Total War Saga: Troy will be free for its first day on Epic Games Store in August

Total War Saga: Troy is coming to Epic Games Store and it will be free to claim for its first 24 hours.

Developer Creative Assembly announced details for the new game, its release date of August 13, and the special deal for early adopters all at once on its official website. Like Total War Saga: Thrones of Brittania, this game will adapt the spirit and mechanics of the generation-spanning Total War games to a specific flashpoint in history: in this case, the Trojan War. With solid historical records behind the war relatively sparse, Creative Assembly is using The Iliad as a base to construct its own story of the "truth behind the myth."

That means you'll be able to control heroic personages such as Hector, the prince of Troy, and Achilles, the champion of Greece. You'll also encounter mythical beasts like the Minotaur, rendered here as a hulking brute in hides and a bull-skull helmet. Even the Greek pantheon of gods will play a role in the campaign, albeit indirectly: make sacrifices and build temples to Athena to give your spearmen passive bonuses, or endure increasingly ill omens and incidents as you neglect your worship of Poseidon.

Total War Saga: Troy will be available exclusively on Epic Games Store for a year, with a Steam release to follow (there are no plans for cross-play multiplayer). Creative Assembly made it clear that it doesn't have any plans for future Total War games to be Epic exclusives, but in this case the deal made sense - especially since "Epic were paying for our players to have our latest release free on day one". Hard to argue with that.

Check out our Total War: Three Kingdoms review round up to see what critics thought of the last game in the series