Total War: Arena was a MOBA and RTS hybrid that leveraged some of the best heroes and set pieces from the Total War series. Creative Assembly launched the game on February 22, 2018, with players controlling three units that contain a hundred warriors in ten vs. ten player battles. A year later. Total War: Arena was the first free to play the game in the Total War brand. Creative Assembly terminated support for the game. Just now, Creative Assembly partnered with China-based studio NetEase to revive Total War: Arena. As of right now, Total War: Arena will be only available to play in China, but Creative Assembly as hinted at releasing the game worldwide if the opportunity exists.
The re-release comes with new content updates including new maps, such as Hadrian’s Wall from the Roman era in Brittania, Germany’s Teutoburg who will be lining up with other grand historical set pieces like Marathon and the Rubicon River. Faction wise, Total War: Arena will have Barbarian, Carthage, Greece, and Rome as playable with plans to add more factions from the Three Kingdoms era of games as well. While a western release is yet to happen, Total War: Arena does support English by changing the Chinese language pack ‘local_cn.pack’ in the game data folder to ‘local_en.pack’ other languages are supported as well which can be changed in the same method and will automatically update when the game is launched again.
While a western launch is under consideration, MOBA’s are most popular in east Asia, with League of Legends becoming a cultural phenomenon in South Korea, while the Chinese gaming market has had rapid growth since the Chinese market opened within 2013, although foreign companies need to be partnered with a domestic Chinese company to handle distribution of the game across China, along with making the game acceptable with Chinese governmental regulations, something that is a challenge for many games.