A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia

 PC
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 51 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 51
  2. Mixed: 22 out of 51
  3. Negative: 0 out of 51
  1. 4P.de
    May 12, 2018
    74
    Quotation forthcoming.
  2. Vandal
    May 8, 2018
    74
    If you like the Total War franchise and series like Vikings or The Last Kingdom, this is the perfect game for you. As a strategy game, it’s not the best from Creative Assembly, but it still is very good.
  3. PC Gamer
    Apr 30, 2018
    73
    A brilliant early game and bold experiments almost make up for the AI niggles and the boring march to the final battle.
  5. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Jun 8, 2018
    72
    Thrones of Britannia must be the first Total War not to have any new mechanic that actually works. [Issue#230, p.36]
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  6. Merlin'in Kazanı (Turkey)
    May 8, 2018
    72
    Total War: Thrones of Britannia is a game that tries to differentiate in general despite its important shortcomings and ties this work to the historical events.
  7. PLAY! Zine
    Jul 18, 2018
    70
    Thrones of Britannia shifts usual pattern where storytelling is weakest part of Total War games to situation where it is it's best part in ToB. If AI and factions get upgrades, it might even turn out quite good.
  8. Eurogamer Italy
    Jul 4, 2018
    70
    Quotation forthcoming.
  9. games(TM)
    Jun 15, 2018
    70
    An interesting but limited spin-off. [Issue#201, p.84]
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  10. DarkStation
    May 24, 2018
    70
    While the sameness of the factions began to bother me after a time, and will keep me from revisiting this one as much as I have the previous games, Thrones of Britannia does a fine job of shaking things up a bit. Not every change was welcome, but certain things, like army recruitment and siege battles, clearly came out better because of it. While my eyes are firmly set on the DLC releases to TW:W2, which are coming out at a steady pace, I did enjoy this diversion to the British Isles, and look forward to more Sagas when Creative Assembly wants to shake the tree up a bit.
  11. New Game Network
    May 18, 2018
    70
    Thrones of Britannia is a thoroughly competent entry into the Total War series, though underwhelming battles and a lack of fresh ideas mean it will satisfy your craving for historical conflict, but without much excitement or many surprises.
  12. XGN
    May 16, 2018
    70
    Thrones of Britannia has the potential to entertain for hours, if you're able to look past its flaws. A very decent strategy game, but Creative Assembly has the possibility to make it great.
  13. GameSpew
    May 9, 2018
    70
    Thrones of Britannia has neither the length of its predecessor, nor has the variety of units – and as such, it lacks something that its fuller counterparts have. But what it does have is a straightforward approach that has solved some of the chronic complications of recent titles while providing you with a engaging story that can build over time.
  14. Gameblog.fr
    May 3, 2018
    70
    A Total War Saga Thrones of Britannia is a good spin-off with very good ideas especially in the Campaign. We can almost feel a Paradox's touch in the wargame part, so it's a very good things (food system, resupply, etc). Unfortunately the technical part and the graphic engine are old and we are far from the graphic slap of the era of Empire Total War or Rome II.
  15. Metro GameCentral
    May 2, 2018
    70
    An understandable attempt to create a more accessible Total War experience, but it’s been streamlined so much it offers only a small taste of the series’ full potential.
  16. PC Invasion
    May 1, 2018
    70
    I wouldn’t go so far as to say the AI is broken. It is just stupid, as it always has been. If you could put up with it in the last few Total War games, or maybe didn’t notice, then it is no reason to put you off this title. Despite my complaints about the AI, and some of the campaign mechanics needing some tweaking, I am impressed by this game. The sense of historical authenticity at times has transported me back to this time period, and overall I think this is better than CA’s last historical outing, Total War: Attila.
  17. God is a Geek
    May 1, 2018
    70
    For Total War fans this is likely a must-have title, but to anyone else Thrones of Britannia is a confusing mess that simply isn’t welcoming to series newcomers.
  18. USgamer
    Apr 30, 2018
    70
    Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia aims to focus the Total War series. Instead of a grand chunk of history to explore, it drills down to some specific decades, with a much smaller map. At the end of the day though, you still need to love the real-time strategy play for the Total War series. If you do, Thrones of Britannia is an experience that tries not to suck up all of your time and energy.
  19. Riot Pixels
    Jun 30, 2018
    65
    Thrones of Britannia feels like an expansion of Total War: Attila, released as a separate game for obvious reasons. It relies on mechanics of Rome 2 and Attila and sometimes ditches them without offering a replacement. As a result, despite is epic scope, it’s a tedious, boring game fit for just one, maybe two, playthroughs.
  20. Game Debate
    May 29, 2018
    65
    Honestly, I feel like maybe we've seen all of the colours of Total War that we're really going to. It's time to switch up the tried-and-true formula for something else. It has been a lot of fun, and in its day Total War really set the bar. But now it's yesterday's news.
  21. GameWatcher
    Apr 30, 2018
    65
    A Total War title that removes several tactical and strategic options and steps back most of the innovations made in recent entries.
  22. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jul 13, 2018
    60
    The trip to the time of Alfred the Great is rather disappointing, though the game does not do anything horribly wrong. It's good, but the theme could have been grasped much better. [Issue#286]
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  23. Gamer.no
    May 3, 2018
    50
    If Total War wants to be able to compete again, it needs to not only take inspiration from its greatest competitors, but seriously needs to look back to its own glory days: Rome and Medieval II.
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In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Eurogamer
    May 11, 2018
    Total War goes back to the past, but this spin-off invites uneasy comparisons to the superior recent Warhammer games.
  2. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Apr 30, 2018
    It’s all focused firmly towards evoking the period though, and here, Creative Assembly’s love for history absolutely bleeds through.
  3. Vice
    May 20, 2018
    It’s best moments are familiar because they are part of that sturdy, underlying Total War formula, but even here they quickly become repetitive. Yet when it attempts to do something new and to be something new, Thrones of Britannia seems to lack any kind of compelling original vision for what a Total War game can be.

Awards & Rankings

73
#73 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
12
#12 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

User Reviews

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User Score
5.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 170 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 60 out of 170
  2. Mixed: 48 out of 170
  3. Negative: 62 out of 170
  1. rustyfeeder
    May 3, 2018
    2
    This is the worst TW game released EVER. Could this be the fall of CA? Or maybe it is time for CA to wake up and start making changes? It isThis is the worst TW game released EVER. Could this be the fall of CA? Or maybe it is time for CA to wake up and start making changes? It is cheap, it is bland, it is just BAD. Trust me, I played every TW game starting from Shogun 1.… Full Review »
  2. juliiouse
    May 3, 2018
    3
    I'm not one to give kneejerk reviews to any products: I feel it's a little insulting given the amount of time a developer puts into a newI'm not one to give kneejerk reviews to any products: I feel it's a little insulting given the amount of time a developer puts into a new release. I normally spend a few weeks formulating an opinion on something before finally publishing my opinion, but Thrones of Britannia has left an extremely sour taste in my mouth, not least because I am an avid Total War fan and booked the day off work to play this. So here we are, seven hours later.

    The central issue here is that the Total War series is one of incremental steps: as the games are released, certain aspects of the campaign and battle mechanics get modified, removed, dummied out etc. The problem with Thrones of Britannia is that it removes many previous features without bringing anything new or interesting to the table to replace them.

    This is especially irritating following my gripe with Warhammer I & II's campaigns being a little shallow: the justification in that case is that the races and factions featured in the game are so diverse and different from each other that many of the usual Total War campaign features wouldn't really work for many of them, and to develop specialised campaign mechanics that have the depth of Atilla for each faction would be a massive ask. Thrones of Britannia does not have this justification. The narrow lack of breadth in the game (focusing solely on the British Isles in the latter half of the 9th Century AD) should have allowed for an immense amount of mechanical depth the likes of which Total War has never seen, but there is none of this here. Many features are either directly copied or dummied out versions of what we saw in Atilla.

    The closest the game gets to true innovation is to feature historically accurate settlements and structures on the map, such as churches, farming communities and towns in the state they were back in the period. The issue with this is that it removes much of the variety the previous games afforded in building settlements. A market town will always be a market town and a church settlement will always be a church settlement. The closest comparison to this game is either Medieval I's Viking Invasion or the base game version of Shogun II Total War-- Viking invasion because it focuses on the same area a few centuries before, and Shogun II because it focuses on a race to the throne on a single island: in both cases, these games took advantage of their narrow scope and allowed for a great deal of depth and strategic planning to settlements. In Viking Invasion, you can opt to not even build a settlement at all and leave the region for farming or defence, and in Shogun II you can manage your food to have bustling economic centres at the heart of your clan's territories and strong troop production centres at the edges. Thrones of Britannia offers none of this, which is especially frustrating when a faction you know is going to attack you decides to and you're forced to concede land to them because that's how the settlements are set up.

    Character development and faction management feels worse: the skills tree has been replaced with a far messier looking retinue system and characters feel significantly less personal for it. For a game about roleplaying your own early medieval British dynasty, I felt extremely disconnected with my faction and it's characters: ignore the usual issue of forgetting who your heirs are, most the time I couldn't even remember my faction name without mousing over a settlement. Even in lategame Shogun II, I could remember the name of my finest generals, the towns they'd defended and the members of my increasingly messed up clan, but there is none of this here. It wouldn't be too strong to say that the characters feel like those pointless figures that show up in Rome II's politics tab.

    Battles are pretty much the same as they were in Atilla. Things feel a little faster paced in places but the game does little to capture the precise point in time that the game is aiming to portray. The shield wall is interesting enough, but given that it can't move, it's basically just a version of the one in Atilla but more restrictive. The AI is also extremely suicidal. It's happy to rush the heaviest part of my line with light cavalry and it has no the consideration for the safety of ranged/artillery units.

    Ultimately, the game is functional other than the odd bug, so how can I justify not just aiming for a middle of the road 5? Because the game abjectly fails to achieve any of it's objectives or justify it's existence in the series. It doesn't utilise the era very well, doesn't feel distinct from Atilla and doesn't feel any deeper than the fantasy games.

    Ultimately, this is a very sad outing for Total War and a pretty terrible showcase for their new "Saga" project, which I a shame because I was interested in narrow focus games.

    My only hope to the game in it's current state is that Steam will waive their usual two hours refund clause for me.    … Full Review »
  3. Madgad
    May 2, 2018
    0
    Nothing special. Tha AI is still poor, diplomacy is useless... Forget about cool mechanic things from WH and be prepared for tons of garbageNothing special. Tha AI is still poor, diplomacy is useless... Forget about cool mechanic things from WH and be prepared for tons of garbage from Attila.… Full Review »
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