Following strong player backlash over the quality of Total War: Shogun 2 - Complete Edition, Sega pulled it from sale just days after launch. Creative Assembly later confirmed that the title was developed by an external team and stated they are currently evaluating next steps.
Roger Kellam, Vice President of the Total War franchise at Creative Assembly, stated that this game was not developed in-house by Creative Assembly and did not undergo the studio's usual internal review and quality assurance processes. At the time, teams were heavily focused on subsequent major projects, leading to insufficient oversight of external development. However, he acknowledged that Total War is Creative Assembly's brand, and the team must take responsibility for results that fail to meet standards and work to fix them.
Addressing controversies surrounding the alleged use of generative AI, Roger Kellam stated that Creative Assembly uses AI tools for analysis, debugging, and rapid prototyping, but does not use generative AI to create in-game assets, requiring external partners to adhere to the same standards. The team is now investigating the specific circumstances of Total War: Shogun 2 - Complete Edition. The statement did not name the outsourcing partner, but the Steam page lists Warsaw-based studio Mataboo as the second studio involved in the project.
Some players believe Creative Assembly should still be held accountable for the final released version, questioning how its employees promoted the game via live streams before launch without noticing obvious issues. Currently, a small team of senior Creative Assembly developers is working with Sega and an unnamed external studio to evaluate next steps.