In the most recent trailer for Sega and Creative Assembly’s upcoming game, Total War: Three Kingdoms, the warlord Dong Zhuo (aka the Tyrant) is revealed as the newest playable faction. With the announcement of Dong Zhuo, the game will now have 12 playable warlords: Dong Zhuo, Sun Jian, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Liu Biao, Ma Teng, Zhang Yan, Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Kong Rong, Zheng Jiang, and Gongsun Zan. You can check out the trailer below.
The newest warlord was kept under wraps, according to the Total War blog post. According to the post, Dong Zhuo will not be one of the starting warlords, but an unlockable one. In order to play as the Tyrant, one must either defeat his army in battle or rank up to Emperor during campaign. Dong Zhuo’s playstyle is through intimidation and rule with an iron fist, and he does so with help from his generals, most notably his foster son, Lü Bu (who made a recent appearance as a character skin for Reaper in Overwatch). Dong Zhuo’s character campaign revolves around his relationship with Lü Bu; players can either follow the history that eventually led to Dong Zhuo’s death by his foster son’s blade or forge a new path and escape Dong Zhuo’s untimely (though probably warranted) demise.
For those who aren’t 100% up on second-to-third century Chinese history, Dong Zhuo was a ruthless military general, who took advantage of the death of Emperor Ling of Han and seized the capital of the Eastern Han dynasty, Luoyang. According to “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” one of the Four Classic Chinese Novels, Dong Zhuo would often torture captured enemies for entertainment. This supposedly included severing limbs, removing eyeballs, and throwing them in boiling oil (all while they were conscious), placing the remains in the center of a banquet hall during dinner. While the novel is considered a work of historical fiction, it highlights a unique sense of madness Dong Zhuo was said to possess. His actions eventually led to disgruntled subordinates (to put it lightly) until the Interior Minister Wang Yun convinced his foster son, Lü Bu, to put an end to the insanity by way of the blade.
Total War: Three Kingdoms is set for release on March 7 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.