Total War Saga: Troy Was Downloaded Free Over 7.5 Million Times

Way back in June of this year, which was approximately a million years ago, it was announced by Epic Games and Creative Assembly that the next big Total War game, Total War Saga: Troy, would be an Epic Game exclusive… and that it would be free for the first 24 hours after launch. The reason behind this particular strategy was to both encourage players to give the Epic Game Store a try, and to introduce the Total War franchise to players who might otherwise be intimidated by the fact that the games are as large and expensive as hell. So basically they were prepared to lose $50 to try to entice people into spending $140 on Warhammer 2 DLC.

Well, we won’t find out for a while if the second phase of their plan worked, but the first certainly came to pass: as it was just announced that for the 24 hours the game was free, it was claimed by over 7.5 million people.

In a press release, Creative Assembly’s chief product officer Rob Bartholomew said this:

"We were optimistic but we couldn't have predicted this level of excitement. It's been incredible to work with Epic on giving this brand new release away for free. Now we get to welcome so many strategy players – new and old – to experience this incredible Saga. We're very happy."

So far, reviews of Total War Saga: Troy are on the better end of middling, with critics giving it a 76 rating on Metacritic (at time of writing, anyway) while users are ranking it at 6.4: a far cry from their last Total War Saga game (which was worse), but still not quite enough to beat out Three Kingdoms or Warhammer 2, which have been popular for years and years. Still, a free game is a free game, and I’m glad everyone won with this particular arrangement.

Well, everyone but Troy, I guess.