Sega and Creative Assembly have huge plans for Total War: Rome 2’s launch this coming September 3. They have decided the game will launch around the world at the same time, and with certain regional restrictions.
As they put it, the game will have a worldwide unlock dated at 00:00 hours PST. In other time zones, this will be at 00:00 PDT, 03:00 EDT, 08:00 BST, 09:00 CET, and 17:00 AEST. If you don’t live in one of these time zones, you can figure out what time it will be in your region here.
Since August 28, 10:00 PDT, they have also allowed preloading of the game from Steam. Steam users who get Total War: Rome 2 this way will then be ready to play the game as soon as the unlock date occurs. Day one content patch, which includes the additional faction Pontus, will still have to be downloaded separately once the game is live.
Total War: Rome 2 also has regional restrictions, affecting countries and areas which will get their own physical discs and digital keys. These include China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, India, Turkey, Russia, and the CIS.
So, physical and digital copies of the game bought in these places will only work while you are in them. If you purchase a copy of the game somewhere else and bring it to one of these regions, it will not work.
For regional distribution of online games to work, Sega has to throw down the banhammer, but of course this arrangement will only make fans in those regions unhappy. We’ll find out soon enough if all the effort was worthwhile.
Source: Total War Facebook page