Sega and Creative Assembly have pulled the remastered Total War: Shogun 2 – Complete Edition from sale in a flurry of accusations about AI slop upscaling for unit art, and other quality issues.
Existing owners will still be able to play and access the game, and Sega will work to restore the original Shogun 2 to store fronts, which had been removed ahead of the release of the remaster.
Their social media statement reads:
We’re aware that Total War: Shogun 2 – Complete Edition has fallen short of both your expectations and our own standards. We’ve seen your feedback, comments, and reviews. We agree that the current experience is not where it needs to be.
As a result we are working with platform holders to temporarily remove the game from sale and to reinstate the original game while we investigate the issues. Existing owners will still be able to access and play the game.
We are working closely with our development partner to identify the causes of these problems, deliver improvements, and ensure Shogun 2 – Complete Edition meets the quality standards players expect from Total War.
SEGA & Creative Assembly
There’s layers to the reaction here, but it really boils down to the undisclosed and sloppy use of generative AI within the remastering process – the game was handled by MATABOO in collaboration with CA. Shogun 2 was easily one of the most beloved entries within the Total War series, with CA looking to revamp certain gameplay elements in Rome 2, which followed a few years later. A remaster that brought higher quality assets, better support for modern screens, operating systems and hardware, and some gameplay tweaks would have gone down well.
Unfortunately, there’s reports of both old bugs going unaddressed and new bugs alongside, poor performance in comparison to recent Total War games, and then the artwork which has been affected by the AI upscaling.
There’s many examples of classic unit cards, which were drawn in a Japanese style and leant a distressed aged look, having come out the other end with character hands missing fingers, faces that look like featureless metal masks, archers on a boat that now look like…. I don’t know, some kind of fruit?
It’s really inexcusable, not least because Steam has an AI disclosure policy which Sega, CA and MATABOO have violated. What’s worse is that Sega and CA have been here before with the franchise in 2023, underserving their community by overpricing Total War: Pharaoh and the Total War Warhammer 3 DLC, having to pledge to do better.
Hopefully, this latest shock to the system will see greater care and deliberate action taken once again.
Source: Sega BlueSky
