Creative Assembly's latest free release reaches 7.5 million after 24 hours

Creative Assembly, developers behind one of the most well regarded RTS franchises of all time, Total War, released the latest in their series A Total War Saga: Troy free-of-charge for twenty-four hours on the Epic Games Store – eventually moving over 7.5 million units within the day.

Within the first hour, Troy had already surpassed the one million milestone and took to Twitter to share in their celebration.

While some may argue that freely gifting what would've been a $50 game to over 7.5 million people is equal to burning a $375 million pile of money, others would counter that the loss of revenue is more than made up for in the exposure for both Creative Assembly and more so the Epic Games Store.

Just as Steam was poorly received upon its debut, the Epic Games Store faced similar backlash as users complained about the lack of features compared to Valve's storefront. This content was only exacerbated as Epic procured more and more exclusive titles for their store – angering many fans of Steam who would've preferred to keep their game library neatly organized under the de-facto "standard" marketplace.

Those same detractors made their discontent very clear, many of whom went on to threaten not playing/purchasing the title until it arrives on Steam – a full year later.

"Not a fan of epic games, they seem so desperate to get people onto their platform... Does epic games support mods?" wrote @MrAndyyyBee.

"I'll wait until it's on @Steam next year, thanks!" wrote @Metal Dave01.

Sega, who has owned Creative Assembly since 2005, was well aware of the potential backlash they would face for releasing Troy on Epic Games Store but carried on anyway. After first announcing the game's release in June, a Sega representative acknowledged, "Some won't like the Epic Game Store exclusivity [but] feel like this is a great opportunity in a lot of ways."

This isn't even the first time Epic has released a full AAA title utterly free on their store. It was only in May when Rockstar announced Grand Theft Auto V: Premium Edition was available free of charge for an entire week. It included all DLC up to that point and the "Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack" that gave new players a massive head start with immediate access to properties, $1 million in-game currency, and other GTA Online items that usually take weeks to grind for.

Whether done out of the goodness of their hearts or to entice potential buyers into further exploring Epic's Store, it did drive a good bit of traffic to the burgeoning storefront. Plus, now that Epic has released multiple, fully fleshed titles, who's to say they wouldn't do it again? And as for Creative Assembly – allowing players to try their game risk-free could expose an untold number of potential fans to a series they have never given a second thought about.

According to chief product officer Rob Bartholomew, Troy was expected to reach a high volume of downloads, but nowhere near the level they eventually achieved. "It's been incredible to work with Epic on giving this brand new release away for free," he said in a press release to GamesPress. "Now we get to welcome so many strategy players – new and old."

A Total War Saga: Troy is available for download now on the Epic Games Store for Windows PC and macOS.