Wanted remaster or sequel; a favorite of the series
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“Best Total War game hands down. Please make a ETWII, it's a necessity.”
Steam review · 379.7 h played ↗
Total War: EMPIRE – Definitive Edition
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 90%Very Positive · 90%CREATIVE ASSEMBLY, Feral Interactive (Mac), Feral Interactive (Linux)2009Grand Strategy · Turn-Based Strategy · Strategy
The verdict
A sprawling, flawed 18th-century Total War with a huge world map, great naval battles and line-infantry combat. Skip it if you can't tolerate bad AI, crashes and corrupted late-game saves.
Great for
Fans of the gunpowder era who want a global campaign and are willing to install mods like DarthMod
Main risk
Crashes and corrupted saves late in long campaigns, plus very poor battle and campaign AI
What players love
Huge world map and campaign scale
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews
“Having a campaign that stretches across Europe, the Americas, India, and beyond makes the world feel genuinely massive”
Steam review · 154.3 h played ↗
Mods like DarthMod greatly improve it
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews
“To get the best experience in the game, you should try mods like DarthMod or Empire II.”
Steam review · 177.1 h played ↗
Satisfying line-infantry musket combat
Mentioned in ~1 in 15 positive reviews
“Aligning as many as possible musket units and shrapnel artillery and firing at same time on enemy gives so much satisfaction.”
Steam review · 0.9 h played ↗
Great naval battles
Mentioned in ~1 in 15 positive reviews
“This game probbaly has the best ship battles of any Total War game.”
Steam review · 659.8 h played ↗
High replayability and addictive loop
Mentioned in ~1 in 17 positive reviews
“By far still the best and most easily replayable of the Total War series.”
Steam review · 875.1 h played ↗
What players complain about
Terrible battle and campaign AI
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“Enemy armies do endless laps around the campaign map, march right past unoccupied cities into the sunset, or just plain get stuck in place and camp for decades”
Steam review · 140.1 h played ↗
Frequent crashes, especially on AI turns
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“I have never played a game that crashes more than this one.”
Steam review · 1069.2 h played ↗
Siege lag and bugs
Mentioned in ~1 in 14 negative reviews
“you can't do sieges without the game lagging so bad it nearly crashes”
Steam review · 12 h played ↗
PC missing the mobile version's updates/DLC
Mentioned in ~1 in 15 negative reviews
“this is NOT the "Definitive Edition" of EMPIRE. Turns out the mobile version”
Steam review · 290.5 h played ↗
Save corruption ruins long campaigns
Mentioned in ~1 in 17 negative reviews
“a save file corruption issue that seems to occur late into a campaign resulting in the game crashing every time you try to load the save game”
Steam review · 32.4 h played ↗
Broken multiplayer campaign
Mentioned in ~1 in 21 negative reviews
“Completely unplayable in multiplayer.”
Steam review · 15.4 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: Playable15 GB
Minimum
Processor2.4 GHz Intel® Pentium® or greater or AMD® Athlon® equivalent CPU
Memory1 GB RAM (XP,) 2 GB RAM (Vista™)
Graphics100% DirectX 9.0c compatible hardware accelerated video card with shader version 2.0 support, 256 MB video memory
Storage15 GB free hard disk space formatted as NTFS
Processor2.4 GHz Intel® Pentium® or greater or AMD® Athlon® equivalent CPU
Memory1 GB RAM (XP,) 2 GB RAM (Vista™)
Graphics100% DirectX 9.0c compatible hardware accelerated video card with shader version 2.0 support, 256 MB video memory
Storage15 GB free hard disk space formatted as NTFS
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