Total War: Shogun 2 - Complete Edition

Released in 2011, Total War: Shogun 2 was developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. Its Complete Edition brings together the original game, the Rise of the Samurai and Fall of the Samurai expansions, and additional downloadable content. The main campaign places the player in charge of a Japanese clan during the Sengoku period. The goal is to take provinces, secure Kyoto, and become shogun. Shogun 2 also returns the series to Japan, the setting of 2000’s Shogun: Total War, the first Total War game.

The campaign combines turn-based provincial management with real-time battles. Players recruit armies, construct buildings, research technologies, negotiate with rival clans, and send agents across Japan. On the battlefield, formations, terrain, weather, and morale shape encounters between ashigaru infantry, samurai, cavalry, and archers. Naval battles contest coastal waters and trade routes. Playable clans have distinctive strengths: the Oda excel with ashigaru, the Takeda with cavalry, the Chosokabe with archers, and the Shimazu with katana samurai. Growing power brings a particular danger. Under the Realm Divide mechanic, other clans can turn against a player who has become a serious contender for the shogunate.

Rise of the Samurai moves the campaign to 1175, in the years leading toward the Genpei War. Instead of Sengoku-era clans, it features rival branches of the Minamoto, Taira, and Fujiwara families. Its earlier setting changes the available troops and agents; the latter include the junsatsushi and shirabyoshi. Fall of the Samurai jumps forward to the nineteenth century and the conflict surrounding the Boshin War. Its factions include Satsuma and Choshu, which support the imperial cause, and the pro-shogunate Aizu. Railways, industrial development, artillery, and firearms alter both strategic planning and battlefield tactics. Ships can provide naval bombardment during land battles near the coast.

Together, these campaigns cover three distinct struggles for power: the rivalries preceding the Kamakura shogunate, the sixteenth-century contest to unify Japan, and the fall of Tokugawa rule. Their differences appear in the units players command and in the means by which armies move and fight. A spear-and-bow force in Rise of the Samurai demands different tactics from a Fall of the Samurai army equipped with modern guns. Beyond its single-player campaigns, the base game offers multiplayer battles and an avatar campaign in which players develop a customizable general. Complete Edition’s scope is therefore not just a longer campaign, but several interpretations of warfare across Japanese history.