Total War: Rome 2 DLC plans include free and paid content

After The Creative Assembly launches Total War: Rome 2 Sept. 3, the developer plans to support its strategy game with a mixture of free and paid downloadable content.

According to lead designer James Russell, paid content will be split between three general types of packs, and "gamers can expect to see culture packs that add more playable factions and unique units, feature packs that add gameplay or wide-ranging aesthetic changes, and campaign packs that add entirely new story-based campaign expansions."

Total War: Rome 2's first culture pack, Greek States, and the playable Pontus faction will be available at launch. Those who pre-order the game will receive the Greek States culture pack for free. By October, The Creative Assembly will release the Seleucid Empire faction for free and the Nomadic Tribes Culture Pack as paid DLC.

Free updates will often center around improving the game's core features, Russell said.

"As with Shogun 2, we will continually improve the game's compatibility, optimization and integral features such as AI and gameplay balancing post-release, and plan to add to that with new control schemes and additional free formats on other operating systems," he said. "We are also very proud of how Shogun 2 is our most moddable Total War to date with over 500 user-made mods on Steam Workshop alone. We hope to support Rome 2 in a similar fashion."

For more on the game, you can check out a videos explaining its multiplayer modes, naval warfare and what it's like to battle the AI on the highest difficulty.