Total War: Rome 2 creative director: launch issues are "totally unacceptable"

Total War: Rome 2 came out last week, but though it was just short of greatness , it has also had a bit of a rough launch. Some players have been unable to login and others are reporting game-crashing bugs. Now Total War creative director Mike Simpson has posted to the game's forums to apologize and lay out the plan for the next few weeks.

“Rome II is a big and complex game and, especially on PC, we are always conscious of the wide variety of different combinations of hardware out there and, while we do test extensively before launch, it is clear that we have failed some of you and we will look at the way in which launch games in the future,” Simpson writes . “Again, I know this is scant comfort to you if you have a set-up that is not performing well, but we do intend to fix your specific problem—whoever you are and whatever it is—as soon as we can.”

According to Simpson's post, about two percent of all players are reporting issues that are preventing the game from being launched. Considering that Rome 2 enjoyed record-breaking amounts of pre-ordering from devoted fans, that two percent is a small fraction of a large number.

Our own review of Rome 2 found the game enjoyable, but hampered by glitchy AI and some faltering political systems. According to Simpson, both the technical and design teams are looking into updates that will overhaul various parts of the game. It's good of Creative Assembly to not leave its fans high and dry, but couldn't this have been cleaned up a bit before launch?

Latest in Strategy
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
Civilization 7 Great Britain - Modern Civ art (via YouTube)
As Civilization 7 struggles to keep up with Civ 5 player counts, a new patch is coming tomorrow with still more UI changes and gameplay tweaks
Battle Brothers
Nearly 2 years after its last update, the excellent Battle Brothers gets 'a bucket load of fixes' and free new content
King wielding his axe against would-be assassins in Norland.
Medieval colony sim Norland is getting a 'damn big update' that completely overhauls the game's mechanics: 'We're rolling out some radical changes to the core gameplay'
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
Latest in News
Two brightly colored stormtroopers dressed like Run-DMC stand in front of PAX Australia's WELCOME HOME banner.
Tickets for PAX Australia 2025 are on sale now
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again