The Total War series is one of the biggest and most enduring turn-based strategy games, with the Creative Assembly-developed franchise comprising of more than a dozen games released since the year 2000. Generally agreed as being one of the highest-rated entries in the series, 2011’s Total War: Shogun 2 was recently remastered for modern platforms in the form of a ‘complete edition’. Unfortunately the remaster suffers from decade-old bugs, newly added issues and poor use of AI upscaling – leading to SEGA / Creative Assembly temporarily delisting the remaster.
Taking to Blue Sky to make the announcement, SEGA confirmed that they are unlaunching the newly-released Total War: Shogun 2 – Complete Edition following a tidal wave of fan feedback, writing:
“We’re aware that Total War: Shogun 2 – Complete Edition has fallen short of both your expectations and our own standards. We’ve seen your feedback, comments, and reviews. We agree that the current experience is not where it needs to be.”
They continued, “As a result we are working with platform holders to temporarily remove the game from sale and to reinstate the original game while we investigate the issues. Existing owners will still be able to access and play the game.”
The team concluded by stating: “We are working closely with our development partner to identify the causes of these problems, deliver improvements, and ensure Shogun 2 – Complete Edition meets the quality standards players expect from Total War.”
The post itself is pretty vague and does not directly address the issues expressed by fans. As mentioned however, much of the complaints surrounding the remaster has been with its use of Gen-AI to upscale the game’s art. Though far from being the most contentious use of AI, the final result left plenty to be desired, owing to the original game’s lower-res assets becoming somewhat soupy-looking when ‘enhanced’.
Beyond this, the remaster also left in many of the original 2011 release’s bugs while somehow introducing a bout of new ones. All in all, the launch of Total War: Shogun 2 – Complete Edition has not gone down well.
While this could have easily been avoided, it is good to see that SEGA / Creative Assembly are at least trying to fix the problems retroactively.
KitGuru says: Did you pick up Total War: Shogun 2’s remaster? Is it as bad as some have claimed? Between the upscaled art and its new bugs, what has bothered you the most? Let us know down below.
