Sega and Creative Assembly have taken Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition off sale, two days after it launched on October 13. Players had reported performance problems, bugs left over from the original game, and artwork that looked like it came out of an AI upscaler.
The original 2011 release of Total War: Shogun 2 is returning to stores while the two companies investigate. Sega has not said when Shogun 2 Complete Edition will go back on sale. Anyone who already bought it can keep playing, though.
Why Shogun 2 Complete Edition left stores
Complaints started almost as soon as the remaster went live. Over the following two days, players posted screenshots on social media of assets that appeared to have been upscaled with AI tools.
The unit cards drew the most attention. One widely shared post on X pointed to a card where a character’s hand had the wrong number of fingers, and asked whether Creative Assembly had run the art through an AI-generated upscaler.
Fans had also hoped the new version would fix long-standing bugs from the 2011 game. Instead, those bugs remain in the remaster.
The launch was already unpopular before any of this. When the Complete Edition arrived, the 2011 version disappeared from sale, so new buyers could only purchase the remaster. That decision drew criticism from players before most of them had even tried the new release.
What Sega said
Sega responded with a lengthy statement on X. In it, the publisher said the Shogun 2 Complete Edition “has fallen short of both your expectations and our own standards.” It added that the team had seen player feedback and reviews, and agreed that “the current experience is not where it needs to be.”
As a result, Sega is working with platform holders to pull the remaster temporarily and restore the original game. Meanwhile, it says it is working closely with its development partner to “identify the causes of these problems” and deliver improvements. The statement does not name that partner.
Sega also promised the remaster would eventually meet the quality standards players expect from the Total War series. However, it gave no timeline for fixes or for a return to sale.
Steam reviews before the removal
User reviews on Steam were heavily negative. Before Sega removed it, the remaster held an Overwhelmingly Negative rating, with only 19% of more than 2,000 user reviews recommending it.
Total War: Shogun 2 first came out on PC in March 2011. Set in 16th-century Japan, it stayed on sale for more than 15 years until the Complete Edition replaced it this week.
For now, owners of the Complete Edition keep access to the version they bought. Everyone else will be able to buy the 2011 original again once Sega restores its store listings.