Total War: Arena gets a massive update

The Creative Assembly and Sega has announced the start of Total War: Arena's closed beta, a free-to-play game based on CA's popular strategy franchise (even if the actual gameplay is rather different). The start of the closed beta has also seen the addition of "Fury of Arminius", a massive update that introduces a new faction, a new commander and a new map in this epic strategy game. You can see below all the new content introduced by this new update:

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.

If you want to join the closed beta, you can sign up here. The game is currently available in Europe and in Russia, with US servers coming soon.