Dividing Rome itself up into three factions that are set off in three different directions to conquer, before ultimately meeting each other in a bloody civil war at the end, was a fantastically effective way to keep the late game challenging and interesting with fairly simple, transparent mechanics. Rome: Total War was ahead of its time in so many ways when it came out, and all of those great ideas are still here. The units, though, don't quite hold up to the level of fidelity we're used to in modern Total War or even 2013's Total War: Rome 2, which is itself almost eight years old by now.Īnd that's kind of a running theme with this remaster: they made an old game feel less old, but they certainly didn't make it feel new again.

And no doubt, it's an impressive face lift – especially when it comes to lighting and terrain details. In fact, Creative Assembly insists that the engine running underneath is essentially unchanged, so everything from spies on the campaign map to a unit of Triarii on the fields of Italy should behave more or less just as it would if you fished your old CD-ROMs out of whatever box they're wedged in. The most obvious upgrades in Total War: Rome Remastered are visual. But as astounding as it was at the time, the aging gameplay hasn’t gotten the same attention, and doesn't hold up all that well compared to its successors as a result. Total War: Rome Remastered is a very faithful recreation of the series' first fully 3D expedition, originally known as Rome: Total War, with some modest but notable graphical and UI updates.

The camera pans across a poised army as my boisterous general gives a fiery speech about honor and victory, and I'm transported back to the virtual battlefields of a time long past: 2004.

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