Total War: Shogun 2
The Creative Assembly · Strategy
Overview
In Total War: Shogun 2 you choose from one of 9 (10 with Ikko-Ikki dlc) clans, each with their own unique traits and skills and each with their own RPG-style warlord to lead them. Use a mixture of diplomacy, political manoeuvring, province building, research and special agents such as Ninja assassins or Geisha spies to get your enemies exactly where you want them. An intuitive user interface and a lovingly-created, complex and detailed campaign map make it both easy and enjoyable to build and run cities, recruit and move troops and issue commands – both noble and dishonorable, all with the aim of mastering enemy forces and seizing their lands.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,272 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players love SHOGUN 2 for its battles and its setting. The longer reviews keep returning to fights that are fast, readable and deadly, to the look and sound of feudal Japan, and to Fall of the Samurai, the gunpowder era expansion. Nearly one in five of the longer reviews places it at or near the top of the Total War series, and some add that it still runs well on modest hardware. The campaign gets more mixed treatment. Realm Divide, the late game turn where every clan declares war on the player, has both defenders and players who mod it out, and the campaign AI is praised as aggressive by some and called a cheat by others.
Technical trouble makes up the largest block of complaints. An update that removed multiplayer chat and broke the old mod manager, followed by the shared Total War launcher, produced a run of negative reviews in mid 2023, and crashes and launch failures are the other big group. Together these technical problems appear in 39% of the longer negative reviews, more than any design complaint. Complaints about Realm Divide, unit variety and the AI turn up in positive reviews as well as negative ones, while the reviews that turn the game down most often do so because it won't run or its mods won't load.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Art, music and the feudal Japan atmosphereHigh
The ink-wash campaign map, the parchment-style interface, the narrator and the soundtrack all get singled out, and 21% of the longer reviews mention the art, music, atmosphere or graphics. Several say the graphics still hold up years later. One summed it up: "The setting of feudal Japan is fantastic, and the art direction, soundtrack, and atmosphere work together perfectly."
Fast, deadly, tactical battlesHigh
20% of the longer reviews praise the battles. Players describe fights where positioning, terrain, morale and flanking decide the result, generals are fragile, and units break and rout in big waves. "Units have real killing power, when the lines meet battle is decided in seconds." Some compare the duel animations favourably with later games, saying soldiers block, parry and fight as individuals. Others say battles move so quickly that units are easy to lose track of while micromanaging.
Players rank it among the best Total War gamesHigh
Calling it the best Total War, a favourite, or the series at its peak is common: 19% of the longer reviews do so, often comparing it directly with Medieval II, Napoleon, Rome II and the Warhammer games. The praise is usually about focus: one setting, a compact roster, and a campaign and battles that fit together. Fans of the older games also describe it as the last entry before they felt the series declined.
Fall of the SamuraiMedium
15% of the longer reviews bring up Fall of the Samurai, and 5% praise it outright, a few of them calling it better than the base campaign. Players like the Boshin War setting, muskets and artillery mixed with samurai, and naval bombardment with ironclads. "Fall of the Samurai is so good it could honestly have been released as its own standalone title." The other expansion, Rise of the Samurai, gets far less attention, and the reviews that judge it range from fine to not worth buying.
A challenge that rewards planningMedium
Players who talk about difficulty (17% of the longer reviews) enjoy Legendary and Very Hard campaigns, winning battles that auto-resolve says are lost, and a campaign that punishes reckless expansion. A minority finds Normal too easy and Hard unfair, which feeds into the AI and Realm Divide arguments below.
A good first Total WarLow
Some reviews (6% of the longer ones) recommend it to newcomers, saying the smaller roster and single culture make it easier to learn than other entries. "If you're new to the franchise, start with this one."
Runs on older and low-end PCsLow
4% of the longer reviews say it runs smoothly on old laptops, integrated graphics or modest hardware, even as other players report the crashes described below.
Avatar Conquest and co-op campaignsLow
A small group praises the Avatar Conquest multiplayer mode and two-player campaigns with friends, and one long review says multiplayer is still best implemented in this game. Several of the same players note that the online community has shrunk.
Where players are split
Mods: a big part of the appeal, and harder to runMedium
18% of the longer reviews mention mods. Fans recommend overhauls and small fixes (camera, Realm Divide, skill points) and describe the game as "Solid entry for the franchise made better with mods." Mods also appear in 28% of the longer negative reviews, often in complaints that the update and the launcher stopped older mods from loading. So players agree that mods improve the game and disagree about whether getting them to run is still worth the effort.
The campaign AIMedium
Praise and criticism of the AI come in similar numbers: 4% of the longer reviews praise it and 5% criticise it. Fans call it aggressive and among the most competent in the series. Critics say it sees through fog of war, spawns full armies it couldn't afford, gangs up on the player alone and makes erratic diplomatic decisions; one negative review said "the AI starts acting stupid or is blatantly cheating." Some positive reviews also list AI diplomacy as unreliable.
Realm DivideMedium
7% of the longer reviews discuss Realm Divide, and they are genuinely divided. Supporters say it stops late-game snowballing and makes the end of a campaign tense: "realm divide is a really interesting mechanic and forces the player to think strategically on expansion". Opponents say it wipes out every alliance at once and turns diplomacy into a waste of time: "So much fun, but I hate Realm Divide. Ruins everything." Several players mention modding it out or delaying it as long as possible.
Naval battlesMedium
Sea battles come up in 12% of the longer reviews. Some players enjoy them, especially the steamships and bombardment in Fall of the Samurai. Others find the base game's ship fights clumsy and auto-resolve them, or name naval combat as a weak point, as in "The Reign Divide and naval battles are the only weak points."
Unit and faction varietyMedium
6% of the longer reviews raise unit or clan variety. Some like the small roster because every unit has a job ("The unit roster is streamlined"), while others say every clan plays almost the same and the game "gets boring in the long term since all the units look the same".
What frustrates players
The update that broke mods and chat, and the launcherHigh
23% of the longer negative reviews complain about an update, the mod manager, removed chat or the Total War launcher, more than any other complaint. These reviews cluster from May to July 2023, when chat was removed and mods stopped working, and game-focused reviews from that stretch were less positive than those written from December 2023 on. "In May, multiplayer chat was removed and the mod manager was broken." Later reviews blame the shared launcher for mods marked as broken, extra steps before play, and menus that stop working: "The launcher is broken and by launching the exe directly everything is grayed out." Several of these reviewers still call the game itself a favourite.
Crashes and launch failuresMedium
18% of the longer negative reviews report crashes, freezes or a game that will not start, a few of them on Windows 11 or after an update. Players describe random crashes during long campaigns, crashes when a campaign loads, and lost time restarting. One opened with "Crash, Crash, Crash, Crash..." and said the game crashed at random on every Windows version they had tried. Workarounds such as compatibility mode or launching the executable directly get passed around, but several players say none worked for them.
Agent spam and rebellionsLow
Enemy ninjas, monks and metsuke, or rebellions, draw complaints in 4% of the longer reviews. Players say the AI floods them with agents that kill generals and convert towns, forcing them to answer with agents of their own: "Agents are absurdly powerful". A few also say towns rebel too quickly after a short spell of unrest.
Paid blood and locked clansLow
4% of the longer reviews raise DLC. The complaints are the Blood Pack being sold separately ("Also the blood is still DLC.") and clans and units locked behind DLC. Price comments are rare, and several advise buying on sale.
Multiplayer stability and a small communityLow
2% of the longer reviews report desyncs, failed joins or broken co-op campaigns, and several more note that few people play online.
Interface scaling on high-resolution and Mac setupsLow
About 1% of the longer reviews say the interface is tiny on 1440p, 4K or ultrawide monitors with no scaling option, and a similar share describe problems running it on Macs.
3. The player conversation
The longer reviews read like players returning to an old favourite: they compare it with the rest of the series, list the same strengths (battles, setting, Fall of the Samurai), and add a few familiar caveats about Realm Divide, agents and naval combat. Joke reviews quoting the in-game generals make up a visible but small slice.
Getting the game to run, or getting mods to load, is the largest subject among the longer negative reviews, and several of them open by saying the reviewer loved the game for years. Design complaints (AI behaviour, Realm Divide, unit variety) show up in positive and negative reviews alike, which is why they sit in the split group. Update complaints were concentrated in reviews written from May to July 2023, with launcher and Windows 11 reports continuing at a lower level afterwards. Reviews written from December 2023 on were more positive than any earlier stretch in the slice. In spring 2024 a group of new and returning players said the Shogun TV series had brought them to the game, mostly in short, positive reviews.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix crashes and launch failures on Windows 11 and through the launcher. Crash and start-up failures appear in 18% of the longer negative reviews, some from players who say no posted workaround helped.
- Restore reliable mod loading for older mods. The broken mod manager and mods flagged as outdated drove the 2023 run of negative reviews and still come up later from players who say the game is better with mods.
- Bring back multiplayer chat and fix co-op stability. Players list the removed chat among the update's damage, and co-op and Avatar Conquest players report desyncs and failed joins.
- Let players launch the game without the shared launcher. Reviewers describe the launcher as an extra step that breaks mods and menus, and some recommend skipping it by launching the executable directly.
- Rein in AI cheating and agent spam. Critics say the AI sees through fog of war and floods the map with agents, and some positive reviews name agents as their one real annoyance.
- Add campaign options for Realm Divide. Players are split on the mechanic, and those who dislike it already mod it out, so a toggle or a way to keep allies would serve both sides.
- Add interface scaling for high-resolution monitors. Players on 1440p, 4K and ultrawide screens say the interface is too small to read.
- Fold the Blood Pack into the base game. Paying for blood effects is a recurring small complaint, alongside clans locked behind DLC.
