Closed beta for Total War: ARENA kicks off today with The Fury of Arminius content
Total War: ARENA not only has a closed beta starting today, but Creative Assembly has released a rather large content drop.
Note that this test is currently only available in Europe and Russia, but US servers are coming soon
Called The Fury of Arminius, the content drop contains a new Faction and Commander, a new battle map, loads of balancing and tweaks along with beta monetization options.
The best part, is there will be no server resets form this point onward.
A few bits from the content update are below, with the full list of changes and additions available on the Total War: ARENA blog.
New faction: The Barbarians: Focusing on momentum, stealth, misdirection and devastating hit-and-run attacks.
New Commander: Arminius: Legendary hero of The Battle of Teutoburg Forest, leads the Barbarians and brings powerful Orders which amplify their unique playstyle. With combined Orders in play, a Barbarian player can wrong-foot opponents, conduct guerrilla warfare and wreak swift havoc on the battlefield.
New units: Arminius may recruit a number of new units to his army up to Tier 3. Many of these units bring balance to the early tiers as they each fulfil a notable role in the field and offer solid counters. As these units are further balanced over time in the context of the greater game, new Barbarian units and tiers will also be introduced.
New map: Rubicon: Based upon the famous river in Italy which Caesar marched his legions across towards Rome, Rubicon has designed in response to community consultation.
Beta monetization options: Monetization will be activated as a test: players are now able to purchase Gold for real money. As this is a testing phase, only the smallest Gold package will be activated for purchase. As a free-to-play game, monetization is needed in order to keep adding new features to the game and to maintain it as a service to players. ARENA is not intended to be pay to win, and this test will deliver feedback for improving monetization systems.
