Total War: Three Kingdoms – Eight Princes Gets a New Gameplay Preview
Eight Princes is the first Chapter Pack DLC release for Total War: Three Kingdoms; a format which was described by Creative Assembly shortly after the game’s release. Essentially, a Chapter Pack takes a specific part of the era’s history and features its own campaign and new characters. Set during the War of the Eight Princes, this first Chapter Pack introduces a whole new campaign with eight playable faction leaders. Recently, Creative Assembly offered fans a look at gameplay in the new DLC.
Gameplay in the Total War: Three Kingdoms Eight Princes DLC
The Eight Princes DLC takes place one hundred years after the start of the main game, in the year 291. Following the foundation of the Jin Empire by the descendants of Sima Yi, the War of the Eight Princes spans several years of inter-family civil wars. The eight princes themselves will be the new playable faction leaders, including characters like Sima Ai, Sima Lun, and Sima Wei. It seems as though Creative Assembly is endeavouring to give each of the eight a different play-style to those of the characters in the main game.
For example, Sima Lun’s play-style focuses much more heavily on spies and undercover actions than any other character. Indeed, in ways that no character in the main game does. As such, fans can look forward to plenty of new and different play-through experiences. Although the game map is the same, the placement of factions is very different. The Han Empire is no more, replaced by an equivalent Jin Empire faction. However, the Jin have different territories, while some of the new characters offer totally new starting positions. Sima Ying, for example, starts in China’s western basin, south of Ma Teng and Gong Du’s start positions.
In addition to the new characters, the new DLC will bring 17 new armour variations for the game’s generic generals and 4 new units; all of which will be available in the base game as well as the DLC. The new units range from Mounted Crossbowmen and Heavy Mounted Archers to the powerful new Cataphracts and Heavy Cataphracts.