Total Annihilation's Spiritual/Actual Sequel Planned?

Thanks to IGN PC for its article discussing hints from Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games regarding a possible follow-up to seminal RTS Total Annihilation. Apparently, at a recent gaming career day, Taylor, the original designer of TA, informally confirmed "...that Gas Powered Games was working on 'an RTS follow-up to Total Annihilation'", but IGN note "it's not exactly clear yet [from his brief comment] on whether or not the game will be a true sequel... or simply a new RTS in the vein of Total Annihilation." Although Gas Powered Games are currently working on a sequel to Dungeon Siege for Microsoft, their jobs page confirms they're also looking for RTS genre artists, and an earlier GameSpy interview discusses this long-under-wraps strategy title. Taylor also mentioned the publisher of this new title is "a big one... one that doesn't also publish operating systems [like Microsoft]" - it seems Atari own the rights to Total Annihilation 2, and previously asked Korean developers Phantagram to develop a sequel before that deal allegedly fell through, though Taylor's game could still be a sequel in concept only.

Comments

Re:Brawlers

[MachDelta]

Cavedog's dead, GT Interactive owned the rights to TA. Infogrames bought out GT, and after purchasing Atari, rebranded themselves as such. So now Atari (formerly Infogrames) owns the rights to TA.
But since this Phantagram deal fell through... well, if GPG can get onboard with Atari, i'm sure both parties would be more than happy to strike a deal.

Re:TA was great but a sequel?

[bersl2]

I can't even remember the story. Something about robots and space and fighting someone else with robots.

Galactic civilization develops the ability to pattern thought into computer memory. Development polarizes society. Half leave to form rival civilization (Arm), while the rest are converted into digital form (Core). War ensues. Both sides nearly annihilate each other.

In the expansion, the Arm have won. But a single Core Commander that lay hidden on a remote world (thus "Core Contingency") activates. Core seeks to destroy the galaxy by some kind of doomsday machine, save the remaining Commander at ground zero; the Commander would then manually rebuild the whole galaxy. Don't know what happens after this. Anybody played Battle Tactics?

TA Links

[apocamok]

Total Annihilation at Mobygames (lists places to buy)
http://mobygames.com/game/sheet/p,3/gameId,9 04/

TAUniverse (long-living TA news site)
http://tauniverse.com/

TAMEC (lots of extra maps)
http://www.planetannihilation.com/tamec/

TADD (some of the best 3rd party units)
http://www.planetdungeonsiege.com/merciles screatio ns/sections/ta/units/

Uberhack (popular total conversion with altered unit stats and better AI)
http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.ph p?s=2 9cb49943e6051bf7685211d17398bf7&threadid=18855

Re:Absolute Annihilation

[rtaylor]

I still play the Absolute Annihilation hack atleast once a week.

Much improved AI, many more (diverse) units, and best of all, it's still maintained. They made a new release yesterday.

Re:Second that -- this is fantastic

[MachDelta]

You'll be happy to know that TA works on XP just fine for me. :)