Re: New Historical total war era - Total War: Three Kingdoms!
I think it was planned before Fates Divided. Last nail on the coffin must have been the lukewarm reception of the Nanman pack. There was a lot of hope that the first faction pack would reinvigorate the game, but once it failed, CA probably decided that developing the Northern Tribes wasn't worth the effort. They probably decided to abandon the game, while Fates Divided was still in development.
Anyway, that kind of news is never taken very well by the customers, but it was a pretty sloppy announcement. They even change the video's title, because the original implied the complete opposite, that Three Kingdoms still had a bright future ahead. The narrative was also very ambiguous and Grace wasted a lot of time explaining the basic points. By the way, the announcement also coincided with the release of the Nanman soundtrack, which costs 10 euros, but is free (for a while) through the Total War access. Even there, CA didn't choose its vocabulary very wisely:
I suspect they ditched Three Kingdoms, because it lacked potential for DLCs. The new iteration will probably rely more on fantasy and RPG elements, like Warhammer. CA only mentioned the Romance and not the Records and confirmed that characters will be the main focus. A more heavily inspired from Dynasty Warriors version has probably more opportunities for long-term sales in East Asia and elsewhere. I guess we should expect more extravagantly dressed legendary lords with supernatural abilities and Warhammer-style mechanics and resources. Mythical creatures would probably be too much, but there might be some "feral monsters", like the tigers from Nanman.