I remember when Total War Sagas were announced. I liked the idea of these more focused Total Wars, and when we heard the first would be set against the Viking invasion of Britain, I was thrilled. Then I saw it, and how closely it resembled Attila - and a lot of my hype fizzled out. Though I stand by our review, which hailed its gameplay innovations, I do find it difficult to return to.

This is one of the few unfortunate results of Total War: Warhammer’s outrageous success; it was such a leap in Total War’s beauty that going back was impossible for many fans. Having seen A Total War Saga: Troy at Gamescom this year, I’m as sure as I can be without having played it that it won’t have that problem. The demo was one of the best-looking strategy games I’ve seen.

Lead game designer Todor Nikolov confirms that Troy will run on a modified version of the Warhammer 2 engine, and my word, it looks wonderful. Colours are warm and bright, the Mediterranean is clear and sapphire-hued (trivia side-bar: Homer, writer of the most famous chronicle of the Trojan War, The Iliad, calls it the “wine-dark sea” and doesn’t appear to have had a word for the colour blue).