The best game China won't let you play.

This is the Best Game China Won't let you play. Say hello to Total War Arena the greatest 10v10 strategy game of all time and as of the 6th of may 2022 you can no longer play this game! Today I will be showcasing the final ever game of total war arena! Total War Arena is statistically one of the best total war games according to google reviews! And consequently one of the best strategy games of all time. For me this game was fantastic but sadly after getting abandoned by creative assembly, wargaming and netease in china the game has finally be killed for good!
So today the spiffing brit is going to perfectly balance this hidden gem of a game that is now unplayable! Do you remember the best game of all time? Did you ever play Total War arena? Would you do anything to bring it back! With publishers destroying games left and right we need to do our part and keep the gameplay alive to stop ubisoft from destroying games like driver san francisco, just dance and even microsoft destroying the multiplayer of classic halo. If you have paid to make a game and create art I don't see why you wouldn't want it to be enjoyed for the rest of time. You wouldnt expect to see say Johnny Depp setting fire to pirates of the Caribbean DVDs 6 years after the film came out, I mean of course the dude is too busy fighting amber heard but still it just does not make sense to remove media or effectively make banned games! So why do the same to the best video games!
00:00 - Resurrection
00:35 - What was Total War Arena?
02:27 - Step 1: Find the Website
06:27 - Step 2: Play our first game
10:11 - Step 3: Recruit One Intern
15:13 - Step 4: Recruit Twenty Interns
18:59 - Last Game Ever, Ever
20:03 - What's next in the archive?
22:06 - Thank you and goodbye?
A huge thanks to ‪@EvoLozGaming‬ for helping save the game and get the game running!
What you have seen here today is part of a fantastic perfectly balanced series on youtube where I go from game to game and break them with wacky exploits to gain things like unlimited gold. If you enjoyed this then be sure to check out more. The style is similar to RT game and callmekevin in parts. A large influence on this series has come from Valefisk and The Killian Experience.
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @thespiffingbrit
Patreon: / spiffing
Twitter: @thespiffingbrit
Discord: / discord
Title: The best game China won't let you play.
#Best #Game #Arena

[@thespiffingbrit]

*Thanks for Watching and Supporting the legacy of Total War Arena!* The fact this game was abandoned by 3 different publishers is kind of insane but ultimately it was china limiting video game play time that finished it off for good! Who knows maybe with enough support we can convince CA to bring it back!

[@Shad0wSnip3d]

We love you spiff

[@bonkerz7997]

support bringing back our favorite ground breaking games from the pits of hell they were born in!

[@scottpilgrim2]

Maybe speedrun something with the Uyghurs getting out of camps irl

[@mattparker9726]

I am on a quest to bug Spiff to tell me if Yorkshire Tea Gold is better than the red box, which tastes of moldy gym socks, because BY GOD, I'm a cheap bastard and am not paying 50 dollars for a box of tea. Unless it has ACTUAL gold in. Coffee is demonstrably better anyway ALL HAIL THE BEAN!

[@tmos3013]

yes please it was the first time total war really had a good shot on the multiplayer aspects, personally my favorite part in every strategy game and i wouldnt have any problems paying 20-30 $ for this amazing experience

[@devinkline8352]

I vote for Spiff to "aquire" this game. I would gladly support a SpiffCo acquisition and full revival

[@thespiffingbrit]

If we raise enough money I will buy this game and bring it back

[@Mustafa-dz7yb]

@@thespiffingbrit petition to permanently bring tw arena back

[@TheWaslijn]

@@thespiffingbrit where do we don't toward this goal?

[@misterpanini8169]

@@thespiffingbrit kickstarter or something?

[@basednameofsmartness3974]

@@thespiffingbrit if you start a donation campaign for this I will happily give you my money. I miss this game so much

[@EvoLozGaming]

Was a pleasure to help you embark upon this quest! And so pleased we managed to get it working for some final battles. So long total war arena and thanks for the memories!

[@droobs]

Pin this comment !

[@radekhomola7658]

Pin this comment!

[@thetrav2100]

SUB TO THIS MAN HIS CONTENT IS GREAT XD

[@ooofffbobsquarepants7349]

Thanks for all the behind the scene work u did just to make the game work for spiff

[@nice-boat]

not even a normal person

[@TakoyakiDonuts]

I have massive respect for people who keep old flash multiplayer games like Club Penguin and Pixie Hollow alive. I played those as a kid and love replaying them.

[@dS0_]

Some of my best memories of Total War were in this game. Its also one of the first Total wars I've ever played. I was upset by their decision to terminate it - also had no idea the Chinese revived it. Thanks for the nostalgia

[@Shad0wSnip3d]

I imagine spiff saying “If this doesn’t work, I guess I’m just going to code the whole game myself.”

[@mapu1]

I mean if you have the game data, you just have to bypass the launchers DRM, and most eee..., say plundering sites out there do it on daily basis, so you just gotta get hold of one of these groups.

[@bookedsam]

*these comments were made in china*

[@supremecai5857]

@@mapu1 Yea there'll 10000% be some cracks/rips of this game. Definitely not gonna be 'the last time it's played' or 'never played again' lmao not the first time and not the last that devs abandon their games

[@geminiiskull]

Spiff should work as the right hand man for Hod Towerd.

[@burp2019]

@@mapu1 that's not the issue, the problems he had and the ai match needing to tell a server to start sound like the game is online-only

[@Patterrz]

I can't believe the developers have totally deleted all traces of a game they made 4 years ago already that's insane

[@ordinarybantha2756]

Yes China is good at making... things disappear.

[@Bloodlyshiva]

Wouldn't be the first time.

[@Phazer102]

Not really, it was probably a stipulation in the contract when it was taken over for Chinese market.

[@Blackwatch8800]

I mean if game had taken off for real I guess they would’ve kept various builds around even after selling it to China.

[@verihimthered2418]

It's been the standard since 2000

[@hmvollbanane1259]

I am so missing bf2142. I loved the game back in the day and a couple of years ago I found a fan made revival with running servers, healthy population and everything, just for good old ea ordering a cease and desist on a community run game they themselves had decided to no longer provide any services for half a decade before

[@DataLeak06]

Copyright law is super cool isn’t it

[@McFwoupson]

Damn I didn't know that got shut down. I remember playing that as well. Have they also done thus with battlefield 2 and all the mods ppl have made for it?

[@QQ-yi6yg]

Pulling strafing runs on enemy mechs while flying with a joystick was some of the most fun I've had in an FPS

[@Maniacman2030]

EA is greedy, corrupt and hates fun. Who knew? The only thing they care about is making the next sportsball game and milking money out of idiots willing to pay for their ridiculous overpriced dlc and gambling nonsense.

[@yuviaro3511]

"for offline games, that's pretty simple" Earlier multiplayer games could be played without servers while some newer singleplayer games can't be played at all.

[@czalon]

spiff has done many things, but reviving a full game might be one of his biggest achievements

[@EEEEEEEE]

E‎

[@bettertelevision968]

A

[@cthatcher11482]

SPORTS

[@jacobverlee6891]

It's in the game

[@oreseur513]

is only game.

[@belgianstar]

I would love it if the devs just released a “host-it-yourself” version of dying games like this.

[@Daxmacloi]

I agree. They could release some server files to create your own server, or maybe release a peer to peer version of the game

[@j.1668]

IMO all games should release a private server version when shutting down. So many online and MMO games just no longer accessible at all. Seems mad to me.

[@Seth9809]

I've played a ton of games that no longer have servers as P2P.

[@thetruegoldenknight]

If only most devs had that kind of "end of life", there would be no such thing as "Dead games". Ah, but reality loves to suck all the fun out of everything.

[@nezu_cc]

Keep in mind it's now "owned by china" in a way. Self hosting is a great thing but if your goal is to destroy something your not gonna make it easier for people to keep it alive

[@vascobsousa]

I remember playing this game when they made it available for some players in early alpha. My computer couldn't run it very well at the time and kept lagging brutally, but I loved it just like any other Total War. Thanks for bringing back those memories Spiff

[@kieranstravels]

It’s such a shame this game isn’t available at all anymore, unuronically, this game looks extremely fun.

[@rancorusia]

some of the most fun ive had in any total war game, but CA being CA decided it wasnt profitable enough

[@quickdraw6893]

A requirement for 20 players per game might've been a killer, that demands a far too big playerbase for a niche like TW, let alone this 'niche within a niche' style of MOBA gameplay. Most TW players never even touch multiplayer from what I've seen (especially if you look at any TW game that has "play 1 multiplayer game" as an achievement, and how low the % of that is).

[@kieranstravels]

@@quickdraw6893 Yeah, fair point

[@Niraol]

it was so much fun when you crushed the opposition

[@tragile9108]

It was super fun. Best online total war and one of the best in general.

[@JonathanGehweiler]

Things gamers do for what we love.

[@thespiffingbrit]

Why must they depend on servers! And even then LET ME RUN MY OWN SERVERS!!!

[@JonathanGehweiler]

I have so many old pc games that run into this same problem. You just want to relive a few minutes of nostalgia or show a friend who missed it.

[@JonathanGehweiler]

I am going to date myself but Freelancer was one I loved and that I spent tons of time patching and tinkering with

[@Nightenstaff]

@@thespiffingbrit Worked for City of Heroes... just sayin' if someone hasn't figured it out today, with the right motivation, it could certainly happen tomorrow.

[@resileaf9501]

@@thespiffingbrit Psh. As if a videogame company would let players control what happens in an online game.

[@nickjamesholt]

I loved this game so much. Breaks my heart we lost it. This and firefly, I caught in the beginning. Looking back, I really felt a part of something great happening. I was floored when it got plucked. Bring. It. Back. Spiff!

[@szupko]

For Firefly, the TV show, i'm assuming, I rather enjoyed the graphic novels.

[@berreth3]

Absolutely a fun game that I loved playing, considering the recent quality of total war games it's a shame such a concept didn't blow up

[@1mostaussiebruce390]

The amount of effort he went through to show us this game is commendable.

[@jonathanlebon9705]

It's not that hard...us veterans of the SUNTZU Clan all got in the very day it launched in China. Even managed to buy premium using a Chinese dude we could trust. Would like the game to see a comeback to EU servers though...ping is too much for competitive play atm.

[@Sef_Era]

You know, losing server access doesn’t *have* to destroy a community game. C&C still works fine on its mod run servers… For if you had, say, a hypothetically bootlegged version of the game that you could copy out to a few dozen friends, so you could play against eachother. No official server to play on also means no official server to shout at you for having duped accounts… Just saying.

[@thatguybrody4819]

hmmmm.

[@thefool8224]

there is no C&C that requires servers though, they can all be played offline single player wait, you dont mean THAT one? that abomination

[@thatguybrody4819]

@@thefool8224 stupid question what's C&C

[@Indian0Lore]

Use to play Rose Online on a private server.

[@CHRF-55457]

TF2 goes brrr

[@travisharvey1092]

Evolve, if anyone remembers that game, it was a really good game that ended up being destroyed due to its own marketing team, me and the boys played it on its final day back in 2018

[@Garresh1]

One of Evolve's biggest issues was that it was branded as an action game when it was more of a stealth game. You spent the majority of your gameplay either evading or trying to track the monster.

[@kristiandevil]

I wish all multiplayer games had a peer to peer mode. That way, even if it was difficult, you could get a group of people together and play them.

[@anon_y_mousse]

This is one of the reasons I haven't played any modern games. Newest game I play is either Doom 3 or maybe Psychonauts, depending on which came out first and if I can even remember the release dates of everything. Original Unreal and UT still work because you can run your own server and the community is great.

[@Snootch]

Eh, P2P is the worst. It solely depends on both of you having a pristine connection otherwise the latency can cause issues and show you movements that are not happening until it's too late.

[@anon_y_mousse]

@@Snootch That depends on the game and how it's implemented, and would affect the performance regardless of going through a server or not.

[@nonchip]

this! and for companies to just release the stuff they actively refuse to continue selling!

[@kristiandevil]

@@Snootch true, but at least you don't have to rely on the game company keeping servers up forever. Plus, if there's not too many players needed, you could get a bunch of friends together and have a lan party like in the old days, and latency wouldn't be a problem.

[@rebelhero423]

I loved Total War: Arena so much. I spent so many nights grinding out games as Leonidas, just absolutely locking down an area gandalf style "YOU SHALL NOT PASS"

[@guillermoelnino]

i had no idea this game existed

[@VerdeMorte]

*"YOU SHALL NOT P!SS!!!"*

[@alexey_chekhovich]

Loved those stationary Greeks as Caesar.

[@jansenbrown3435]

Amazing effort, and really glad you got to play it right up until the end. Cheers.

[@Mood8Poisoning]

I gotta say man I love your enthusiasm! maybe I should start drinking some of that Yorkshire tea..

[@clericofchaos1]

It's always sad when a game dies but it seems like this game died before it even had a real chance at life. That's a shame because it did look like fun.

[@jonahblack2000]

It was really fun

[@nothing-of5yc]

I never heard of this game until now why did they never gave this game a chance.

[@aoki6332]

@@nothing-of5yc They did they tried multiple time but people where more interested into playing war thunders that why its endup on Chinese server

[@whenpikachuhashadenough2944]

but didnt it have like a 94% positive game review?

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

@@whenpikachuhashadenough2944 That's from the small number of people who played it. It wasn't exactly huge.

[@herlastborn]

If this was an anime, Spiff would've fell asleep as the servers were shutting down and would have woken up as a general going on various arcs of conquest until he unified the world.

[@KingfisherMC]

That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Spiffing Brit

[@micienz]

That time Spiff reincarnated as exploited game character

[@iceneko9170]

@@micienz "My life is totally balanced and there are no exploits whatsoever"

[@dragonkingunity]

Overlord Spiff

[@greenrocket23]

This is unironically a great idea for a Isekai anime.

[@Theophily]

Wow, that's one of the best ads I think I've ever seen. Thanks for getting me excited about a game just as it went defunct XD

[@jeremycorbin2178]

Rest in Peace Nosgoth, a game that tried to shake up a formula and did so pretty well. Innovation is hard apparently, and they decided shutting it down was batter than trying to properly balance it. It's playerbase wasn't dead or anything either, they just up and pulled the plug a third into it's lifecycle

[@Cptn8993]

This and Evolve, RIP

[@dreadavis9751]

When spiff was playing till server shutdown, he was magically reincarnated into the games world

[@usagifang]

Did he became a lich?

[@SaURoN-lh1dl]

@@usagifang No, an "Intern" trader

[@microsoul669]

@@usagifang And he gained a very powerful spell "the goal of all life is exploits"

[@softonsoftie4581]

@@SaURoN-lh1dl with the trader game system, which is perfectly balanced of course with no exploits whatsoever

[@nero2355]

Ngl I would read a manhua that has a premise of 'you have a system that's only as strong as your exploit skill'

[@Drachnon]

I loved Total War: Arena. I used to team up with a friend where he would go artillery and I would set up an ambush for any units trying to get to him.

[@DaniboyBR2]

And the team would lose because you had two units to focus on one lol infinite molotov Boudicca was the best unit. Lock enemies in combat, flank them, set them on fire, rinse, repeat.

[@alexdavidson7498]

I should try that in a tank game…

[@paulgran7815]

Damn! Your huge passion for this game makes me sad that it's discontinued!

[@Easyflux]

Game preservation is very important, and is a constant uphill battle. Warms my heart to see one of my favourite content creators shed some light on this topic. Hopefully there's more game to highlight.

[@KairahVTVods]

I know what this feeling was like, being online in the last hours, seeing that disconnection sign, for me it was City of Heroes, but thankfully thanks to super dedicated fans I can relive and appreciate that game today. I can only hope you'll get your game back too Spiff.

[@Jay_Johnson]

The same thing happened for me when I was 10 with Lego Universe. Online games rarely last.

[@EvilGav]

Nice to hear. It was one of my friends that accidentally started up what became the largest unofficial server after the 2019 leak - originally set up for a few hundred people from the LAN community in the UK, it got out of hand really quickly.

[@j.1668]

NCSoft were mad to shut down a still-profitable game imo. I remember it was really sudden, I think the news at the time was they were repurposing the CoH servers as GW2 servers? The whole thing of CoH not being sold to the fans afterwards seems mad to me. The effort to bring it back is phenomenal. I go back and play it every few months. The nostalgia factor is huge. Even if I never learned how to be effective in that game. ;) I suck at it but I have fun, and that to me is really good :)

[@benjaminstreet9160]

@@j.1668 the author Anne Mc Cafferty offered a few million and they wouldn't accept. I will never play an nc soft game because of this

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

oh gosh, city of heroes was a fun gem

[@wcdk200]

Total war: Arena is or was one off the best multiplayer games I have played. Hope someone some how make a new one.

[@ashtonwinder9757]

I feel like an interesting idea would be for someone to create a server base that hosted archived games such as this. It could be an ad-based or subscription-based experience where you can browse games that are gone today through a launcher that allows you to connect to other players. Obviously there would be abundant red tape with copyrights and everything, but hey, one can dream.

[@trauma50disaster1]

And there could be a monthly calendar listing the game of the day to focus people into that game to have higher numbers.

[@the_steev]

I have seen other Games been revived by their own Community. Need for Speed World was on of them (now known as soapbox race world). Honestly if enough People come together we could revive it with custom Servers like it has been done with other Games before.

[@nisqhog2881]

God, this game was so good. I will forever miss getting teamkilled by artillery because they thought elephants were OP, and they shouldn't even exist on their own team :,) I wish somebody would make a community server for this game

[@RabbiHerschel]

>teamkilling for unit abuse unfathomably based

[@stevetheterminator]

There was a brief window in time where I had good enough internet to play this game and it made me fall in love with the concept and even today it is #1 on my list of games I wished had a pro-league. Watching 10 people coordinate and communicate at a high level would be absolutely amazing and so hype seeing them pull off some crazy strategy.

[@dukeoflimbs6405]

Man I remember playing this in the alpha, it was a rough diamond but with work could easily have been both a serious MOBA contender and also a very fun take on the TW battle formula. The immense satisfaction you felt when you and some random had a moment of tactical synergy, like hammer-and-anvilling some poor greedy sod. So many Gandalf-at-dawn moments where someone would come to your rescue just when things were looking grim.

[@seadog1555]

I was just 10 years old, when I strated play this fantastic game! It was my favourite game ever, the tactics, the unites, the commanders... I loved everything! But when the servers were closed, my heart broke... I played so mutch time with it. And after the close, I search a lot to find that amazing experience and that felling, which it gave to me. I've could never playe again this game, and I can't say with real words, how much I miss this game... and how much I am sad because the game's destiny! This video brought up lot of memories to me, and I'd really support to revive this game. (From Hungary)

[@youtubepurgatory]

I used to play this with my dormy in uni religiously. Glad you could bring a ton of light to this forgotten gem, Spiff!

[@perest4438]

I remember when this game was launching and people on twitch were streaming it. I remember thinking, "wow this is the future of TW games. This is awesome." Unfortunately I was wrong.

[@adrianbundy3249]

It was fun, I played the beta I think for such a long time, then it went down, and it was so under the radar, I haven't been able to play it once since. Shrug.

[@arris9447]

Never understood what really happened with it. It was fun, had a lot of potential. And just poof, gone.

[@Reinhard_Erlik]

I just re discovered this game, it is very unfortunate that it got shut down.

[@adrianbundy3249]

@@Reinhard_Erlik Before it even got rolling too, smh.... Unsure if the non beta version ever even came out for US audiences tbh.

[@Reinhard_Erlik]

@@adrianbundy3249 still, that game was a fantastic concept, wouldve been a hit if it was to stay around longer.

[@Adierit]

I actually remember when this game first came out, I was a closed tester for it. It was a shame when they pulled the plug on it so quick I thought it had a lot of potential.

[@therexbellator]

As a TW player it never grabbed my attention enough to want to install and play it. The whole free-2-play thing plus limited units made it seem very threadbare and designed to be monetized for people who've never played a TW game. Then they pulled the plug on it and I definitely lost all interest. However, watching this now makes me regret I didn't give it more of a chance. This honestly looks fun and interesting. Now I'm hoping Spiffing gets enough people interested that maybe CA will bring it back..... maybe? CA plz.

[@Adierit]

@@therexbellator funnily enough this was actually published by the same people that make world of tanks and such, and for closed beta i had to run it off the wargaming launcher. the units aren't actually too limited, at least they had an entire tech tree you could research through when i played with multiple tiers of troops. they also had everything like skirmishers, archers, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and their variants like shock, light, etc

[@Blackwatch8800]

@@Adierit I think they meant “limited in terms of numbers”. I think that game’s concept a bit odd, Desktop TW players are used to larger army builds and complete control, while closest online game type I can come up with: MOBA are used to only control one entity.

[@oddiethefox5832]

Man I remember seeing this game, getting super hyped, then disappointed when I found out the whole project was dropped

[@Ah-Sol]

This was a monumental effort bravo good sir 👏🏻👏🏻

[@georgebulbakwa9017]

Somewhere in the quantum split of a multiverse, Spiff's consciousness is trapped in the game as the connection should have terminated.

[@ChaosLierLen]

Holy fuck, Spiff would make a perfect isekai protagonist.

[@umbreon_plays64owo]

because the code for the game has been archived by several people online. . .it makes me wonder if it would be possible to make an unlocked version of the game that used custom/private servers

[@DSKM92]

Yes it does just no one is doing it because the cost for owning a server that is not lagging for online multiplayer is super high. No one will wanna do that if it was not profitable.

[@WelcomeBub]

@@DSKM92 If only they could figure how to get the serverside stuff into a distributable server application so players can create their own dedicated servers.

[@InsectSpray]

It's such a shame it's gone :( It seriously was the best moba style rts. I loved playing it.

[@fredwin]

That was my issue with it. I hated how there were moba style lanes and chokes, doesn't really feel strategically deep or rewarding to have the same battle in the same lane repeatedly.

[@Yee20234]

Same. I hated the moba changes. It made the game so much more casual and the increased lenght that came with it was just unneccessary

[@eveel1402]

Spiff have the file, why not build private server ?

[@Niraol]

it was a bit weird but tons of fun

[@chadm2343]

@@fredwin Same battle in the same lane? But there was so many maps, and only Thermopylae had "lane" style

[@36OZ]

That 0.5x speed video is so true, I haven't even watched your other videos and this is literally first on my recccomended

[@MythicRanger2401]

Was so cool being one of the interns on this one, and definitely not salty at all that the match I played against you didn't make the cut Anyways, another great vid as always. I'll be sure to make the next one as well!

[@thespiffingbrit]

It was a joy to play with you

[@alantremonti1381]

@@thespiffingbrit wholesome.

[@wolff_04]

“Because no one likes getting charged in the rear, it really upsets you” -Spiff, 2022 Only some Spiff, only some get upset ;)

[@pjludda4323]

True...Disgusting, but true...

[@thomasneal9291]

Nobody asked you.

[@bruceluiz]

There can be more than one aim at somebody's behind. Yet only one option was your first thought. Touché.

[@pjludda4323]

@@bruceluiz Have you ever heard of a double entendre, good sir? I could mean a bullet, I could mean something else completely disgusting, we may never know...But if you're first thought is what I'm thinking your first thought was, then you are well to do so...

[@benben8561]

I loved playing low tier infantry mix and being a backbone for the team when my friends noticed the beta for this. It was hilarious when you get teammates like XxsnipercandyxX who would take 3 units of archers and then do tons of friendly fire. I miss this game so much.

[@CalebHawn]

This is very cool. I'm glad Spiff was able to find exploits in the system of getting this game to work for him right as it ended. I think it would also be cool to check out online games that have already shut down, but have somehow been revived by their community with community-run servers, like Star Wars: Galaxies and that one Disney game. Of coarse, there aren't many exploits to check out there, but that stuff is also neat.

[@joshnanyabiz6668]

Damn, that low key gave me chills at the end, the speech about the last ever game of total war arena hit me deep and IDK why lol

[@thetruegoldenknight]

Because it's very relatable with how trendy of a business practice it is nowadays to just permanently kill games.

[@JAY-gl5xd]

I'm about 5 minutes in and this feels like the scene in a heist movie when they explain how the job was pulled off. Spiff, you SOB, I'm in.

[@james_t_huntley33]

You were utterly right

[@KIVagant]

TW Arena was my favorite online game. I was so upset when they closed it. So nice to see I was not alone, very nice video, so nostalgic.

[@DAJLCREW]

Dude 1st of all thanks for the video and I am just as mad as everyone else. I actually started streaming because of this game it is my favorite game of all time and I would play it everyday. The fact that we cannot have this is mind numbing. I met around 10 people playing this game it is by far the best arena game ever made in my opinion. I pray that the community can somehow convince CA to bring it back. I am still to this day EXTREMELY MAD that is no longer available. If you have any opportunity to discuss this with CA man would that be helpful. I hope that we can get this game back ASAP. Thanks for your time and effort and my fingers are crossed.......PEACE

[@hi14993]

One of my most favorite moments in gaming came from TW:Arena. I was playing as Scipio Afrikaans and was going 3 heavy cavalry. Everyone snapped up the most forward deployment positions and I had to deal with a rear position. I immediately surged forward trying to scout out the field and take a watchtower on the hill in the center of the map. I saw the flag raising through the fog of war and I was so very close to reaching it. I dived in with everything not even knowing what was on the hill. To my absolute delight, I ran over 5 units of archers and only stopped and turned back because one of the two archer commanders that were trying to grab the hill early had brought a heavy spear unit as well. Thankfully, they were heavy and I just ran away from them. I got so much salt from that because in the first 2 minutes I alone had just knocked out 2 commanders on my own. I went into the replay to try to see what they saw. From their perspective, the flag didn't even raise all the way. To their eyes, they just saw a massive horde of cavalry YOLO charging through the fog of war.

[@Scooty_Scooty]

Cool story, got another?

[@SheoGotSomeCheese]

Did you stream it? I would actually pay to see that!

[@efulmer8675]

*WHEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVE*

[@SheoGotSomeCheese]

​@@efulmer8675 COMING DOWN THEY TURNED THE TIDE!

[@BoarhideGaming]

Barrelling down badly positioned archers was the single most satisfying thing I’ve ever done in a video game. I played Alexander and his companion cavalry, mainly, and it synergized so well with my buddy’s heavy Roman infantry.

[@johnp.2267]

Gods, I miss Driver. I loved jumping the barriers, stopping just below the crest of a hill, and weaving around other cars, then watching the game glitch out massively as the police cars crashed into everything, including each other.

[@_Unlived_]

I always loved evolv-e and would watch and play it a lot when I was younger but not many people liked it due to its simplicity and how fast you could get bored of it. Getting a multiplayer game was hard until the servers completely died and all that was left was vs. Ai.

[@sirwolf3617]

Played a little bit of TWA. This video brought back some good memories. It's 2023 almost a year after the upload and that mention of halo 3 servers brought back some tears. I went to a friend's house that I used to play halo with every weekend and we played until servers shut down and teared up together. Countless hours and fun memories. I'm just happy they have been keeping the OG Guild Wars for the pc going. I've been playing that since launch in what 2005? 😅 So at least I still have one gem that is still part of my collection.

[@tero2444]

I love how in a game with factions like Rome, Germanic Tribes, Carthage they squeezed in China, that has absolutely no historic footing with the rest just to make them overpowered.

[@c6q3a24]

That's why China was kept out of Europe during this era, too OP. Who brings a gun to a sword fight?

[@editorrbr2107]

And what strength they did have was turned inward on themselves in repeated internal wars, civil wars, factional bloodbaths and a few thousand years of human wave attacks.

[@TechnoMinarchist]

@@editorrbr2107 Don't forget the cannibalism.

[@raigreen517]

@@editorrbr2107 you are describing every civilization in history lol

[@drafezard7315]

If I recall correctly the original concept was to have factions from all geographic areas and across different time periods, so not weird at all.

[@whskyhamr]

I'm reminded of VERY fond memories playing RS: Vegas for hours and hours at a time with friends on T-hunt all the time. It was always so much fun. I miss those days, and hate to see the game fall to obscurity.

[@thomasgoldschmidt8611]

Still playing RS: Vegas 2 Terrorist Hunt to this day ;) Awesome gay, shame they are not so known anymore.

[@revu34]

"shoot him in the head!"

[@danielludvik2331]

Damn it hurts, i remember playing this game years ago but definetly i forgot sbout it. It was heart warming and disapointing to watch this. But everyone and everything isnt forever, just the memories we carry

[@nokenbi715]

Amazing effort! I used to play it with my friend and it was great fun! Though I feel frustrated to level up fighting AI. 真的很好玩！！！希望以后有类似的游戏可以玩！

[@Aviiven]

I remember getting into the closed beta for this game, it was fun.

[@thespiffingbrit]

It was! The grind was insane at times especially after the wargaming takeover but as just an MP game it was a really good concept

[@plazmaguy13yago9]

@@thespiffingbrit wargaming Hmmmmmm grind hmmmm military games hmmmmm gaijin?

[@rsoldat4951]

@@plazmaguy13yago9 both wargayming and gayjin have a tanks game that you can grind in lol

[@plazmaguy13yago9]

@@rsoldat4951 as a warthunder play can confirm

[@Blitzzar]

it was so much fun! And no one really knew how to play the game, including myself, which gave me the opportunity to ninja the victory, by hiding units in forest areas and when all of the opposing teams units were fighting my team to a stalemate, i ran out of the trees and captured their base. The sheer panic in the enemy team, when they found out i had 3 units capturing the only point necessary to win the game, was such a pleasure to experience. I miss those times.

[@agalaster957]

RIP TWA. It was truly great. Thanks for the vid! The feeling when your cavalry charges into the back of some poor archers and annihilates them in the blink of an eye was one of the best video game experiences I ever had.

[@TheHitman488]

This made me relive the pain of missing one of my all-time fav games... RIP Spartacus Legends

[@SnoFitzroy]

21:31 I want to see a thorough revival of both Garden Warfare games. GW1 has maybe 500 players in a day, maybe only 150 actively recurring players. GW2's biggest recent peak was around 4000 concurrent players when it was added to Steam like two months ago, and is already back down to around 1000 concurrent players. Maybe if a big enough revival happens the large portion of hackers on PC lobbies, while the actual number may go up (because for some reason this game has next to no security) active incidents will relatively go down as more players come in and don't mod the game. It'd be cool to see it as active as it was at its peak in 2016-2018

[@bubchudlar5629]

This game was amazing. The three unit "squads" made it all about tactics and it just felt so much more intense and intimate than the mainline total wars. I hope this video will be just the start of renewed interest in it and that the community can figure out a way to bring it back in some way

[@justthetip7136]

My friends and I loved this game before it started getting taken down.

[@hi14993]

really what killed most people's experience of it was the aggressive monetization. Whole unit upgrades were blocked off as extra paid content to be bought by micro transaction only.

[@sortius_]

I loved this game. Playing as Boudica with war dogs, hiding in a forest, waiting for someone's soldiers to start a run toward nearby units; or holding the line with your phalanx as attacking legionaries' morale just tanks. Oh, I'd so play the pants off this game if it came back.

[@denen404]

Glad I got to play this game and tbh nothing has caused me to move away from the total war franchise more than arenas.....I didn't meet anyone that didn't like the game 🙃 and tbh it's sad because it's even got friends of mine that weren't fans of turn based strategy games....they loved it too...also...if ANYBODY knows how to place this game today PLEASE TELL ME

[@spec9513]

You are the reason i got Yorkshire Tea in my week in England (Londons too) so fun😂

[@kyledewitt4941]

As a gamer true to heart, I feel for Spiff on this. All of us have been there at some point. Attempting to get some type of old out-dated game to run on modern technologies. Its a growing pain all true gamers must experience at some point. Command and Conquer Renegade or even Fallout 3 counts these days. Stepping outside your natural language barrier? That is... 10/10

[@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

I can relate, trying to get Machines: Wired for War to run on newer systems has required a lot of work.

[@devinraber5208]

Getting the original Prototype to run on anything with more than 4 processors is a hassle as well. I'm really starting to feel old now when I want to play my childhood games

[@b23beatz]

I’d love to be able to play fallout again now I’m sad😭 tried everything

[@jayd8091]

It's Battle For Middle Earth II for me. I have the original discs but when I install, the games auto-lose after 5 minutes because it thinks I'm cheating and I have no way around this. Have my code and everything. So that's grim.

[@TheGary108]

I really do wish that Steam would eventually let people make fan updates for games they want to run on newer computers and Steam staff can look over it and see if it’s possible to integrate into the game and add it to the Store. I still got a couple of older Pc games, can’t really run them without a whole a lot of work and fan patches/modifications. Why not let the people experienced in that send it in so all you really need to do is to download it from Steam?

[@0ctothorp]

It's important to remember that a game being terminated like this is completely preventable in every single case, and a vast majority of multiplayer games that have been killed by "ending support" or whatever was just the publisher intentionally destroying a game.

[@benoithudson7235]

It costs actual money to run the servers and keep them patched. You could run indefinitely in a museum on a private network, but when you connect to the internet it's mayhem.

[@doommaker4000]

@@benoithudson7235 psst. Release the server code. Or at least binaries

[@btchiaintkidding7837]

T_T

[@TheCat_3]

@@benoithudson7235 right so just allow players to run their own servers, completely preventable

[@MinorLG]

@@doommaker4000 at least for R6V 1/2 the game included private server software, and the server browser recognized the private servers.

[@beemerwt4185]

There used to be this old fighting game called "Sugar Rush" owned by Nexon. It was a super cartoonish, stylistic fighter with some interesting characters. I'm pretty sure it was by far one of their most unpopular games, but I would love to know if anyone even remotely has the files for it because I don't think it ever got out of open beta before it was canned.

[@sovaticcygua1808]

Thank you! This game was always underrated and was one of my favourite games!

[@zedekiahfries1003]

I think this was one of my favorite videos from you Spiff, endlessly entertaining, British, nostalgic and heartfelt, with a call to action at the end. Well done sir.

[@soulwynd]

There is an universe where the servers never closed, the ai are now real people and spiff is stuck in the game as an overlord.

[@cancerino666]

I got the reference xD

[@samvanderstaak7296]

I was looking for this comment

[@rat5841]

I just redownloaded battleborn off of my disk the other day because I was in the mood for it, then after failing to load in 5 times I remembered it shut down a year or two ago. It's nice to see an old game get brought back from the brink of death, even if just for a week or so.

[@mariestarlight]

By analyzing all the packets back and forth while playing a game, you could have figured out enough data to build your own emulation of their servers. Still, you could try to get a copy from the developers, since the game is dead, then you could alter your own client with a little hex editing and change the servers to the one you're running.

[@SexyTimeWithTaylor]

Saying this with actual tears in my eyes, I WISH more then anything that the Metal of Honor Warfight multiplay was a thing again. It was HANDS DOWN the best most innovative shooter multiplayer of its time that people never heard of.

[@marreco6347]

The multiplayer of the new medal of honor games was pretty underrated. I played the hell out of the beta but the campaign was so underwhelming I kinda just forgot about it.

[@mosark6554]

Yea all people talked about was how god awful warfighters campaign is

[@TheDanorte]

I remember playing that. It's the nostalgia talking, the game really wasn't good at all. Just another call of duty. What was really weird was that the game simply disappeared really fast, suddenly it was disabled. When I went back to play it was gone from my library.

[@SexyTimeWithTaylor]

@@mosark6554 I have no idea who people called the campaign God bad? It was based on actual events from several diffrent special forces. Ya some of the things about it we exaggerated but the stories themselves were all based on real events. Then the sequel was about tracking down the people who ended up killing the main character from the first game. The story was AMAZING it had depth and reality to it other games didn't and still don't have. So I have no idea why people had such a big problem with it.

[@SexyTimeWithTaylor]

@@TheDanorte ummm I have no idea what you are talking about the multiplayer didn't play ANYTHING like call of duty it was a more infantry based battlefield game. I mean they even had a freaking rush gamemode just like battlefield. However the spawning was better, the weapon and character customization was based on real world weapons and kits used by actual Special forces from all over the world, and it bosted a pretty robust and fun strike system.

[@LannisterFromDaRock]

I played in the Alpha & Beta. THis game was EPIC! Missing it ever since.

[@eathan7720]

I remember playing the beta for this game. It was so much, I’ve been dying to play it again

[@silversliver4582]

Honestly a game I loved playing throughout my middle/high school years was Chromehounds on the 360. It had one of the best online communities, and was a stark contrast to the voice coms of CoD, etc.

[@freecomkcf]

closest thing you're gonna get is MAV: Modular Assault Vehicle on Steam (long story short it's an indie copypasta in Chromehounds, but in a good way)

[@jeffreylehman1924]

I just commented this, lol

[@miniclip1162]

chromehounds was pretty fire.

[@edwardtan1354]

@@miniclip1162 I mean its from software.... its good until ACfA where the community is just.... love it or hate it

[@AVerySexuallyDeviantOrange]

@@edwardtan1354 Did someone say Armored Core for Answer? How the hell did a fan get out of the fromsoft torture chamber?

[@voyomaypl1608]

It was a very fun game. Even though 90% of players were potatoes and attacked with a blob of all 3 of their units. Edit Wait, respawn and experience mechanic? Why tf they are deleting this game?! LET ME INNNNNN

[@thespiffingbrit]

Ahhh the joy of team mates in multiplayer games :D

[@EEEEEEEE]

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎E‎

[@olivergurtner6372]

I played the new version of the game a few times, because i liked the original game. It was very good and i liked the new mechanics. I hope they releas it someday again in europe, but that sadly will never happen.

[@biscuit715]

Honestly respawn makes the game worse imo. I really liked how you had what you had and you had to make the risk/reward of keeping your men alive

[@voyomaypl1608]

@@biscuit715 i kind of agree. But at the same time the end of matches was kind of boring and onesided.

[@taurineganz832]

I teared up when you mentioned these games should be to be played, and enjoyed, continuously. This has been a subject close to my heart when it comes to thinking about the future, of gaming, it endears me to create a way, find one, to make these games and all games playable for everyone, everywhere, always, forever :)

[@SnoFitzroy]

Honestly the concept of "your favourite game TODAY may not EXIST just a few months or years from now" is genuinely a huge source of anxiety and depression with specific regard to video games - as someone who's big on preservation and keeps stuff for a while, the mere thought that I might not be able to even access certain games for not even being a thing is genuinely sad and kinda scary, considering the sheer amount of experiences that are lost to something like this, which is exactly why videos like this bring some hope. If it's possible to revive something like that even for a little bit, then basically anything is possible

[@rcane6842]

12:27 13:11 14:30 oooh my god it's so good to the feels!!! 19:56 Unless.. someone is able to do a private server ala Cities Of Heroes.. Its private server was hiding for so many years By the way, your narration is quite entertaining 👌 got here via YT Algorithm. Subbing!

[@theshadynorwegian6036]

I appreciate the increased weight on morale, flanks and charges. It really makes it feel like a more skill based game than base total war games

[@brydonthunder]

Attila and Medieval 2 combat have the very same combat mechanics + a bit more.

[@IAm18PercentCarbon]

That's basically RTW in a nutshell. Even peasants were pretty powerful if you could get them on someone's flank when they weren't happy.

[@kgapaneseschoolgirlb]

I really don’t understand why such a good and well loved game was abandoned by multiple publishers! Like why???

[@David-ys4ud]

Didn't make e ough money. On the US side player counts dropped after elephants

[@kgapaneseschoolgirlb]

@@David-ys4ud How though??? The amount of people I hear say they miss this game, and how much they loved this game, and the fact that it was their highest rated games. How did it not make money???

[@bigload6]

@@kgapaneseschoolgirlb cause people didn't spam micro transac

[@kgapaneseschoolgirlb]

@@bigload6 Seriously? That’s literally all what people do nowadays. CoD, FIFA, Fortnite, you name it make bank from that. Plus, people totally would’ve paid to play the game too

[@someguy3763]

@@kgapaneseschoolgirlb Doesn’t really matter why, it’s just what happens when you let your games entirely rely on servers and launchers that prevent you from playing the game ever again once they go belly up. This is a sad trend that needs to end. And “It’s just a multiplayer game” should no longer be an excuse, you’re willfully investing in a product that is one day going to stop functioning within your lifetime. It’s like buying a copy of a movie that will self destruct in 10 years and no one will be able to watch it again. It’s fraud.

[@Jaspartacus]

Dragon Quest Joker would be a great revival for a game I played as a kid. Played it before I played Pokemon, and I recall breeding in that game was pretty wild. Almost all monster bred with each other to make a new monster. I had a blast just tryna make new crazy monsters.

[@grognard23]

Not an online game, but I had so much fun with Mechforce, a battle tech hex based game on the Amiga 128. You could skill up your pilots. If you attacked into a forest hex, it might start a fire in the whole hex. If your pilot was losing but you wanted to save him or her, you could eject and land in a nearby random hex. But! If it was on fire, your pilot burned to a crisp! Had a match going with a fellow soldier and we would move hidden units on a large scale map and if we had declared moves into the same hex, we would take the fight into Mechforce. Nothing like trying to survive long enough to end the match if your Scout Lance accidentally stumbled into your opponents Assault Lance!

[@EvelynNdenial]

"no one will ever play this game ever again" online pirates - you underestimate my power!

[@thespiffingbrit]

I will pay someone to find a way to get it to run

[@Bardghost_Isu]

@@thespiffingbrit Short of the server code having been leaked or someone re-engineering it, I am highly doubtful.

[@thespiffingbrit]

@@Bardghost_Isu I mean after talking to CA the OG Devs not even they had the files anymore so yup looking unlikely

[@MrMurphdog96]

@@thespiffingbrit thats unfortunate! looks awesome, never seen it before this vid

[@JohnArktor]

A vote at the european parliament to outright ban the "server requirement" for multiplayer games, is what we need. We need to petition for it. Hard. Games used to be playable on a Local area network with no internet whatsoever. Let us BRING THIS BACK NOW!

[@Helperbot-2000]

@Stormi Storm woah really?

[@titaniumvulpes]

@@Helperbot-2000 Lol no, not really, if that were the case Europeans wouldn't be able to play MMOs like WoW, FFXIV, or ESO, or even have stuff like a Switch Online membership or Xbox Game Pass. That person's blowing absolute smoke.

[@SilverAura]

Local area network games often broke matchmaking services because matchmaking services rely on high demand to keep match variety and player skill ranges as wide as possible. Towards the beginning of matchmaking services, you could tell developers were trying to make it work - but when enough people create alternative experiences that it's impossible to quick-match into a vanilla game nobody was allowed to change the rules of, quick-match success was abysmal. You'd often find yourself either unable to find a match, find a match that's still modified as a games last resort to connecting you, or just repeatedly reconnect you to one of a small handful of "valid" matches.

[@luisheinle7071]

yes. They should start with story modes that need server connection to function. But local network support for every multiplayer game would be great too.

[@thedeutschblitz6900]

oh yikes, giving the goverment more power to tell people what they HAVE to do, nnnnoooo thank you dawg

[@kwest2678]

this absolute beautiful video was published on my birthday

[@malcolmscally1533]

i used to love playing this :) and it really sucks when a game gets "switched off" when you are playing it. i was playing Resistance when they killed it, the lobby was full and we all just met in the centre to bid goodbye to a great game :(

[@ClickBoom290]

Wow so bummed I missed this game, looks like it would be a smash hit on steam if they launched again..

[@jacktolhurst3642]

When the Spiff spells “ressurected” wrong, but you’re fairly sure it’s so people comment about it and helps the algorithm 👌🏼👌🏼

[@JAY-gl5xd]

Exploiting the the KZbin algorithm and the "acshually refelx" with misspelling is BROKEN!!

[@mrthe2709]

Thank you , I remembered 2016 when Need for Speed World was Shut down . But thanks to community who not only restored but also opened servers to play this gem till now :)

[@darklight1373]

Oh man, Magicka: Wizard Wars is forever in my heart. Saw Magicka games in steam, and tried to play them when I was 13 or so. Hell if I say I liked them! They were excellent! And when I saw that there is an online PVP Magicka, well... Played it for a month or so. Just straight playing all of my free time. It was such good gameplay and funny things to happen, so I liked it even if it were a little P2W (most of the things were too grindy or too expensive for consumables). I got other things to do ATM back then, and returned to it back, 2 or 3 years later. I almost cried when it came to me that this game was closed way too long ago. Now, of course, you can still play it by this day. When everything is unlocked, and online is like 2-3 players. But that's just not what it is supposed to be! Matches are strictly 4v4 (as I recall), and if one team had even 1 player less, it was already almost instantly an unfair crushing. Only duel game mode is something you can play for now, without seeking for dudes to play with. Although ping on them is just horrendous (I'm from Russia, ping is something around 100-150 for me, which for action of this kind is legit unplayable). So, the game is actually dead in every sense. No players, no progression system, awful ping - it's just not a Magicka: Wizard Wars anymore. Its "Ping: Dead Matchmaking", nothing more. I mourn for days when I launched this game as a kid, got into a match, and my ally's death killed me instead of enemy. Or when I teamed up with an enemy against my ally that would just not freaking stop shooting rocks everywhere. Or when I trolled my healer by mirroring his ray into a wall, so he got mad and beat me to death with a rock-sword xD. Now, we can't even see the future of this games. Magicka 3 were never announced, while Magicka 2 is already 7 years live! (And it's not something I would call a great game too..) It only remains to look and see if the new game drops someday, though I'm really anticipated to see this series return.

[@FreeReel1]

The part where you showed the servers dying in real time brought me back to when I experienced the same thing in Star Wars Galaxies… that had been my game for years. Luckily you can play emulators for it now but it’s just not the same.