Total War: Three Kingdoms trailer shows more realistic 'Records' mode

So far we've seen plenty of the Total War: Three Kingdoms Romance mode but little of the more realistic version of the campaign, called 'Records'. It sounds like this mainly changes the power of heroes in battles. Instead of being lone warriors capable of fending off entire units, heroes fight as part of a unit of fighters. They are also more vulnerable than they are in Romance mode.

According to the Sega press release battles in Records mode tend to go 30 percent longer. "This comes down to units becoming fatigued more quickly, reducing the damage they dish out as they tire. The result is an increased pressure on player choices—knowing when to invest energy and how to maintain an advantage."

Total War: Three Kingdoms was recently delayed until May 23. We've had a lot of chances to play the game already, fortunately. The rebuilt diplomacy system and the era's complex alliances can make for a confusing experience at the start of a campaign, but it's a beautiful take on ancient China with a completely revamped diplomacy and AI system. For more, here's everything we know about Total War: Three Kingdoms.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.

Latest in Action
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
Monster Hunter Wilds' new gyro controls are a fantastic option for disabled and able-bodied players alike
Manhunt 2
I played the notoriously ratings-board-ravaged Manhunt 2 and was quite glad for the censorship actually
Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3.
Mass Effect's Jennifer Hale, who played femshep, 'saw no line' before she recorded them for Bioware's flagship trilogy: 'It was all cold reading on the spot'
A hunter hefts a massive Mega Barrel Bomb in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds players can't stop blowing themselves to smithereens with its rollable barrel bombs
A hunter poses with a large hammer as their palico cheers nearby in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds weapon tier list
Naoe looking at the wrist blade in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Ubisoft backflips, says Assassin's Creed Shadows will support Steam Deck at launch, but I doubt I'll actually want to play it there
Latest in News
Official artwork of Valorant showing the game's characters in a row
Valorant dev accepts there's too much random crap cluttering up the screen: 'The balance team generally agrees with this take'
Cognixion’s AI powered headset
New headset reads minds and uses AR, AI and machine learning to help people with locked-in-syndrome communicate with loved ones again
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holding an RTX 50-series card.
92% of Nvidia users turn on DLSS... if they've been lucky enough to bag an RTX 50-series card at launch AND have the Nvidia App installed
A woman with an arcane slingshot uses it to light a distant fire
Deconstructeam's next game is about training to shoot a single fireball at an impossible target
assassin's creed shadow naoe
We asked two parkour athletes to rate the realism of Assassin's Creed's acrobatics, and a surprising 'crime against parkour' might actually be one of the most realistic things they saw
Aooster's G-Flip 370 mini PC
This palm-sized PC has removably memory, a flip up screen, and a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor