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

TA was great but a sequel?

[SmallFurryCreature]

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

Best thing about the game was that it had a huge selection of different weapons meaning you didn't have the rock-siccors-paper style gameplay of the Command & Conquer series. Add larger maps, better use of 3D terrain and you had a very enjoyable game. The only one where you could actually fight an airwar against a land army.

Lets just hope it is not like the original "sequel" eh? The magic version? Boy did that one bomb.

Here my wish list for the perfect RTS game.

• Great AI that can actually defend itself a bit. Meaning not stand there and get hammered by artitarrly or soldiers attacking tanks and thanks attacking soldiers.
• True 3D terrain and the use of it. Make hills and valleys important
• Large maps. You know I can hardly think of any military engagements in wich it took the soldiers a few minutes to run from one end of the battle field to another.
• Frontlines. Call me silly but it is usual practive to have rings of defence around the homebase. I want to be able to make a line on the map that troops will defend.
• Proper artilary. Strange as it may sound artilarry does not target tanks. It targets an area. TA allowed this and it was devastating against the computer as it would constantly march its troops accross the same line and you could just pound any assault with a few guns.
• Great AI.

Oh who am I kidding. Judging by the sales of Command and Conquer vs Close Combat I think it is clear were the money is. It ain't with me. Sigh.

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

TA has not been matched. No one's even tried.

[AvantLegion]

TA is not only the best RTS game perhaps ever, but its style of gameplay hasn't even been attempted again.

Everyone churns out simple rock-paper-scissors RTS games a la StarCraft (not that there's anything wrong with those - they can be great fun - but they're much simpler and smaller). Nobody has had the balls to even take a stab at TA's epic scope, open-ended nature, and complex play mechanics.

Those of us that played TA a bunch back in the day were often wow'd by some of the strange and off-the-wall strategies we would see. Thanks to the Commander unit, "home base" was wherever you wanted it to be. Wanna go set up somewhere else? Leave. You leave the buildings behind, but can very quickly set up camp elsewhere.

TA also had a VERY unique gameplay feature, in that after a certain period of time, all sides in the game would have enough firepower to level a small planet. The game then ceased to be an arms race, and turned into a cat-and-mouse game of finding a way to get one's firepower around the other's and put it to use. The typical RTS strategy of pounding away on the outskirts and eventually trying to break through enemy lines was often ineffective, or would at least take hours to complete.

Maybe you try and build nukes, but your opponent may be building missile defense (probably is). But does he have complete coverage of his base? Maybe you can hit the outskirts. Or maybe you can build more missiles than he builds anti-nukes, and overrun his missile defenses. But that takes a lot of resources, and becomes a high-stakes guessing game. Maybe you'll fly a plane out to a nearby island and build a plasma cannon that can shell his base. But that's a lot of resources too, especially if you try to defend it. Maybe you leave it undefended. Make those first few shots count. How's your intel? Got radar coverage of his base? Fly some scout planes in to get visual targets to go along with those radar blips, but you may need to send 10 of them in just to have 1 make it deep enough into his base to locate that fusion reactor that will EXPLODE if you hit it. Try a strategic bombing run on the power plant? Your bombers will get shredded by those cheap-to-build missile towers. Maybe pound away at them with gunships? Dude, figure out what you're doing already. And HEY, he's attacking you too!

No other RTS game comes even close.

The story

[M3wThr33]

I'm sure you'll get better explanations, but it boiled down to this:
Humans in robot suits vs. Robots with human brains.