Creative Assembly grants dying fan's wish to play Total War: Three Kingdoms

Last week, a redditor named TheMissingLink5 posted a message about his little brother Robbie's "last dying wish:" His battle with leukemia had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and he wanted to play Total War: Three Kingdoms while he still could. TheMissingLink5 made the public appeal in an effort to get word to developer Creative Assembly, and in short order, Creative Assembly came through.

"u/DogbertCA on here and Grace on twitter have made one kid extremely happy. When I told him the good news, he cried, and couldn’t believe this was happening," they wrote. "When I told him who sent it, he was so shocked. I then immediately got kicked out of the room to go home and download it since the internet at the hospital sucks. I should be back there in a hour and he cant wait to play!"

The gameplay session went extremely well, and the outpouring of public support was a tremendous boost to Robbie's spirits. "The response from all of you is amazing. We've been reading the comments to him and he lights up talking about it," TheMissingLink5 wrote in an update. "Watching the intro video he was amazed [at how] gorgeous it was. He went in to detail telling me about the different people we could choose from, etc. It was a student trains teacher moment."

Creative Assembly confirmed that the Reddit post was legitimate. "Several members of the Total War community made sure this story reached our team. They, in turn, were able to get in touch with u/TheMissingLink5 directly," a spokesperson said in an email. "It was a small thing to do on our part—sending out a review code via DM—but we sincerely hope it offered some comfort during such a difficult time."

Very sadly, TheMissingLink5 said that Robbie died just after midnight on May 19. "I thank you all so much for everything these past 3 days, and the fact he was able to play his favorite game will always mean so much to me!"

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.