, the game is still in its nascent days, and it has plenty of room to capitalise on its potential, we can only hope that’s the case in the coming days.
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.
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.
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.