The recent few Total War games have been the complete opposites. On one hand you have the outlandish and fantasy-orientated Total War: Warhammer 1 and 2, while on the other hand you have the much more grounded and realistic Rome 2 and Thrones of Britannia. Deciding which direction to take the series in from here is not exactly an easy task given the scores of fans on both sides, which is why I'm very glad to say that Creative Assembly has decided to go with the middle ground and combine both the fantastic and historic into Total War: Three Kingdoms.

If you're wondering what exactly that might look like in gameplay terms, wonder no more as Creative Assembly has just released a decently lengthy gameplay preview. All of the footage is from the pre-alpha build so it's not entirely polished, but it should give you a pretty darn good idea of what to expect from the Three Kingdoms regardless. Have a look:

The most important thing you need to know about the Three Kingdoms is that you will be able to choose what sort of campaign you want to play: a realistic or romanticized one. So if you want to recreate real conflicts that happened in China, you will be able to do so! And if you want Lu Bu to obliterate thousands of soldiers on his own while shouting complete nonsense, you will also be able to do just that! A pretty good system if you ask me, and one that is sure to appeal to both the historic Total War and Warhammer fans.

Total War: Three Kingdoms is set to arrive in Spring of 2019 for PC, macOS and Linux, though I'm afraid no exact release date has been given just yet. You can learn more about it, as well as follow any further announcements, by visiting Steam.