‘A Total War Saga: Troy’ release date, promo: Here’s how to get Creative Assembly’s upcoming strategy title for free

“A Total War Saga: Troy,” a new addition to the Total War franchise, was announced by Creative Assembly and Sega last year. In a recent post, the developer revealed that the upcoming game, which will be out later this year, won’t be following the same release format of its predecessors.

Creative Assembly will be releasing the “A Total War Saga: Troy” on August 13 this year, according to Polygon. This time, however, the title will be launched exclusively to the Epic Games Store for the next 12 months.

But the exciting thing for strategy gamers is that they can actually get the “Total War Saga: Troy” for free. The only catch is that they need to download the game from Epic Games Store within the first 24 hours of its launch on August 13 and the game becomes free to keep.

Creative Assembly knows that the 12-month exclusivity might irk some of the franchise’s fans but the developer explained why the move is necessary. “As developers, we truly value our existing fans, but at the same time we want to reach new audiences and have as many people as possible experiencing the thrill of Total War for themselves,” the developer said in a post. “As a business, that means putting Total War onto new platforms so that it can reach more players.”

The developer also assured that the one-year exclusivity with Epic Games Store is a one-time thing as future titles won’t have the same restriction. The company said that “Total War Saga: Troy” will eventually arrive on Steam after the exclusivity period expires.

“Right now, this is a one-time, one-year exclusive deal for TROY,” Creative Assembly said it its post. “We’ve always said that Saga titles allow us to experiment, and this is an experiment on a grand scale. TROY seemed like a good game to try this out with, especially as pre-orders aren’t live on Steam yet, so no one’s already put money into a store they’ll have to wait 12 extra months for it to appear on.”

“Total War Saga: Troy” will be set in that epic battle from Homer’s Iliad, the same battle that brought the term Trojan Horse to the mainstream. Gamers will have to choose to either play as Hector of Troy or Achilles of Greece.

Should the player choose Hector, he will have to defend the city of Troy from the Greeks. If the player chooses Achilles, he will be tasked with razing the city to the ground.