The drama surrounding Total War: Warhammer cast a bit of a shadow, but even when Total War: Pharaoh sold for £50/わ60 last year, despite having less meat than the regular Total War fare, it felt like something that should have been under the Saga brand like Troy and Thrones of Britannia, but it was a full-fat version. It was highly touted as a total war. 

This has led Creative Assembly to make a surprising decision to dramatically reduce its price to £30/い40 while offering a partial refund to its existing owners. The Creative Assembly also sets about enhancing the game, starting with a free high tide update that allows players to take control of the sea People, factions that previously served as unplayable invaders. This is now followed up by something much more important on the scale: it usually sounds substantial to be a premium extension, but for free

calling it a "free campaign map update" really underestimates it. We're talking 4 new playable factions, 150 "newly reprised combat units" and a bunch of new territories that will suit the aforementioned newcomers.

Babylon, Assyria, Mycenaean and Troy expand the game to Mesopotamia and the Aegean Sea, far beyond Egypt, and make this more total war: Bronze Age Troy, of course, was in the limelight in the Total War saga: Troy also featured the Mycenaeans and had more than 70 units from the game. It leaves 80 new units between Babylon and Assyria. 

As with headline attractions, the Pharaoh's campaign has been reworked to improve the existing gameplay base, while "proving players with a host of new content to better experience the chaos of the Bronze Age collapse", "adding mortality and death to your faction leader's quest to leave a legacy that survives the era." It includes a dynastic system that adds inheritance". 

If you want Total War: Pharaoh playthroughs to focus on Pharaohs, the original campaign will continue to be playable once the update is rolled out on a date that has not yet been announced. 

More details will be revealed by creative assemblies through blogs and Q&A, which will focus on an extended campaign map blog