Total War on consoles is a question of “power,” not controls says Creative Assembly

By Stephany Nunneley

The Creative Assembly’s studio director, Mike Simpson, has said the Total War series isn’t on consoles due to the lack of control options, instead, it has more to do with a lack of power.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Simpson said a Total War battlefield with 10,000 soldiers running around just wouldn’t work on any of the consoles.

“Total War on console, the reason it’s not there has never been about control,” he explained. “There has never been a control reason not to have the game on console – that’s not the problem. It’s a difficult design problem, trying to figure out how to control a game like that with a pad, but even that is a solvable problem – it just requires some clever design.

“We couldn’t fit a Total War battlefield, with 10,000 guys, into any of the consoles. It just doesn’t work. You can’t fit a gallon into a pint pot, it doesn’t go. That’s clearly been the main constraint.

“Now, it may be that at some point in the future, some of those constraints disappear, and at that point, then yeah, some possibilities open up. I’m not saying that we’ll actually go down those routes – it depends how things turn out. They’re not there at the moment – those routes don’t exist. They may, or may not, turn up in the future.”

Simpson said the studio will reassess things once Microsoft and Sony release next-gen consoles, but for now, it’s not in “a position to do that yet.”

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