MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Creative Assembly’s Total War: Rome II has again fallen under fan scrutiny, this time over paid DLC allegedly including cut content from the game’s pre-release version.
Players claim that the Camel Cataphract units featured in the recently released Beasts of War pack were originally seen in a Let’s Play video – a video produced by Creative Assembly prior to the game’s release.
The video additionally outed the existence of the Mercenary Naked Swords unit – which also wasn’t included in the base game, but came later as part of the Caesar in Gaul premium DLC.
"At the time of this video’s recording, these units were not finished in terms of art, gameplay or design and as a marketing team we should have double-checked the likelihood of them making it into the final game,"brand director Rob Bartholomew told Eurogamer in an apology to fans.
"Obviously we don’t want to feature content that won’t be in the game intentionally, especially when it would otherwise be pointless, as in this case where there was a huge variety of other great units to show off. That’s our basic human error and I apologize for letting that through.
"[The units] weren’t working pre-launch in the sense that they were finished, being largely placeholder and subject to change," Bartholomew added.
"However, I completely appreciate that this sounds like a ‘get out’ on a technicality to a fan feeling aggrieved by this, so again I do apologize for not thoroughly checking enough that all content in that video was absolutely ready for public viewing and understanding. We’ve put checks in place now that should prevent that in the future."
The backlash follows a rocky launch filled with numerous problems for the title, including a widespread bug that prohibited owners from getting past the start screen.
Despite the issues, Total War: Rome II has been a sales powerhouse for Sega. Creative Assembly confirmed in November that the game will be one of the headliners for Valve’s SteamOS.
