Total Annihilation: Gas Powered Games' Chris Taylor wants to make a sequel
Total Annihilation designer Chris Taylor has told VG247 that he would like to work on the classic RTS franchise again. The developer has discussed the future of the PC market and the tough times facing publishers, just weeks after his studio Gas Powered Games was acquired by Wargaming.
Speaking with VG247's Sam Clay at GDC, Taylor said of a potential return of Total Annihilation, "I would love to yes, but the problem is you can't just make a sequel to a game that's 17 or 16 years old. You have to update and evolve it to fit into the current situation in the market. But it's a really complex question to answer because, do people want something that's been evolved, or do they want to just go back in time and imagine that it's 1998, and we're beginning work on Total Annihilation 2? Do they want that game?
"What do they want in terms of mechanics, do they want a boxed product experience? But yes, it would be wonderful to do something with it."
Sam also asked Taylor if he'd like to return to his team's currently on-hold strategy game Kings and Castles, and told us about the studio's difficulty in securing a publisher given the volatile climate in the overall games market.
"Kings and Castles was basically Total Annihilation with Supreme Commander in the Medieval era," Taylor explained, "and it seemed like a no-brainer. That's why it was disappointing to find the kind of support for that title that we were looking for.
"Back when we were shopping around Kings and Castles PC gaming was disappearing from retail. There wasn't the free-to-play model, there wasn't all the supporting conditions in the market to say that there was dollars to be made from a game like that.
"The publishing industry was going through a very tough time, and it kind of still is in some ways, so to make an investment on a game like Kings and Castles was highly risky. We saw a lot of that, and that's frankly what made business hard for many people, and many businesses closed too.
"We're happy to see the stability of PC gaming come back through several world-leading companies like Wargaming, and we hope it'll just continue to get better and better.
What do you make of Gas Powered Games' acquisition by Wargaming? Would you like to see Total Annihilation and Kings and Castles return? Let us know below.