Total War Three Kingdoms’ First Live Gameplay Features Yuan Shao

Creative Assemble hosted their first live playthrough of Total War Three Kingdoms recently, giving us a peek at what the game looks like and how it plays. Streamers Wheels and Jordan took control of Yuan Shao and his faction in a stream that lasted for a couple of hours.

The stream started off with Wheels explaining Yuan Shao’s character specialization which grants him 5 extra morale and allows him to recruit a weaker captain while cutting recruitment and upkeep cost for that captain’s retinues by 50%. Wheels then shows a quick battle where the AI challenges him into a one-on-one captain duel which was apparently a logical tactical choice for the AI given that Wheels had two hero characters while the AI only had one.

You can check out the full stream below:

The game’s visuals, from the UI to the models look fantastic, although some of the animations still need some work. There was also a weird moment in the first battle where the enemy had already been routed but the duel between the captains still continued. Plus, it seemed a bit odd that while the streamers specifically said they chose the ‘Hard’ difficulty, a lot of the battles only lasted a few minutes.

With just a month before the game’s release, it’s hard to imagine how Creative Assembly will be able to fix the gameplay issues in time. Still, it might be a totally different experience once you’re the one playing. Personally, I’d prefer they delay the launch to make sure they have enough time to address some of the feedback they received during the stream.

Total War Three Kingdoms is set to launch on March 7th for PC. Players who pre-order or buy the game within 1 week after release will get the Yellow Turban Rebellion DLC for free. Also, a couple more streams are scheduled next Wednesday and the Wednesday after that at 3PM GMT/4PM CEST.