Different times.
It’s hard to remember Creative Assembly wasn’t always synonymous with the Total War series, and yet, once upon a time, they were so well-known for sports games that pivoting away was seen as a risk. That’s part of the story told in a retrospective video about the making of Total War: Shogun put together to coincide with its 25th anniversary. It makes for a fascinating insight into how different things were for the studio at the end of the 20th century.
“When I joined there were five people and they were working on sports games for Electronic Arts”, says former executive producer Mike Simpson, who was hired in 1996. “I joined in order to start something new. The idea was I was going to head up a team producing an RPG, and we were going to base it on Monkey: Journey to the West.
