Last year, Feral Interactive announced their Feral Legends series of games, which they’re using to bring older PC games to the Mac. The first release in this series was Sid Meier’s Pirates. Now Feral has officially announced the second Feral Legends game, Rome: Total War Gold Edition. This top-rated strategy game from SEGA will be released in March. Attendees at Macworld Expo 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. can experience the game for themselves at the Feral’s booth #2530 in the South Hall of the Moscone Center.
Encompassing three centuries of warfare from the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, Rome: Total War is regarded as one of the best strategy games ever with a seamless integration of strategic and tactical modes and featuring a 3d graphics engine that is capable of rendering over 10,000 soldiers on a single battlefield.
Players take charge of one of three Roman families with the goal of increasing their family’s power in Rome through diplomacy, economic skill, and of course, war! Players can fight epic historical or fictitious battles while negotiating a century-spanning campaign across Europe and Africa.
Of course, this game comes out well after the PC version—it is a legends game, after all—but one of the benefits of a late release is the inclusion of the official expansion pack, Barbarian Invasion. Set 300 years later, players must decide whether they will save Rome from its enemies or, at the head of a Barbarian faction, fight to destroy it. And because it’s a Feral release, you know it’s going to be rock solid.
“The Total War series is one of the most-requested additions to Mac gaming,” said Feral Interactive’s David Stephen. “It’s a game that is superbly suited to the platform and one that will be available to all Intel Mac owners including those with Macbooks.”
The game will retail in North America for US $29.95, £19.95 (inc VAT) in the UK and €24.95 (inc VAT) throughout Europe. It is currently available to pre-order from Feral’s online store.
Update (January 11, 2009):
Rome: Total War Gold Edition will require a 1.8GHz Intel Mac, 512MB RAM, 128MB graphics card, DVD drive, 3.5GB of hard disk space and Mac OS X v10.4 or later. The game supports Intel GMA processors (Mac minis and MacBooks).
Via [Feral Interactive]
Hi I'm, as you can see buy my user, a big fan of the total war series, and Rome total war more specifically. And I'm very happy about it coming out for macintosh. But there is one problem. I've searched everywhere and i can't find one place that has the exact date of when RTW comes out for mac. Even if you or do not know can you please comment back so at least i know you have read it.
Thanx,
rtw4mac
My contact at Feral tells me they're looking at a mid-April release.
thank you,
im a bit dissapointed because i read in a couple of places that it comes out like late march but at least now i know.
thanks,
rtw4mac
Yes, that was the plan when they announced the game at Macworld, but it's been bumped back a bit. The good thing with Feral, though, is that they'll miss release estimates in order to get you a solid gaming experience, so you know it's for the best.
thanks for the advice and how quickly you replied to it well again thanks,
rtw4mac
um… just me again i was wondering seeing as you have a contact from feral, would you perhaps know whether empire total war or medieval total war will ever come out on mac??? well if you do please tell me.
Thanx,
rtw4mac
Not sure. Feral is very tight about their announcements until they've got a decent estimate for a release date, so no titles have been released. As soon as we know, though, you'll know.
cool, thanx,
rtw4mac
hey do you know the exact date this game is coming out now?
No exact date, but mid-April still looks likely.
thank you again
does feral have the release date now if its in april its getting pretty close to not give the release date out
It's quite possible they won't announce a release date until the game ships. I have yet to hear otherwise, so I'm expecting mid-April. If that changes, we'll post the news here at Appletell as soon as it hits my desk.
ok sorry for bothering you im just excited
Dude, no reason to apologize. I'm happy to see someone so thrilled about a Macintosh game!
Hey rtw4mac, don't feel bad. For every question you ask, I think there are a number of us who are waiting anxiously for the response
agreed. I had this for my pc, but now i am strictly a mac man, but boy I would love to play medieval 2 and empire on my mac. I'm just to scared to install bootcamp!
hey i found the exact date!!!
its on amazon on this web link
http://www.amazon.com/Rome-Total-War-Gold-Mac/dp/B000RG1G00/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1238729782&sr=8-2
In case you don't go there its being released on May 9, 2009.
Honestly, I wouldn't put too much stock in a release date I found on amazon.
Thought I'd share some news. I received an e-mail from Feral about my pre-order, which I thought was a nice touch. See below.
"Originally we had aimed to release this game at the end of March. However, the final stages of development have taken rather longer than anticipated and we have taken the decision to delay the release rather than compromise on the quality of the Mac version.
Please accept our apology for this delay, but we are confident it will be worth the wait. I will write to you again on April 20th to give you a confirmed release date."
I have to say that I admire their dedication to quality and would much rather wait than to receive a sub-standard product.
Well seeing as you got that from Feral than no one look at my previous message about May 5th because how does Amazon know when it's coming out if the developers, namely Feral, do not know?!
Yeah, I've read a number of comments by game developers where they stated that online stores such as Amazon tend to make guesses about release dates. A good example would be Starcraft 2, where Blizzard has explicitly stated that any release date estimates on the internet were guessed at, and were made completely independently of Blizzard.
Interesting that Feral stated that they would provide an update on 20 April, as it is the release date shown on amazon.uk. Could just be coincidence, of course.
OMG is RTW EVER going to come out???!
I've got a request in with the developers for a status, and will report back here as soon as I get official word.
ok lol
Hi,
I was just wondering if there had been any news reg the release of Rome Total War?
Cheers,
Iain
The official word I got is that the release has been delayed, but no new date was given. As soon as I hear more, I'll pass it along.
I was told by Feral in an e-mail that I would get a solid release date on 20 April, but I haven't heard anything yet either.
ok i am so sick of waiting for this game im gonna buy a pc and get empire total war i bet Feral are just hackers, scammers,and frauds!!!
Ok i am so sick of waiting for this game im gonna buy a pc and get empire total war i bet Feral are just hackers, scammers,and frauds!!!
oh well
I've met quite a few of the guys from Feral. They're actually pretty cool.
This is the danger of announcing release dates, for what it's worth. You're cruising along with a port (which isn't done by Feral, by the way…they're publishers, not developers), things are going smoothly, and you announce a release date. Then you hit a snag, and suddenly that release date is impossible to meet. And the snag becomes something bigger, but because you're more interested in releasing a quality product than you are in shoving the game out the door before it's ready, you delay, and your customers seem to take it personally.
Rest assured, the game will come out, and it'll be worth the wait. So, you can deal with a little more frustration waiting for the Mac version, or you can get a PC and deal with the years of frustration of PC ownership. Your call.
Ok i was just a little frustrated but i will still get a PC if only because my dad is a PC technician and that i want Empire Total War
Also because I have been looking to buy a PC for months now.
Anyway I am still going to keep the mac for internet use but for games I am just gonna use the PC.
P.S. I don't really play games on the internet except on my PS3 so no worries there.
Oh well this is probably the last time you will hear from me so bye.
I asked Feral about the release dates again, and they said we should hear something by the end of may. >_> well I guess waiting another 3 months from march is only a fraction of the 5 years its been out ey.
Hey does anybody know yet when the game will be released
No official word yet, Scot. As soon as Feral is able to make an official announcement, we'll post it here.
so… preordered rtw back around feb, still waiting on a word from feral. I understand the whole not wanting to commit to a set release date thing, but an update would be nice…
Agreed. Normally I wouldn't complain, but I was promised a status update on 20 April, I wrote a polite letter inquiring as to the status one week after that date, and I still haven't heard anything.
At the end of the day, I'm not going to cancel my preorder or (gasp) run out and buy a PC so I can play a 5 year-old game, but this isn't helping my perception of Feral.
I sent an email a couple weeks ago and they said that they hoped in 4 weeks.. That was on May 19.. so June 16th is what they told me they were hoping for
A Demo would be nice…
So…it's June 20th and RTW has obviously not been released yet; does anyone have a clue if it is coming? I'd like it before the end of the summer…
No idea… But I'm waiting and waiting… This is starting to be quite annoying.
August, feral says it won't be released before august.
"
Unfortunately the game is not yet shipping as the last part of the development work is taking longer than we had anticipated.
We plan to update our website later this month with a firm release date, which at this point looks like being August.
"
There's a cider port out on bittorrent, if you look around.
Naaah – first it's without expansion pack, second – it's really choppy even on nV 8800gt and third – there is a lot of bugs in it (especially with the camera, one of the most important aspects in the game). Of course you can't go MP with it.
It's like playing cider version of GTA:SA – without "mouse look" – it simply sucks
I got sick of waiting for this game, so I cancelled the order for £20, and instead went on eBay and bought a brand new Windows XP Service Pack 2 for the same price, and RTW for a tenner. I have been playing for the last two months, and I think i got a really good deal with it. I mean sure, Gamespy servers are terrible, but I'm still enjoying the game. Plus its no extra cost for mac users anyway, seeing as they already will have Boot Camp installed. Honestly, It doesn't lag or make any difference. I recommend buying a copy of Windows XP and setting up Boot Camp.
I found a cider port of the game on demonoid and it's almost perfect except for the rare mouse/resolution problems. The official version better be really good.
I don't like restarting computer when I want to play for like 20 minutes… That's all about Mac games, for me bootcamp isn't a solution.
BTW think about people with strong PPC processors they can't bootcamping anything and RTW will be avaliable in unversal binary.
yeh true, i wish there was an easier way to switch, but still, if youre impatient for the game, id reccomend the boot camp solution. And last i heard rtw wouldnt be available for PPC processors anyway.
Apple Tell said:
"Rome: Total War Gold Edition will require a 1.8GHz Intel Mac …"
Any word on a more finite release date yet? I have been looking forward to this since march and am eager to get a copy. I don't mind waiting that much though, its just nice to know when I should hit up the local Fry's for a copy…
Has anyone heard anything yet?
Yea I got an email saying that they were shooting for this month
30 August – then it will be avaliable on Amazon. Theoretically…
lol, that's right when school starts; who's going to buy a computer game right before school?
Adult people?
When I was a "kid people," I don't remember school ever stopping me from playing a game.
right, but they're still going to lose a lot of business..
More important is that September is much closer to December than April
There is only one one period when all computer games are bought by literately everyone – Christmas.
k well then maybe it's just me, but I was hoping to play it during the summer so that I could get it all out of my system and be ready to study when college starts again…
Well, I wouldn't put much stock in what Amazon has to say on the matter.
And if I was still in school, it wouldn't stop me from playing this game. I just about flunked out of first year university thanks to Doom 2. I won't even mention what StarCraft did to my grades…
Looks like were all sounding like broken records here… But nevertheless has anyone heard anything about how the development is going/is there another tentative release ate yet?
I haven't heard anything from Feral since they promised to write to me on the 20th of April…
Now shooting for the end of October, according to a recent e-mail from Feral.
I guess we cant really complain about them being slow on porting it cause i mean noone else is but
it gets very annoying after awhile of hearing them change release dates. I get all excited and them bam! 2 more months lol
Well, it looks like Bioshock has been released.
The end of October is in a week, and I haven't heard anything else from Feral. It will be interesting to see if they make it this time.
*fingers crossed* cant wait
Maybe we should have a celebratory online battle tournament when this thing finally releases. You know – something for all the mac users who have been sitting in front of their computers with bated breath since March
Hey…! Anyone knows if that thing's multilayer is going to be compatible with Windows Rome TW?
Mac Battlefield 1942 wasn't, which sucked so much – I know Rome TW is mostly for Single Player but it would be shitty if we couldn't play with our PC friends!
Now watch your language Michu. We've got kids reading this forum.
An online battle tournament's not a bad idea. I'll look into getting that organized…keep checking this forum as Feral (hopefully) nears release.
Yup, you're right but we know so little about this relase that I'm a bit frustrated. This is the only Mac port I've been waiting for (and I've seen so many unsuccessful mac ports) so I'm a little nervous.
Cheers
Feral doesn't release bad ports. They won't give me an official statement, but chances are good that the cause for the delay is because they're waiting until they can release a great product. Better they push the release back and deliver a solid port than shove a buggy program out the door too early just to get the money faster.
now its september
hope its comming soon
An update from Feral:
"I'm afraid that the development issues with Rome: Total War Gold require a little more work and time to fix and so we hope to release the game for the end of November.At present we do not have a firm release date but an announcement will be made via our website nearer the release date."
Early December. That's the latest word I've received.
Like many, I am experiencing increasing frustration with release information which is either incorrect or non-existent…I am beginning to think that pre-ordering was a mistake. What kind of unprofessional company misses a published release by over 9 months and doesn't offer sensible explanations or rescheduling updates/information?
They've offered sensible explanations: they're running into unforeseen development problems, and are holding the game until they've got a product they feel is ready to ship. That's better then sending out a shoddy product, so I figure it'll be worth the wait. Early December is still the last word I've received, so I expect you'll be hearing something soon.
Considering this is the only place with any kind of updates, im bookmarking it.
That's a wise move. Trust me on this.
I hope the system requirements for the game haven't increased.
I hate to read to into things, but Ferals splash page actually has Rome coming up first, before Bioshock.
I hope it comes out before christmas
The only difference in requirements that I've noticed is that the supported OS went from Tiger+ to Leopard+.
I'm hoping for a pre-Christmas release as well, but I'm not holding my breath.
Is anyone here familiar with the game development process?
I'm curious as to why a port to the mac platform could be delayed by almost a year. I mean, how does a port work, exactly? Would feral (or whoever the developer is) receive the source code under licence and then implement it for the mac, or would they be more likely to wrap an interface around the pc code so that it could "talk" to a mac platform?
I look at people who turn around Cider ports in what seems like a short turn around time, and I wonder why there are so many delays. Apart from technical aspects, I wonder if there are contractual problems… though it's unlikely that we'll ever learn what the issues were I suppose.
Guess it didnt beat Xmas! XD
Nope!
Although they did update their "upcoming releases" page. It's now listed as coming "very soon".
Here you go, everyone. Official announcement for February 5th:
<a href="Rome" rel="nofollow">http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/rome-total-war-gold-edition-to-be-fought-on-the-mac-february-5th/">Rome: Total War Gold Edition to be fought on the Mac February 5th
"Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war"
- Shakespeare
Thanks for the update, Kirk
Hey, all, our review's up.
<a href="Appletell" rel="nofollow">http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/appletell-reviews-rome-total-war-gold-edition-for-os-x/">Appletell reviews Rome: Total War Gold Edition for OS X
Let us know what you thought of it.