This doesn’t look good. Total War: Pharaoh came out less than a week ago and is already reaching fewer players than most of its predecessors
Slide. It doesn’t look good for Total War: Pharaoh at the moment. The newest part of one of the most famous and popular strategy series ever, crash lands on Steam. The strategy game set in Bronze Age Egypt was released on October 12, and already more than 5,000 people are playing it every day some
Even worse, the concurrent player record for Total War: Pharaoh is just 5,400, which the title reached on the day of its release. Compared to other games in the series, an underground figure:
- Rome 2 was played by 118,000 people at the time of its release.
- Warhammer 3 reached 166,000 people on release
- Three Kingdoms had the best score, with 192,000 players at release.
In fact, Pharaoh is even behind Total War: Rome 2 in the comparison of players currently active at the same time – a 10 year old strategy game, but still has a peak of a whole 8,000 players in the last 24 hours Even Medieval 2, which was released in 2006, has more people playing it right now. 5,500 in the last 24 hours
Is Pharaoh the least popular Total War?
If we look at the numbers in detail, it even almost seems like Pharaoh should take the crown of the most unpopular main part of the series. (According to SteamDB) Pharaoh only ranks 9th out of 22 in terms of player maximums, but all the titles before it have a better excuse.
For example, the places before that almost exclusively feature demos, digital releases of very old series representatives like Medieval and Shogun, or PC versions of unusual free2play spin-offs like Kingdom and Arena. Only Total War: Troy can boast an even lower peak value than Pharaoh according to the Steam database. But even here there is an explanation. After all, the game was released exclusively in the Epic Store and only landed on Steam a year later.
Weak reviews
In addition to the disappointing player numbers, Total War: Pharaoh can’t make a mark in terms of quality either. On Steam, the latest spin-off of the series currently stands at Balanced
, with 60 percent of the over 800 user reviews being only positive.
The lack of depth is criticized, as well as the fact that Pharaoh feels enormously like its predecessor Troy. In addition, the selection of factions is manageable and the playable map is too small.
What do you think of the latest Total War? Can’t bring yourself to play this spin-off in depth either, or are you deep into your first campaign right now? What do you like about Total War: Pharaoh and what gets on your nerves? Any suggestions for changes? What do you think about the low player count? Drop us your thoughts in the comments!
