Leif Walter

Creative Assembly’s lead designer on ToTal War: Three Kingdoms.

- Johnny Cullen

Leif Walter is in a relaxed state as I speak to him ahead of his appearance on stage to talk Total War: Three Kingdoms at EGX Rezzed in London. A fan of Total War since before he joined Creative Assembly, he now talks enthusiastically about the series and his work on it. During our conversation, he answers questions about how Creative Assembly decided on ancient China as a setting, how the era manifests in Three Kingdoms’ design, and what the future might hold for the Total War series.

This is probably the first Total War to explore a new era or timeline since Attila, with the exception of Warhammer. What is it about exploring new eras, new timelines, in the series that excites the development team?

Well, for a Total War game, you always look for turbulent and interesting periods of history where there’s conflict and drama, maybe an interesting development at a cultural level. And when we first got in touch with the Three Kingdoms period, we realised very quickly that, basically, it was the perfect Total War setting. A lot of charismatic characters and leaders with relationships between each other and backstabbing and this kind of drama. Massive armies marching against each other. It’s basically the perfect Total War setting. You know, there’s the massive Han dynasty, the Han empire, which is basically the equivalent of the Roman Empire. And this big empire, crumbling, suffering from internal corruption, engulfed in this big civil war. It was the perfect setting.

For the most part, it’s Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones actually happened?