Total War coming to consoles?

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 25th September 2008
Comments (16) Stumble
Total War coming to consoles?

Though the Total War series has traditionally stayed on PCs, a console port is something the developer is looking into.

Creative Assembly, the developer behind the Total War series, has said it is keen to create a console version of the strategy series in an interview with Eurogamer.

Though the long-lived Total War series, which includes both Rome: Total War and Medieval: Total War, has traditionally been on PCs, the team has previous tried making spin-offs for consoles, such as Spartan: Total Warrior. The developer also has some console experience from the likes of Viking: Battle for Asgard, though both games failed to achieve any huge success.

"We've definitely thought about it," said senior designer Jamie Ferguson when asked if a console version of the strategy opus was likely.

Lead programmer Guy Davidson was a bit more cagey however, commenting that although the team would love to do it, it didn't mean that it was actually going to happen.

Obviously, moving the complex RTS series to a console would be problematic in terms of controls and interface, with the team saying that they definitely recognised the prospect as an immense challenge. AI programmer Richard Bull also harboured some concerns that the lifespan of the consoles would be too short now to give the team time to create, release and profit from a a new Total War instalment.

The next Total War game, dubbed Empire: Total War is expected to get released for PCs everywhere sometime in February next year, with the setting of the game being between 1700 and 1800 - though the team seemed keen to investigate moving away from factual settings in future games.

"If we did it, it would have to be stonkingly amazing," said Jamie Ferguson.

Which is your favourite Total War game? Let us know in the forums.
Quote Baz 25th September 2008, 11:17
DO NOT WANT

Total War's home is on the PC, with a mouse, keyboard and 3 nights of lost sleep. A console experience just wouldn't feel right, not to mention be incredibly difficult to control intuitively with a joypad.
Quote chiper136 25th September 2008, 11:27
I actually think that the battle screen could work well with duel analogue sticks in terms of navigation. The only issue is the many buttons each unit has to set stance, and formation ect ect.
Quote Tyrmot 25th September 2008, 11:40
I don't see how it could be in any way a bad thing if Total War came to consoles *as long as* it didn't in any way lower the quality of the PC release. Obviously I'd never touch it on a console myself but if people without nice big gaming rigs (which let's face it, are the majority) can play TW too how could that hurt? The more people playing TW the better in my opinion, those games have easily taken up more of my time than any other and I still enjoy playing them today! They really are amazing pieces of work and utterly superb games.

What I would really like to see (if anyone at Creative Assembly is reading this - please!) is an update of Shogun in the same way they did MTW2. Really, they started with the Warring States (Sengoku) period of feudal Japan because it is probably the best setting for a game like this (really, read about it, it is an incredible period of history), but of course as the first one it lacked a lot of the bells and whistles that they have now got 'right' (and which of course were technically un-implementable at the time). I would give my left arm to play a totally revamped Shogun: TW! And I'm sure I'm not the only one....
Quote impar 25th September 2008, 11:55
Greetings!

Please no!
Creative Assembly can keep the Total Warrior series going but please not dumb down the Total War series even more.
Besides, I doubt a game pad can be properly used for all the shortcuts (Del, End, RShift, T, M, RCtrl, F, formations, etc).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Martin
Which is your favourite Total War game? Let us know in the forums.
Hard to say.

Shogun TW was revolutionary. It had an amazing atmosphere that none of its successors managed to quite get it right. The ending video was delightful.
Would like a Shogun 2 TW.

Medieval TW was the best one. It had the most unpredicatable of all the campaigns and the experience system was properly made (jedi knights, anyone? ).
It reached its peak with the XL mod.

Rome TW vanilla was disapointing, its the worst of the series, CA started the "arcade-zation". Although some mods made it quite enjoyable (Rome Total Realism and Europa Barbarorum).

Medieval 2 TW could have been much better if only CA kept the different starting eras, the re-emerging factions and the civil wars of the original MTW.
Graphically is the best one, as expected.
Currently playing the Grand Campaign mod, bigger map with all the factions from M2TW vanilla and Kingdoms expansion plus some tweaks.

For the upcoming Empire TW, am really looking forward for the naval battles but not sure I will like the land gunpowder battles.
Quote Tyrmot 25th September 2008, 12:10
The mob has spoken! And they're clamouring for Shogun Total War 2! :)

Incidentally, impar raises an interesting discussion, what do people rate as the best Mod for MTW2?
Quote Veles 25th September 2008, 13:04
That would plain not work
Quote impar 25th September 2008, 18:50
Greetings!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrmot
Incidentally, impar raises an interesting discussion, what do people rate as the best Mod for MTW2?
With M2TW the mod community ressembles an open source community.
Someones map is used with someones elses units mixed with another one AI and yet another one traits.
With the right knowledge you can piece together your personal mod.

You might want to take a look at this article featuring some M2TW mods:
http://pc.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=16553
Or even this one featuring RTW modifications:
http://www.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=16547

I went with the Grand Campaign mod because it didnt altered too many of the vanilla game.

By the way, there is a new video for Empire TW:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1831901#post1831901
Quote Timmy_the_tortoise 25th September 2008, 21:41
PLEASE, GOD, NO!!

Don't ruin my favourite RTS... they've already ruined CoD for me.. even though I managed to get over that one.
Quote DXR_13KE 26th September 2008, 00:25
a futuristic total war would be very interesting....
Quote Yemerich 26th September 2008, 01:36
They can try, but i think it would be bad for them. Consoles are for action, not RTS. And even in action games a PC is better. No way a game pad could beat the functionality of the combo keyboard and a mouse

The thing is: console games sells better because of the piracy
Quote LordPyrinc 26th September 2008, 02:03
Until consoles come packaged with a keyboard and mouse, I don't think RTS games are really meant for those systems. If consoles were to come packaged with a keyboard and mouse, would that then make them PCs????
Quote Sebbo 26th September 2008, 04:03
keep in mind that Creative Assembly is doing an StormRise, an RTS built for consoles from the ground up, so for now i think that's as close as we'll get
Quote PhenomRed 26th September 2008, 06:22
Dear Creative Assembly

Please don't

Yours,
Phenomred
Quote Veles 26th September 2008, 12:52
Quote:
Originally Posted by LordPyrinc
Until consoles come packaged with a keyboard and mouse, I don't think RTS games are really meant for those systems. If consoles were to come packaged with a keyboard and mouse, would that then make them PCs????

Not one as complicated as TW at least. Dark Omen worked fine on the PS1 I thought.
Quote Timmy_the_tortoise 26th September 2008, 20:58
I think a Petition is in order.

http://www.petitiononline.com/TWNOC/petition.html
Quote impar 28th November 2008, 12:39
Greetings!

New Stormrise Video, Screenshots: Total War Guys Head into the Future
Stormrise?
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