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Rage. Sing, oh Goddess, of the rage of gamers, murderous, fickle, who hope that A Total War Saga: Troy will be a faithful adaptation of Homer’s The Illiad, an entertaining video game of tactics and strategy, and an authentic look at the warfare of Bronze-Age Greece. These three sources will be tricky to balance, but if the Muses bless the efforts of game studio Creative Assembly, A Total War Saga: Troy will be able to honor ancient history, the cornerstone of ancient Greek poetry and the gameplay established by their previous Total War titles.
When the blind poet Homer first dictated the Illiad to his Iron-Age audience, he could not have expected that his epic poem would become a cornerstone of Western literature, with heroes like Odysseus, Hector, Achilles, and Helen practically household names. However, Creative Assembly, the makers of the Total War franchise, don’t want to rest on Homer’s literary laurels; they’ve stated that they wish to reveal the “Truth Behind the Myth” in their latest Total War title.
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Thus, A Total War Saga: Troy has a lot to live up to. As the latest game in the Total War series of turn-based strategy/real-time tactical combat, it must build on the formula of its predecessors with new gameplay innovations. It will also need to authentically pay homage to the varied sources that inspired it, striking a fine balance between history, myth, and modern pop-culture.
In-Game Fights That Feel Like Battles From the Illiad
The Illiad depicts demigod heroes that single-handedly turn the tide of battle with their preternatural talents and a willingness to get quite gory. The Illiad alone is full of graphic images of decapitation, disembowelment, and rivers of blood shed by its heroes. To effectively recreate this in A Total War Saga: Troy, Creative Assembly needs to build on the “Hero Units” pioneered in their previous title, Total War: Three Kingdoms, giving each Hero unit abilities matching their traits and epithets in the Illiad: Achilles with his brutality, Odysseus with his stealth and cunning, and so on.
By video game standards, the demigod heroes of ancient mythology are very much broken. How then, can Creative Assembly balance the Hero units of A Total War Saga: Troy? Diplomacy mechanics may well be the key – and indeed, Creative Assembly has discussed an intriguingly named “Gods and Favors” system. That will simulate the blessings and curses Greek gods and goddesses inflicted on both sides of the Trojan War. This system could easily be expanded to simulate interactions with allied nations and heroes like Achilles, infamous for sulking in his tent after being offended by his peers.
Mycenaean Warriors, Not Greek Hoplites
Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece and its warriors weren’t like the Hoplites of Classic Greece or modern movies like 2004’s Troy. To give their titles authenticity, the developers of A Total War Saga: Troy need to create soldiers and ships based on actual discoveries from Bronze Age ruins. The concept art released so far is promising, showing infantry gear like that depicted on pottery and found in tombs: short swords, boar-tusk helmets, bulky bronze-plate armor, and figure-eight ox-hide shields. Though the Hero units of Troy are depicted with flashy, unrealistic panoplies, this works to emphasize their unique otherworldly status compared to their more realistic comrades in arms.
There are limits to how much Creative Assembly can – and should – make A Total War Saga: Troy authentic to its sources. The sheer antiquity of the Greek Bronze Age will force developers to fill in the blanks with fiction, while certain themes from Homer’s Illiad won’t translate well to video games. Creative Assembly ultimately needs to tell its own story, one that honors the historical Trojan War while letting players write their own endings. What if, for instance, the Trojans win the war in the end? Or Helen of Troy decided to ditch Paris and go horse-riding with Amazons…?
A Total War Saga: Troy is scheduled for a 2020 release on PC.
Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia, The Vintage News
