The latest entry in Creative Assembly's long-running and storied strategy series is 2023's Total War: Pharaoh, and unfortunately things all went a little pear-shaped. Pharoah itself is a pretty good game, but it was no great step forward for the series and landed at a time when fans were losing patience with the pricing and value of myriad expansions, which all came to a head with both Pharaoh and a DLC called Shadows of Change for Total War: Warhammer 3.
The latter's release especially caused a full-on explosion among players and a sustained campaign of review bombing and complaints that got nasty at the edges, with some players crossing the line and harassing CA developers. The Total War subreddit, Discord and forums were overrun for weeks with the controversy, and it ended up with Creative Assembly issuing an apology, promising to improve the DLC for players with additional content, and making a commitment to "better meet your expectations going forward" and "full transparency around the content before you see 'Buy Now' buttons."
