'Total War: Shogun 2' is free on Steam until May 1st

To help people get through the coronavirus pandemic, Sega has decided to give away free copies of Total War: Shogun 2 until May 1st. While it’s almost a decade old at this point, Shogun 2 is widely considered one of the best entries in Creative Assembly’s Total War series. If you’re new to the franchise, it combines top-down empire management with thrilling real-time army battles involving hundreds of individual soldiers — imagine if Civilization and StarCraft had a baby and you’re most of the way there. Shogun 2 is an excellent introduction to the series since it’s also less complicated than some of its siblings. Just be warned you could end up spending hundreds of hours playing the game.

“The past few weeks have presented unimaginable challenges for many of us, but the remarkable collective effort being made by the global community to overcome this moment of adversity has been truly inspirational,” the studio wrote on its blog. “With this in mind, we want to continue to encourage you all to stay home and save lives by extending a gift to everyone to help make this difficult situation a little bit easier.”

To download Shogun 2 for free, all you need to do is install Steam on your computer, add the game to your cart and then finish the transaction. Given that it’s a couple of years old now, the game’s system requirements are on the modest side and it’s available on both PC and Mac. If you already own the game, most of its additional downloadable content is 75 percent off currently as well.