Creative Assembly has posted a commendably frank blog post that digs into the rocky development of the Mortal Empires add-on for Total War: Warhammer.
The huge mode was released earlier this year, and combines the maps of Total War: Warhammer and Warhammer II to create a 'grand-scale campaign' set across both games.
It sounds impressive, and that's because it is. But the road to Mortal Empires hasn't been without speed bumps, and as more bugs and issues appear, the update schedule for the DLC has started to slip.
But, rather than hide behind closed doors or deflect attention, Creative Assembly has come clean to players in a blog post by admitting it "screwed up."
Notably for devs, the studio has also offered a surprisingly in-depth technical breakdown of where the process went wrong, and how it intends to tackle certain issues.
Even if you aren't a fan of the Total War franchise, the blog is an interesting read for anyone curious about the trials, tribulations, and evolving nature of game development, and offers a few sage lessons that might prove useful for other creators.
"There are rather more moving parts to the Mortal Empires campaign than we’d first anticipated, that’s for sure," wrote the Creative Assembly team. "At present, we do feel it’s playable and enjoyable, though not under all circumstances."
"It's taking time for us to stage implementation of the Norsca content, then tweak that content so it’s relevant to Mortal Empires. There are also some genuine bugs, and rest assured we’re in the process of addressing these. It feels like these two things get conflated a lot, and as a result it’s perhaps getting harsher treatment than it deserves.
"[But] the truth is we screwed up. We got so good at branching and merging builds, we thought we had it mastered. Merging is easy when the things that have changed in one branch don’t coincide with the things that have changed in the other. It gets more difficult when the changes overlap."
You can check out the complete blog post right here, but it's fairly chunky, so you might want to grab a coffee before you hunker down.