Chinese fans review bomb Total War after NetEase becomes publisher

Gamers fear censorship and access to Steam games after Creative Assembly partnered with NetEase for China release

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Total War: Three Kingdoms recently got a very graphic blood pack. The gory downloadable content probably won’t be available for the official Chinese version. (Picture: Creative Assembly)

Published: 9:02pm, 9 Aug 2019Updated: 9:10am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Total War: Three Kingdoms is extremely popular in China, so it made sense when NetEase announced that it would become the official publisher of Total War games in China. You might think this would make China’s Total War fans happy, but things aren’t so simple in China.

Meet NetEase, China’s second-largest game publisher

There was an immediate backlash to the news online, which NetEase announced at Shanghai’s ChinaJoy gaming expo. As has happened before, Chinese gamers were alarmed because of their country’s routine attempts to sanitize imported games. Past game alterations in China have involved stripping out blood, skeletons and other graphic elements.

To make their concerns known, fans took to Steam, the digital shop that’s sold most copies of the game, and review bombed several games in the franchise. Hundreds of new negative reviews appeared on the pages of a number of Total War games such as Three Kingdoms, Warhammer II and Rome II.

The anger isn’t just about possible censorship, though. Once China has official versions of the games for sale in the country, gamers are concerned they’ll no longer be able to buy the international versions through Steam. Creative Assembly told gamers there’s nothing to fear.

“We promise that Steam users will not be affected in any way through our partnership with NetEase, and all Total War products can be purchased/downloaded/experienced as usual,” the British company said in a statement.

But gamers are suspicious because this has happened before. When Rocket League got an official release in China in partnership with Tencent, the popular multiplayer game was suddenly unavailable for purchase on Steam for Chinese users.

It makes sense that an official partner in China like Tencent or NetEase would prefer people purchase their version rather than one from overseas that doesn’t net them any revenue. So Creative Assembly’s assurances didn’t ease fears among Chinese gamers, who continue to review bomb the Total War games with sometimes vicious comments.

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