But concedes that "we took our eyes off" its creation
Last week, Creative Assembly and Sega pulled Total War: Shogun 2's remastered Complete Edition from Steam, after an avalanche of complaints about technical problems and some AI-generated art. Now, Total War vice president Roger Collum has written a personal apology, while pinning some of the blame on an unnamed external partner. He's also clarified Creative Assembly's stance on generative AI, conceding that the studio do use it to help with "analysis, debugging, or speedy prototyping", but that they're against using it to generate game assets and art.
"I get many of you are angry and disappointed about the state of the Shogun 2: Complete Edition release," Collum writes on the official Twar Reddit. "We are too – especially the team members who have put everything into Total War games for years, some even decades. This was not a Creative Assembly developed game. It wasn’t subject to our same internal reviews and quality assurance. We took our eyes off its external development, with all our teams focused on our next big projects. However, whatever the development arrangements, Total War is our franchise and our name is on it."
Again, Collum doesn't name the external developer in question, but Mataboo Games are listed as co-devs on the Steam page. Collum says that SEGA and a small team of senior developers are working with the external team on "next steps", with details to follow. In the meantime, he has some general thoughts on how and when the Twarfolk make use of generative AI tools.
"I want to be very clear on the studio-wide stance on generative AI, because I know there are many questions about where we stand," Collum writes. "We are a craft studio. Our games are made by incredibly talented people, and we do not believe in a world where technology replaces the creativity of humans. At Creative Assembly we do not use generative AI to create game assets, including AI-generated art. We demand the same of any external developers we work with. The situation with Shogun 2: Complete Edition is being investigated."
Collum adds that Creative Assembly do, however, use AI tools for "support" purposes. "It shouldn’t replace the creator," he says. "I don’t believe that AI can replace the human experience, judgement and creativity that awesome experiences come from. Can AI tools help with analysis, debugging, or speedy prototyping so our experts can focus on making incredible games? Absolutely."
Collum ends his message by requesting that people don't abuse individual Total War developers. "Our community teams, QA, designers, and everyone in between are doing their job, as asked by the company," Collum writes. "Their safety is our priority. They do not deserve, and we will not tolerate, harassment or being singled out online and personally criticised." Collum warns that if you're nasty to developers, the studio may need to be less transparent in future.
I'm not sure I wholly buy the argument about "taking our eyes off" the game, given that Creative Assembly and Sega ran a bunch of trailers and marketing for it and sent round a FAQ detailing, among other things, how it would affect mods. While unavailable for purchase, the Complete Edition's Steam page is still live as of writing with "overwhelmingly negative" reviews. Creative Assembly and Sega have reinstated the original game's Steam page while they work on kicking the CE into shape.