Total War’s New Game Is Exactly What the Strategy Genre Needs Right Now

In December 2025, Creative Assembly unveiled its latest Total War game, Total War: Medieval III. The game is the third in the Medieval series, and it’s coming long after its predecessor’s 2006 release. This is not only great news for fans of the franchise, as it’s also a great movement forward for the historical strategy genre. While there are many strategy games out there, the excellent ones are few and far between, and among them, the Total War franchise reigns supreme. There have been other games released since Medieval II: Total War, though they’re outside of that series

As of writing, the most recent Total War game set in a historical period is Total War: Pharaoh, which received mixed-to-average reviews from critics. It’s not a bad game, but the franchise has seen improvements in its ongoing Total War: Warhammer series. The most recent of these, Total War: Warhammer III, was released in 2021 and achieved great success. So too did the Medieval series, making Creative Assembly’s return to those games a significant move in the turn-based strategy and real-time tactics genre if the format remains true to the prequels. The following images are from Medieval II: Total War, as no screenshots of the threequel have been released as of writing.

Total War: Medieval III Is the Strategy Game the Genre Needs

Creative Assembly operates under the guiding motto of “Rewrite History,” which the studio has lived up to throughout its time creating games in the Total War franchise. The devs set out to create an ultimate medieval sandbox with Total War: Medieval III, drawing significant cues from history to make the game as authentic as possible. That establishes the baseline of the game, but the story is up to the player, so depending on how you approach things, history might not play out the same as it did on battlefields during the Middle Ages, which is often the point of a Total War game.

Leif Walter, the creative director on Total War: Medieval III, explained in his announcement: “We want you to shape the history of a realm throughout the medieval era, and embark to tell fantastic stories, write alternate histories, or relive the pivotal moments of medieval history.” The game involves so much detail that players become masters of strategy and military tactics in employing their troops across the battlefields of Europe. It’s entirely up to the player how they want things to unfold, so it’s possible to mimic history, while players are equally able to utterly destroy it.

Read Next

Total War: Warhammer 3’s Huge Siege Rework Will Be Playable Soon

Given what’s been released about the game, which isn’t much, it looks like Total War: Medieval III will be the grand, epic strategy game fans have come to expect from Creative Assembly. Several attempts were made to develop a sequel previously, but it was only after the development of a new graphics engine, Warcore, that things moved forward. This allows the devs to add far more complexity and detail to the game than they’ve done previously, making Total War: Medieval III the perfect vehicle to reboot the historical Total War games series, which will share the marketplace with the franchise’s other licensed titles.

Total War Is Returning to Its Historical Roots

It takes a lot of processing power to make Total War games work effectively, and the franchise has previously done so with great success. Because of its hardware requirements, Total War games have always been limited to Windows, macOS, and Linux. It appears that Total War: Medieval III will follow suit, but that may change. The similarly forthcoming Total War: Warhammer 40,000 will arrive on consoles as well, suggesting that other Total War games could do the same. Only time will tell, and there’s no known release date for Total War: Medieval III as of writing, so keep an eye on ComicBook for updates.

Are you looking forward to Total War: Medieval III? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook