{"id":812012,"date":"2026-10-24T03:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T03:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812012\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T03:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T03:04:17","slug":"creative-assembly-finally-addresses-the-shogun-2-remaster-disaster-by-pointing-fingers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812012\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative Assembly Finally Addresses The Shogun 2 Remaster Disaster By Pointing Fingers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over a week after a so-called \u201cupdated, enhanced, and complete version\u201d of\u00a0Total War: Shogun 2 <\/a>was released in such a disastrous state that Sega immediately pulled it from sale<\/a>,\u00a0Total War developers Creative Assembly have finally addressed the situation. In a post made to the company\u2019s forum<\/a>, vice president of its Total War division Roger Collum explains that the remastered game \u201cdid not meet the bar\u201d and says that like players, CA, too, are \u201cangry and disappointed\u201d by the release. He also attempts to pin down CA\u2019s position on the use of AI, but at every stage seems very keen to redirect the blame.<\/p>\n

Shogun 2, widely considered to be one of the best strategy games of all time, had some pretty terrible damage done to its reputation with the release of what was called the Complete Edition. Receiving overwhelmingly negative reviews from Steam users for looking ghastly and running poorly, it was also quickly discovered to be riddled with AI-upscaled versions of some of the game\u2019s original art. Despite our attempts to contact both Sega and Creative Assembly about the situation our questions went unanswered, and Collum\u2019s forum post marks the first time the development studio has responded to the situation.<\/p>\n

Throwing Polish developer Mataboo, which appears to have been responsible for the update, under the bus, Collum is quick to note that \u201cthis was not a Creative Assembly developed game,\u201d and that \u201cwe took our eyes off its external development.\u201d While he doesn\u2019t name Mataboo, the post is very clearly structured to make clear that this was the work of an outside group, because \u201call our teams [are] focused on our next big projects.\u201d He does at least note, \u201cHowever, whatever the development arrangements, Total War is our franchise and our name is on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe studio,\u201d Collum says of Creative Assembly specifically, \u201cis full of craft people who care deeply about the experiences we give to our players.\u201d In response to the disaster, \u201cwe\u2019ve pulled a small team of senior developers together to work with Sega and the external developer on the next steps.\u201d Perhaps the most revealing line in the statement is that, because the game was remastered by a third party, \u201cit wasn\u2019t subject to our same internal reviews and quality assurance,\u201d which rather raises the question \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Shogun\u00a9 Creative Assembly \/ Kotaku <\/p>\n

When it comes to the use of AI in the remaster, Collum is equally quick to point fingers. \u201cI want to be very clear on the studio-wide stance on generative AI,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause I know there are many questions about where we stand. We are a craft studio. Our games are made by incredibly talented people, and we do not believe in a world where technology replaces the creativity of humans.\u201d So what happened here? \u201cAt Creative Assembly we do not use generative AI to create game assets including AI-generated art. We demand the same of any external developers we work with. The situation with Shogun: Complete Edition is being investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, that\u2019s not to say that CA is free of AI. \u201cWe use AI tools where they help our craftspeople do their best work,\u201d Collum continues, \u201cas part of a continual evolution of how we use tools and technology in an evolving and competitive space. For me, the principle is pretty simple: AI can support the creator. It shouldn\u2019t replace the creator.\u201d Saying that he doesn\u2019t believe AI should replace human creativity, he notes, \u201cCan AI tools help with analysis, debugging, or speedy prototyping so our experts can focus on making incredible games? Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of AI in the remastered Shogun 2 appears to be restricted to upscaling some of the incredibly tiny assets in the original game\u2019s encyclopedia, and while the results are unquestionably an embarrassment that should never have been included, we\u2019re left wondering whether Mataboo had access to higher-res versions of the originals, or the resources to create new, original art in their stead. We\u2019ve reached out to the studio to ask.<\/p>\n

\"Shogun\u00a9 Creative Assembly \/ Kotaku <\/p>\n

The post concludes with Collum imploring people not to send abuse or direct anger toward the people who work on the games. \u201cThey do not deserve, and we will not tolerate, harassment or being singled out online and personally criticised.\u201d Instead he asks that anger and criticism be directed at him specifically, which doesn\u2019t seem reasonable either. \u201cWe know we must earn your trust by making good games, and crucially, by how we respond when we get things wrong. We\u2019re human, we will get things wrong, and I promise as long as I\u2019m here, when that happens, we\u2019ll hold our hands up and try to make it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final message about treating people kindly is a good one, which makes the efforts to redirect blame all the more odd here. It seems deeply peculiar that a game as important as Shogun 2 would be given to an external company and then not even glanced at by its original creators before being put out for sale\u2014while pulling the original version at the same time, no less. Collum reasonably states that the buck stops with CA, but it leaves a huge question about how so little attention was paid by either CA or Sega to what was released.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve reached out again to Sega and Creative Assembly to ask how this situation could have happened in the first place, especially in light of so much of the blame being leveled against Mataboo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over a week after a so-called \u201cupdated, enhanced, and complete version\u201d of\u00a0Total War: Shogun 2 was released in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[554,189827,59,266312,214,86,266313,266314,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-812012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-creative-assembly","tag-gb","tag-mataboo","tag-sega","tag-technology","tag-total-war-shogun-2","tag-total-war-shogun-2-complete-edition","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}