I've written fairly often about the upcoming Fall of the Samurai standalone expansion for Total War: Shogun 2 and now they have released all of their developers diaries for the game, which show off quite a bit of gameplay and explain just how different this game will be compared to Shogun 2. If you want to read a overview of the game, feel free to check out my previous post from November, but here is a brief one. Fall of the Samurai takes place in 19th Century Japan when technology is on the rise and tradition is being trampled. The Samurai still fight to preserve the ways of old, while foreign powers vie for opportunities to influence Japanese cultures.

The game represents these changes in many ways, you will have to deal with foreign influence and you will also have to deal with new technology strategically and economically. There are a massive amount of new units in the game, a updated campaign map, an improved multiplayer conquest mode, and changes to nearly every aspect of the game. One of the big changes is railroads, which make it so you can transport armies across Japan very easily and quickly. Another big change has to do with navies and how they will play a more active role, especially since you can now bombard towns with your ships. You can also expect to see rifle infantry, early machine guns, early howitzers and a lot of military technology that you will be familiar with if you played Empire Total War. The videos explain a lot, so I will let them do the talking for me. The videos are actually part of a three part developer diary, but the first part is fairly old and is in at least two of my other posts about the expansion.


The Fall of the Samurai expansion comes out in two days, on the March 23rd, and costs $30. Steam is only digital distributor that offers any pre-order bonus, a new faction, as far as I can tell. Green Man Gaming is currently selling the game for $20, for Steam, but it doesn't contain the pre-order bonuses. Check out the links below for more information and thanks for reading.
Main Website: http://www.totalwar.com/shogun2/fall-of-the-samurai
Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/201271/

-Written by Sean Cargle