As explained in the official Total War Facebook page, Creative Assembly has shared a new timelapse video detailing the creation of a gladiator helmet for Total War: Rome 2.
As posted on Facebook, the helmet was the work of Zongyi Chen, made over two days using 3D Studio Max, Photoshop and Zbrush. It is an impressive display of the level of detail that goes into the game, but at this point, you may be asking yourself, what are gladiators doing in a Total War game?
As confirmed in these fan sites, gladiators are units in the game, although it does not seem that they can be brought into battle. Gladiators are a special class of Roman agent that cannot be recruited. Instead, you can give a Gladiator a chance to become famous each turn. The payoff to you is an increase in happiness, gold per turn, and an actual payoff in the next turn thanks to spectators. Gladiators cannot be kept alive and famous for too long lest they stage revolts Spartacus style, so unfortunately, you cannot keep one throughout the whole game, although you may be interested in fighting those revolts on purpose.
It appears that the actual gladiator shown in this clip is a Samnite Gladiator, available to the Julli. This wasn’t specified in any of the game details, but if you were curious, the helmet itself is a Thracian gladiator helmet.
Did that whet your appetite for some world domination? Total War: Rome 2 comes out tomorrow on Windows.