The latest installment in Creative Assembly's long-running and classic strategy series is 2023's "Total War: Pharaoh," but unfortunately things have been a bit of a setback: while "Pharaoh" itself is a pretty good game, it's not a huge step forward for the series, and it comes at a time when fans are running out of patience with the myriad Pharaoh and the "Shadows of Change" DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3 brought it all to a head, as it was released at a time when fans were running out of patience with the pricing and value of the myriad expansions.

The latter release, in particular, exploded among players, triggering a sustained campaign of review bombardment and complaints; the Total War sub-Reddit, Discord, and forums were flooded with the controversy for weeks, Creative Assembly issued an apology, promising to improve the DLC for players with additional content, and even promising to "better meet your expectations in the future" and "ensure full transparency regarding content before the "Buy Now" button appears."

"Total War: Pharaoh" was also part of this problem, as it was a smaller entry in the series that was released at full price of $60/£50. CA accepted the complaint, lowered the price by $20/£30, refunded the difference to those who had purchased at the original price and removed all higher-priced special editions.

Since then, the studio has been on something of a mission to repair its relationship with Total War players, which primarily means offering much of the content for free. In addition to the price cut, CA has further promised to make the Pharaoh's paid DLC a free update, and has now announced that Total War: Pharaoh's Dynasties will be released on July 25.

This will be the last official expansion for the game, and it is huge. The revised and expanded map is a Bronze Age feast that includes the Aegean Sea and Mesopotamia, and adds Assyria, Babylon, Mycenae, and Troy as playable cultures, with about 150 new units between them. The number of factions in the game doubles from 95 to 189, and the number of provinces increases to 349, with CA estimating that the expansion "will be approximately 1.8 times larger than the current map, providing players with a vast area for conquest and exploration."

Now you're speaking my language, and while some aspects may look familiar to players of Total War: Troy (since you get to play "the Aeolians led by the legendary Achilles"), it is clear that much more is on the way, on a far grander scale. The biggest potential change is the expansion's namesake, a new dynasty system that "will allow your empire to stand the test of time," which, from Creative Assembly's description, sounds like a light version of Crusader Kings." Reign over the tides of death and succession through strategic marriages, heroic deaths on the battlefield, assassinations, and the looming death of old age, and leave a legacy that will last through the ages."

I love to think about the looming death of old age as we drive our enemies before us. Another interesting new modifier, simply named "Lethality," seeks to make virtual battles more real by making everything more lethal.

"From the very beginning of our design work on "Total War: Pharaoh," our vision has always been to recreate the tumultuous collapse of the Bronze Age on an epic scale. It is full of historical intrigue, an authentic representation of an iconic civilization, and a sandbox theater capable of rewriting the course of human history. I'm very proud of what we've accomplished, and while this will be our last content addition, I hope it serves as a condensed love letter to our ongoing passion for this wonderful era."

It is also the final stop on Total War's apology tour, and fans may want to acknowledge CA's actions since late last year. It appears that the studio has addressed player complaints in a direct and meaningful way, not just verbally, and has taken responsibility for its own mistakes and is now offering an overabundance of free content for games for which it has already given partial refunds. Players will undoubtedly feel that they were justified in declaring all-out war on Total War.