Highlights

  • Total War: Pharaoh introduces dynamic weather, adding a new level of strategy to battles as players must navigate rainstorms, heat, and sandstorms.
  • The studio, Creative Assembly, aimed for authenticity by researching the region's historical weather patterns and theories surrounding the Bronze-Age Collapse.
  • While the storms may not be exact replicas, the amount of research put into crafting them enhances the game's realism and immerses players in the historical period.

After a brief stint in the world of Warhammer, the Total War franchise has returned to history with Total War: Pharaoh. That game has brought players to a brand-new historical period and has tossed in a few new mechanics to really spice up the classic RTS gameplay that fans have come to love. One such mechanic comes in the form of Total War: Pharaoh's new dynamic weather. While weather effects have always been a part of the franchise, fans have never really seen them like this.

Total War: Pharaoh's new dynamic weather can shift the battlefield at a moment's notice, which can often be a lot of fun. Players must now deal with rainstorms, sweltering heat, and all sorts of powerful sandstorms as they fight their way through the Bronze-Age Collapse. This addition helps add a new level of strategy to these familiar battles, and it sounds like Creative Assembly may have gone the extra mile to ensure that these storms are as authentic to the period as possible.

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In a recent interview with Game ZXC, Total War: Pharaoh's lead battle designer Milcho Vasilev talked all about how the studio crafted these storms. While much of the discussion was focused on the actual gameplay aspects and why they were included in the first place, Vasilev also talked about the actual authenticity of the storms. When asked just how accurate these storms were to reality, Vasilev said,

It’s hard to know exactly what the average weather event was like in the region at the time of the Bronze-Age Collapse, but we have tried to represent the weather as authentically as possible. Some of the theories around the collapse point to weather being one of the primary reasons for the Sea Peoples becoming a nomadic tribe, with severe droughts leading to a lack of food, thus people had to find more fertile ground, which pushed forces into direct conflict with one another. Our main source for our interpretation of the battle weather what we see from day to day within these regions such as the sweltering heat and sandstorms that occur within the Saharan Desert or the thunderstorms that grip the wider Mediterranean.

Total War: Pharaoh Rain

Since Creative Assembly was unable to actually travel through time, the studio had to try its best to represent the storms as authentically as possible through other means. Specifically, it seems to have done a lot of research into the different theories surrounding why certain groups ended up working how they did. Usually, the environment that people live in affects the way they live, so it only made sense that storms may have dictated their actions as well. Vasilev went on to say,

We always strive to represent the world in an authentic way and a great deal of research goes into our games. The weather climate research we do which also includes the types of battle maps, their topography, flora, and fauna. We want to make sure that certain weather conditions are much more likely to happen in the correct geographical regions. Players are not going to encounter a sandstorm in the mountains of Anatolia, and they are much more likely to be overwhelmed by the sweltering heat when in the desert.

Creative Assembly always spends a lot of time researching the time periods that it will be exploring, and the dynamic weather just became a part of that research. Because the studio knew the game was taking place in Egypt, it was relatively easy to figure out what storms would have actually taken place there. Additionally, storms have seemingly only changed so much over the years, so it was able to base the concept on what people see from day-to-day as well.

There was a lot that went into crafting Total War: Pharaoh's storms, which has led to a pretty fun feature. This weather has given the game a whole new feel that will hopefully be built upon even further for years to come. And while the studio may never be able to fully recreate these storms exactly like they were centuries ago, the amount of research that goes into them should at least get Total War close.