You ever play a game that just activates your brain in all the right ways? I remember it happening a few times in my life—the first time I played Morrowind on a friend's PC and experienced a lifelong RPG addiction occurring in real-time. Just hearing that menu theme makes me want to run outside and start smacking mud crabs. The most memorable occasion, though, was playing Rome: Total War for the first time as a kid.
I immediately knew that this genre was made for me, and turns out I was right; over 6,000 hours and many years (and games) later, Total War remains my favorite. After 25 years, its longevity as a series feels almost unprecedented, especially as most of the games still use a very similar formula—the classic balance between real-time battles and overworld campaign management.
It's been applied to ancient Rome, the Dark Ages, medieval times, the Boshin War, and even trickier myth-shrouded periods like China's Three Kingdoms and the Trojan War. The only thing Creative Assembly could do to make Total War more addictive in my book was combine it with my favorite fictional settings, Warhammer, which it proceeded to do back in 2016. The 3,000 hours I've since sunk in those games ...
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