Total War: Arena represents a new direction for the Total War franchise, and is in development by a dedicated team at Creative Assembly, focused on a purely multiplayer experience.

Each player controls three units of warriors, led by an iconic commander from history, each with their own battle style.  Players level up commanders and units to open up more specialist skills, weaponry, armor and abilities.  Decisive strategies, combat tactics and teamwork decide who is victorious.

The Total War: ARENA Closed beta is getting a major update, Fury of Arminius, which brings tons of new content in the form of a brand-new Faction and Commander, a new battle map, many re-balancing tweaks, and Beta monetization options. Once more, we’d like to reiterate that there will be no server resets from here on in!

New faction: The Barbarians

Focusing on momentum, stealth, misdirection and devastating hit-and-run attacks, the Barbarians bring a ferocious and dynamic new play style to Total War: ARENA. This faction has also been designed to bring fresh balance to the game, providing hard counters to existing units, which can currently dominate matches in lower tiers.

New Commander: Arminius

Arminius, the legendary hero of The Battle of Teutoburg Forest, leads the Barbarians and brings powerful Orders which amplify their unique play style. With combined Orders in play, a Barbarian player can wrong-foot opponents, conduct guerrilla warfare and wreak swift havoc on the battlefield!

• Momentum: Arminius inspires his units to cover ground more swiftly. Their movement rate will continue to accelerate for a period after activation, and the Order wears off when they stop or enter combat.
• Frenzy: Entering a state of berserk rage, Barbarians under this Order will disregard their own safety and fight with great ferocity. While the effect is active, units will lose all their defense rating, but gain +50% melee attack. Frenzied units are ideal at carving through archer units, performing devastating flank attacks on already-engaged units, and cutting down enemy combatants as they flee.
• Scout: This Order greatly increases the vision-range of the target unit at the cost of some defense. A Scouting unit concealed in cover is ideal for gathering intelligence, helping to plan ambushes or spotting for artillery units. If an artillery unit using a Scouting unit’s vision scores hits against the enemy, a share of the experience gained goes to the Scouting unit.
• Infiltration: This Tier-4 Order enables the target unit to masquerade as a unit from the opposing team. When two minutes elapse or the unit enters combat, the ability is lost. Provided that opposing players do not identify the player’s name above an Infiltrating unit as belonging to the enemy team, the unit can act with impunity; performing surprise rear-attacks, disrupting advances, hunting down enemy artillery or grabbing unoccupied objectives.

New units:

Arminius may recruit a number of new units to his army up to Tier 3. Many of these units bring balance to the early tiers as they each fulfill a notable role in the field and offer solid counters. As these units are further balanced over time in the context of the greater game, new Barbarian units and tiers will also be introduced.

Unit	Tier	Description	Unit Orders
Levy Riders	1	Light cavalry. Nippy, no charge, scouting and range killers	No unit orders
Levy Tribesmen	1	Weak light swords	No unit orders
Scout Riders	2	Light cavalry, short charge, range killers	Charge, fearsome presence
Warband	2	Medium swords, high damage, poor defence	Frenzied charge
Woodsmen	2	Light axes, poor open ground performance, keep to the forest	Frenzied charge, fearsome presence
Axemen	3	Better Woodsmen	Harass, frenzied charge, fearsome presence
Raiders	3	Light cavalry, range killers.	Charge, harass, fearsome presence

New map: Rubicon

Based upon the famous river in Italy which Caesar marched his legions across towards Rome, Rubicon has designed in response to community consultation. Based in a river plain, Rubicon is a far more open-plan battle map than we’ve created before. This offers many flanking opportunities, and we expect to see Heavy Infantry and Cavalry excel in Rubicon battles. While the battle is fairly open, there is also some limited high ground which is ideal for artillery and ranged units.

The die is cast – Along the central line of the map is the river itself. This can be crossed in most places, but be aware of the consequences of where you choose to cross; the middle offers the shortest route to the enemy but is wide, deep and muddy, making it treacherous to ford, with the potential to be caught out in the open under enemy fire.

Through the grapevine – One side of the map consists of farmland, providing a wealth of crops to sneak your units through and across the bridge. However, be wary of the watchtower protecting the area – you may instead find yourself on the defensive from the enemy’s advance!

Reap what you sow – On the opposite side of the map, the elevated terrain at the base of the mountains provides many obstacles and cliffs to maneuver your troops through. There are various choke points that can be used to lure the enemy into perfect ambush positions, but be careful that you yourself are not the one being drawn into a trap!

Beta monetization options: Monetization will be activated as a test: players are now able to purchase Gold for real money. As this is a testing phase, only the smallest Gold package will be activated for purchase. As a free-to-play game, monetization is needed in order to keep adding new features to the game and to maintain it as a service to players. ARENA is not intended to be pay to win, and this test will deliver feedback for improving monetization systems.

Key Features:

• Team-based strategy with epic-scale real-time battles.
• Built for multiplayer RTS fans: fast 10v10 battles where decisive strategies, combat tactics and teamwork will decide who is victorious.
• Each player controls three units of warriors led by an iconic commander from history, each with their own battle style. Choose from Alexander the Great, Leonidas, Germanicus, Caesar and more.
• Deep progression layer – level up Commanders and units to open up even more specialist skills, weaponry, armor and abilities.
• Total War’s award-winning tactical battle gameplay, refined purely for multiplayer.
• Play for free – with option for in-game purchases to customize units and speed progression.