Total War: Pharaoh – Dynasties Review – Basically Bonze Age: Total War

Total War: Pharaoh – Dynasties Review

When you boot up a Total War game, the launcher shows you every single game in the series, going back to 2000. The only certainty is inconsistency. There are all-time great games on that list, along with some real headscratchers. There are even some games that started out one way, before transforming into something different. Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties is being billed a simple update, but it is more impactful than that. Dynasties may be the edge Total War: Pharaoh needed to climb up the Total War power rankings.

Welcome to the Old World

When I last covered Total War: Pharaoh, I found it to be well constructed. Total War games can get unwieldy. Pharaoh went for minimalism, especially compared to the unplayably behemoth Total War: Empire (I know that every entry in the series has its die-hard fans). The innovations in Pharaoh weren’t about more troops and bigger maps. Pharaoh vanilla successfully blended in the character and story mechanics from recent entries like Warhammer, Troy, and Three Kingdoms. This was a game about relationships, especially between characters and their geography and especially especially with the Nile River. I was into it, but once I uninstalled it, that was it.

Enter Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties. This transformative expansion (which is being called an update) tries to keep those relationships front and center while blowing out the scope in every way. The map got bigger. Way bigger. We started centered on Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. The map now includes Greece, Persia, and Mesopotamia. You’ll find different cultures from each of those regions, as you would expect in a Total War game.

The scope also reaches through time with Ancient Legacy mechanics. Your leaders can boost their legitimacy by completing objectives that align them with mythic or legendary figures. Those Empires all had their rises and falls and Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties makes you feel like you are guiding your people through not just a game, but a history.

Team of Rivals

On the one hand, it was never going to be possible to have the intimacy found in the Egypt setting with a big honking map. The Nile really dominates the game of anyone playing on its banks, and there isn’t another feature in the world that quite lives up to that. That doesn’t stop other cultures from being fun to play. In fact, I think I liked playing as Persian or Greek more than I liked playing as Egyptian.

The art direction in Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties is really something special. I think I gravitated towards playing factions based on the artwork. All your game menus are molded to look like hieroglyphics or ancient mosaics. If I’ve taken an art class that covers one of these styles, I am definitely going to want to play in that style. And even if know culture has a gimmick that matches Egypt, all the little touches keep alive the thrill of discovery.

Conquer Like an Egyptian

I’ve probably played the original Rome: Total War more than any other entry in the series. At first, I loved to play as Rome. They were in the title, and there was a rad new HBO show airing. Most of all though, Rome had the senate, a unique mechanic not afforded to any other faction. But then I tried playing as the Celts on the British isles and fell in love with their chariot archers. And suddenly, I was studying those chariots in grad school.

Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties evokes that feeling more than any Total War since. I don’t know if it can truly match the insanity of a dragon gobbling up a greenskin horde, but it manages to stimulate a different part of the brain. This isn’t just an expansion of Total War: Pharaoh, it is a remaster that fully turns the game into Total War: Bronze Age. Don’t let the title fool you, this is a major new Total War release that feels like a completely different game.

This is the part where I tell old Total War fans that now is a great entry for dipping back into the franchise. The size, scale and themes feel much more like Total War than anything with muskets or wyverns. But this isn’t a backwards looking nostalgia project. Pharaoh: Total War Dynasties incorporates good ideas from nearly every entry in the series. I am more excited by the future of the Total War series than I have been for a while.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***