Creative Assembly unveil giant Total War: Rome II panorama

Creative Assembly have revealed an enormous battle scene from their upcoming historical strategy epic Total War: Rome II (or possibly Rome: Total War II, or even Total Rome: War II - it's hard to keep track). Well whatever it's called, the game will boast what the developers are describing as "the biggest city – indeed the biggest battle – we've ever created in a Total War game". History fans, they're talking about the Siege of Carthage .

That image up there is just a slice of the full panorama , which is a lovely thing to behold, zoom in and explore. You can see cannons mid-fling, and soldiers mid-fall, as the city of Carthage is sacked and obliterated before your eyes. Frustratingly, we won't get to enact this battle ourselves until 2013, so in the meantime I'm going to photoshop in a mouse cursor and pretend I'm playing it right now . Don't judge me. War: Total Rome: No Place Like Rome II is due out in October next year.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.

Latest in Strategy
Battle Brothers
Nearly 2 years after its last update, the excellent Battle Brothers gets 'a bucket load of fixes' and free new content
Age of Empires 2
Former Age of Empires 2 dev claims Microsoft demanded its first expansion should have a Korean faction, because 'StarCraft sold 3 million copies in Korea'
Endless Legend 2 Kin faction reveal
It's turtle time: Endless Legend 2's first faction is the fortification-loving Kin of Sheredyn
A massive beachhead assault in indie RTS Beyond All Reason
Over 110 players and 10,000 units clash as this free RTS celebrates its growing multiplayer scene with some of the biggest multiplayer battles ever fought
A castle being beset by horrors.
Cataclismo review
Key art for the new Age of Empires 2 expansion showing an angry Viking and Japanese warlod.
Age of Empires 2 team continues to cook while delivering 'legendarily long' 8,000-word patch notes about 'the biggest updates' the 26-year-old game has ever had
Latest in News
Minthara BG3 looking upset
Another round of Baldur's Gate 3 unearthing reveals Minthara can end up living in a sewer, an unused beach ending, and more
A shirtless man rides a big fish underwater
Ark devs distance themselves from AI-generated trailer: 'we did not know that they were doing it'
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer still - woman in the front seat of a car, looking out the back window while holding a wad of cash
The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst
Screenshot from Wreckfest 2
Wreckfest 2 has hit early access for your car-obliterating combat racing enjoyment