The Creative Assembly Ltd., part of SEGA Europe Ltd., today announced a third development location in Newcastle, UK. This new studio sits alongside the studio's headquarters in Sussex, UK and their European studio in Sofia, Bulgaria, across which there are over 850 permanent employees.

The newly established Creative Assembly (CA) North is home to a growing flexible working team developing a project in collaboration with the studio's Sussex team. While the project is yet to be announced it promises to give players an unforgettable experience. CA North is also home to a newly formed team focused on continuous improvement. This team is dedicated to collaborating across Creative Assembly with the goal of sustained continuous improvement in tools, workflows and development experience.

A few days ago, Intel announced its first official discrete graphics card efforts, designed for laptops. Called the Arc Alchemist lineup, Intel has designed these SKUs to provide entry-level to high-end options covering a wide range of use cases. Today, AMD has responded with a rather exciting Tweet made by the company's @Radeon Twitter account. The company compared Intel's Arc Alchemist A370M GPU with AMD's Radeon RX 6500M mobile SKUs in the post. These GPUs are made on TSMC's N6 node, feature 4 GB GDDR6 64-bit memory, 1024 FP32 cores, and have the same configurable TDP range of 35-50 Watts.

Below, you can see AMD's benchmarks of the following select games: Hitman 3, Total War Saga: Troy, F1 2021, Strange Brigade (High), and Final Fantasy XIV. The Radeon RX 6500M GPU manages to win in all of these games, thus explaining AMD's "FTW" hashtag on Twitter. Remember that these are vendor-supplied benchmarks runs, so we have to wait for some media results to surface.

Total War Saga: Troy is the latest title from Creative Assembly which recently launched on the Epic Games Store and was free to keep for the first 24 hours. The game was claimed by over 7.5 million people in this initial 24 hour period with 1 million claims within the first hour alone. The giveaway exceeded the expectations of Creative Assembly who wanted to introduce their games to a wider audience. The giveaway was made possible through a partnership with Epic Games and means that the game will remain an Epic Games Store exclusive until August 13th, 2021 when it launches on Steam. If you missed the giveaway and want to purchase the game it is currently available for £35/$50.

(Update 13AUG2020: The game is now available for free on the EPIC Games Store platform, so make sure to go there and add it your basket STAT.)

Here's EPIC kicking up its free game offerings up several notches at once. Sega and Creative Assembly, developers of the user and critically-acclaimed Total War videogames, have announced that their latest release on that series, titled Total War Saga: Troy, will be available on launch day, August 13th, when it launches exclusively on EPIC Games Store. Based on Homers' Illiad, "A Total War Saga: TROY focuses on the historical flashpoint of the Trojan War, bringing the conflict to life as never before."

A caveat: the game will only be available for free in the first 24 hours following launch. Any claims after that will be met with the games' real price-tag. How's that for EPIC Games Store exclusivity deals? Check the games' trailer and confirmation of this promotion after the break.

Sega Games' latest entry to the Total War series was announced earlier this year, and now we know when it will be out along with more launch and order information. Total War: THREE KINGDOMS is, as expected, a turn-based real time strategy game and is set during the Three kingdoms time period in China (~190-280 C.E.). Fans of the Dynasty Warriors series will find familiar names and factions listed here, with players set to control one of 11 different factions led by warlords including Cao Cao, Lu Bu, Sun Jian and others. The game will launch first on Windows OS (on Steam) followed by MacOS and Linux support later next summer.

Despite the game being over 5 months from launch, we already have pre-orders available and that also comes with exclusive pre-order game content in the form of the Yellow Turban rebellion that precedes the main game and delves into the peasant rebellion against the Han dynasty. Whether you are a fan of this practice or not, you can check out the trailer below. The game itself is up forpre-order on Steam now for $60, and there is also a collector's edition for all of $160 which includes more content as seen here. As always, we caution against pre-ordering games- especially ones that announced pre-order DLC in advance.

Throughout the sceptred isle of Britain the kings of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales plot their paths to dominance against each other, and the Viking horde. On 19th April there will be war, when A Total War Saga: THRONES OF BRITANNIA releases worldwide.

A Total War Saga: THRONES OF BRITANNIA will be available as a digital download or as a Limited Edition boxed product available in some territories. The Limited Edition comes in an embossed Steelbook inspired by ornately decorated Anglo Saxon helmets of the period, such as the famously reconstructed Sutton Hoo. The Limited Edition also includes a double-sided poster featuring a detailed campaign map and a set of collectible art cards celebrating five of the most prominent in-game faction leaders.

The Creative Assembly, one of the foremost developers of Real Time Strategy (RTS) experiences, has announced a spin-off series based on the award-winning Total War series. Saga starts a series of spin-offs for the Total War game series, with The Creative Assembly saying that this series focuses on "exciting pivotal moments in history rather than whole historical eras."

Thrones of Britannia already has a Steam page, which points towards a 2018 release. Exploration of key flashpoints and distinct locations throughout history is the focus of these, with Total War series director Mike Simpson saying that "Unlike our era-spanning titles, we're putting defined geographical areas under the microscope, building super-detailed campaign maps with a strong cultural focus and flavor that players can dive into," Simpson said in a news release. "This will complement our broader-scope titles perfectly."