Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion marches onto iPhone

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Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion 2
One of the deepest strategy games to make it onto iPhone yet.
Photo: Feral Interactive

Rome: Total War — Barbarian Invasion, a classic PC and Mac game that pits the Roman empire against barbarian hordes, has been tweaked to bring its incredibly immersive gameplay to the iPhone’s small screen.

Players get to experience the final years of the empire as a barbarian commander determined to bring down Rome’s power structure. Alternatively, they can play a Roman general looking to quash the rebellion once and for all. It’s all kinds of awesome!

A standalone expansion pack for classic PC strategy title Rome: Total War, the game takes place in 363 A.D., when a warlike horde of barbarian tribes fight back against Roman supremacy.

Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion originally landed on PC back in 2005, with a Mac OS X version following in February 2010. It arrived on iPad back in 2017.

While the graphics look a little bit dated, it remains a fantastically immersive game. Its combination of real-time battles and turn-based campaigns works incredibly well, no matter what type of machine you play on.

Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion: Optimized for iPhone

Managing to compress the entire experience onto a device the size of an iPhone is, frankly, kind of mind-boggling.

About as far from the throwaway five-minute time-wasters often seen on iOS as possible, Barbarian Invasion proves totally immersive.

Developer Feral Interactive optimized the game for iPhone, adding assorted touch controls in place of the mouse and keyboard needed for the desktop version.

The new iPhone version costs $4.99. (If you previously downloaded the iPad version, you get this one for free.) Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion will work on any iPhone 5s or newer. (The iPad version also received an update this week, tweaking the graphics and several other details.)

Are you a Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion veteran? Any tips for newbies to the franchise? Let us know in the comments below.

Price: $4.99

Download: Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion from the App Store

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