Total War: Three Kingdoms

Total War: Three Kingdoms

Developers
	Creative Assembly
macOS (OS X)	Feral Interactive
Linux	Feral Interactive
Publishers
	Sega
Release dates
Windows	May 23, 2019
macOS (OS X)	May 23, 2019
Linux	May 23, 2019
Reception
Metacritic	85
OpenCritic	85
IGDB	82
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, DLC
Microtransactions	Cosmetic
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time, Turn-based
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view, Free-roaming camera
Controls	Menu-based, Multiple select, Point and select
Genres	RTS, TBS
Themes	China, Historical
Series	Total War

Total War: Three Kingdoms is a hybrid RTS and TBS game made by Creative Assembly. It is part of a long running Total War series, and represents the latest entry in the 'historical' mainline entry of the series (as opposed to the 'fantasy' Warhammer series) since Total War: Shogun 2 in 2011. The game uses the Warscape which is the same engine that has been used since Empire: Total War in 2009.

The game was originally set to release March 7, 2019 but was delayed, and was eventually released May 23, 2019. The game launch had over 160,000 concurrent players on Steam and had a smooth launch with simultaneous release on Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Creative Assembly faced criticism for making the Yellow Turban Rebellion a pre-order 'day 1' DLC that was free for those who pre-ordered or bought the game in the first week of launch.

The game continues to be supported with additional DLC and updates, and an active multiplayer community. The most recent patch notes can be seen on the Total War blog.

General information

Official forums and specific support forum for Total War: Three Kingdoms.

Total War Center - A large fan site for the series with an active modding community.

/r/totalwar - the subreddit is very active with developers Creative Assembly often making posts and replying comments inside.

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
		Region-locked to Europe.
Humble Store
Microsoft Store
Steam

All versions require Steam DRM. Windows versions also require Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM.

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
Cosmetic	Gore cosmetic called Reign of Blood also known as the 'blood pack' common in the recent Total War series.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\The Creative Assembly\ThreeKingdoms\scripts\preferences.script.txt
Microsoft Store
macOS (OS X)
Linux	$HOME/.local/share/feral-interactive/Three Kingdoms/VFS/User/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/ThreeKingdoms/scripts/preferences.script.txt

It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\The Creative Assembly\ThreeKingdoms\save_games\
Microsoft Store
macOS (OS X)
Linux	$HOME/.local/share/feral-interactive/Three Kingdoms/VFS/User/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/ThreeKingdoms/save_games/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud		Option to save to Steam Cloud on a per-save basis.
Xbox Cloud

Video

Graphics settings - main.

Graphics settings - advanced.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Set windowed mode at native resolution.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)		TAA and FXAA options.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Camera controls.

Keyboard controls.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio settings.

Voice controls.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese				Ability to play using English interface and Chinese audio voices in the Audio settings menu. Make sure to restart the game after setting is changed.
Traditional Chinese
Czech
French
German
Italian
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Turkish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
LAN play
Online play		Multiplayer on Linux is Linux-Linux only.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11
Metal support
Vulkan		Only on Linux.

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Linux

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz	Intel Core i5-6600 AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
System memory (RAM)	4 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	60 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti AMD Radeon HD 7850 1 GB of VRAM DirectX 11 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 AMD Radeon R9 Fury X 4 GB of VRAM

A 64-bit operating system is required.

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.14.4
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM)	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	52 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 MX AMD Radeon R9 M290 Intel Iris Graphics 540 1.5 GB of VRAM

A 64-bit operating system is required.

Linux
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Ubuntu 18.04
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i3-4130 3.4 GHz	Intel Core i7-4770 3.4 GHz
System memory (RAM)	6 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	60 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 AMD Radeon R9 285 2 GB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 AMD Radeon RX 480 4 GB of VRAM

Requires Vulkan.

Nvidia requires 418.56 or newer drivers. AMD requires Mesa 19.0.1.

Intel GPU's are not supported at the time of release.