Look, let's be honest—Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition, the remastered version of Total War: Shogun 2, marched straight to the top of the global Steam top sellers chart right after launching on October 14. Yet, despite the sales figures, user reviews at launch are sitting squarely at Overwhelmingly Negative.

The original Total War: Shogun 2 scored a brilliant 90 on Metacritic by deeply capturing 16th-century feudal Japan's clan rivalries and massive battles. Even so, back in the day, dodgy AI and historical oversight were pointed out as shortcomings. The Complete Edition is a remastered version of Total War: Shogun 2, which originally came out 15 years ago.

Arriving anew as the Complete Edition, this release bundles all previous DLC. Improvements include a 64-bit engine upgrade for modern systems, support for up to 4K high-resolution UI scaling, unit control quality-of-life features and quick diplomacy deals from recent series entries, official Japanese voice acting, and over 50 minor clans added as playable factions.

However, user reviews for Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition in its opening hours are Overwhelmingly Negative (1,198 user reviews, 19% positive). The main culprits behind the roasting are severe optimization and bug issues. Even on top-tier graphics cards, campaign map framerate drops and overheating happen, and critics point out that the original's chronic AI performance and pathfinding bugs remain entirely unfixed. In fact, new bugs have cropped up, such as units ignoring orders, while excessive lighting and saturation draw complaints for causing visual fatigue. Some users also claim that generative AI was lazily slapped onto newly added unit cards and cutscenes.

Modding support took a hit too. Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition dropped traditional Steam Workshop support in favour of the Mod.io platform, sparking backlash for shattering the accumulated mod ecosystem and compatibility. On top of that, the original game was delisted from the Steam store, leading to criticism that publisher is charging a hefty price for updates that players could achieve via old mods.

Elsewhere, Planet Zoo 2 held onto the top spot following its official launch. Early user reviews are Mostly Positive, though unpolished key bindings and Franchise mode bugs caught some flak. Meanwhile, soulslike newcomer Valor Mortis claimed second place at launch with Very Positive reviews.

In the daily peak Concurrent Players top 20, Deadlock broke its own record with 275,452 players thanks to a new hero, climbing to 5th place. Meanwhile, Dead By Daylight kicked off its Halloween event and jumped to 18th place with 79,988 players.