Sega pulls Shogun 2 Complete Edition after buggy launch

Sega and Creative Assembly are pulling Total War: Shogun 2 – Complete Edition from sale, two days after its release on 13 October.

The strategy game, set in feudal Japan, drew swift complaints from players about bugs, poor performance and artwork. Sega announced the temporary removal on 15 October, according to Video Games Chronicle.

Sega said it is working with platform holders, the companies that run digital stores such as Steam, to take the Complete Edition down while it investigates. Players who already bought it will still be able to access and play it. The original 2011 release of Shogun 2 will be reinstated on storefronts in its place.

There is no date for a return. Sega said the Complete Edition had fallen short of player expectations and its own standards.

The reaction was stark. Before removal, the game held an Overwhelmingly Negative rating on Steam, with only 19% of reviewers recommending it from more than 2,000 reviews. That score comes direct from players on Steam, Valve's PC store.

Many of those reviews said the new version runs worse and looks worse than the 15-year-old original. Steam users also accused the makers of using generative AI, software that creates images from patterns in training data, to enlarge existing artwork, according to Kotaku.

That landed badly because the Complete Edition was sold as an upgrade. It was described as an updated and enhanced version of Shogun 2 and all of its DLC, extra paid content, in one package. The Steam listing promised improved visuals with updated lighting, shadows and textures, plus 1440p and 4K UI scaling for sharper menus on high-resolution screens, and modernised controls.

Creative Assembly had published a detailed overview of the changes on 29 September. The studio later noted it left some older fixes out of that list because UI and engine improvements had made some bugs redundant.

Mods are another sore point. Mods, player-made tweaks and add-ons, built for the original Shogun 2 do not work on the Complete Edition version, according to Aftermath. That matters because modders had fixed many longstanding Shogun 2 bugs over the years.

For fans, this means a wait. Owners keep their copy. Everyone else gets the old version back until Sega says the new one is ready.