Pretty stupid to be honest.
Only good part about steam was the mod workshop. We won't be getting that on Epic gamestore and it's kinda half the reason people play. Game had a lot of promise but this sorta kills it imo whether it's free or not the success of future dlcs won't matter. People who wait till next year are going to see it arrive on Steam with all these dlcs and see the price of entry for a full game be over $100. Won't go over well if they don't do a bundle or include dlc into the base price.
Also to further add they confirmed no cross platform support for multiplayer between Epic and Steam. So basically CA are taking the money and not putting in ANY more work than they need to and don't care about the player base/longevity of the game.
Still going to be using Denuvo too.
As for mods Epic plans on a workshop as it's on their roadmap, but betting on a roadmap isn't exactly promising for gamers. Not everybody will get this free and so will feel screwed.
I don't know about that. The Total War Saga series has always been smaller scale and lower budget. DLC-wise, the last Saga series Total War had no DLC aside from the usual blood/gore pack.
With Troy being from a very specific era, there isn't as much room for DLC as other Total Wars. Given its lower budget, it is also a lot easier for CA to take risks.
I think that this move is clever, as CA gets paid by Epic Games, fans get a free game on day-1, and the series will get opened up to a lot of new players who otherwise might never try Total War. Mod support will come to the Epic Games Store in time. They recently shown gamers a work in progress look at the UI for that. With Civilization VI being there too, I'd guess that mod support is more of a priority now.
If this were three kingdoms or Warhammer III, this would be a huge risk. With a lower budget Sagas series game, it isn't a big risk.
Another factor to consider is that free games promotions on the Epic Games store often result in higher sales volumes after the promotion ends. This is due to a new wave of word of mouth marketing for each game.
While I'm sad that Epic doesn't feature proper mod support yet, I don't see it as a big deal on launch day. Maybe a month or two down the line, but not initially. I only ever mod a total war game after 2 or more campaigns.
