Creative Assembly apologizes for Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition issues

Creative Assembly has issued a formal apology following the problematic launch of ‘Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition’. The title, which released on October 14, faced immediate backlash on Steam due to performance issues, bugs, and incompatibility with existing mods, leading to an ‘overwhelmingly negative’ rating.

Roger Collum, Vice President of the Total War series, stated that the product failed to meet the studio’s quality standards. He explained that the edition was developed by an external partner and, as internal teams were focused on upcoming major projects, the title did not undergo the standard internal review or quality assurance processes.

SEGA and Creative Assembly temporarily suspended sales of the Complete Edition on October 15 to investigate the issues, though existing owners can still play. The studio is forming a small team of experienced developers to work with SEGA and the external developer on a resolution.

Additionally, the studio is investigating allegations that certain in-game encyclopedia images were created using generative AI upscaling. While Collum noted that Creative Assembly does not use generative AI for game assets and requires the same from partners, the company does utilize AI tools for debugging and prototyping.