With the raw power of PS5 and Xbox Series X|S is it time for the Total War series to make the jump to console?

[Doctor Avatar]

Total War has never been on console, but the main reason (according to Creative Assembly) has been the lack fo CPU grunt to support the battles.

That's all changed now. The PS5 and Xbox Series X|S have, comparatively, very powerful CPUs that should be more than up to the task of running the Total War games. Not only that but both have GPUs and SSDs more than capable too.

Total Warhammer 3 is in development. If they released a packaged Total Warhammer 1|2|3 on PS5 and XSX they would be making bank, it would be a dream, and almost certainly sell like hot cakes.

 

[Heshinsi]

Total War games without mods are so lacking though.

 

[supercommodore]

Would need mouse and keyboard support. No way you can play this on controller.

At 4K ultra a 2080 Ti gets about 55 fps. So new consoles can run at lower settings. Depends how much of a step up the 3rd game is visually.

Also, needs mod support.

 

[sredgrin]

Issue is likely more input oriented than CPU oriented. They don't even bother with controller support.

 

[ArmadilloGame]

RTS has never had a power issue. It's always been about control. Mouse and Keyboard are non-negotiable unless it's Pikmin level simplified.

 

[Lashley]

They're CPU bound anyway

 

[Anarion07]

Could make it work with gyro? And wasnt there some RTS on console that widens a selection circle for your units the longer you press the button?

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

There is no way a controller could allow you to play Total War. I have no idea how you would even start to simplify all the input.

 

[MrBob]

Playing total war with a controller sounds awful.

 

[Spiderman]

You don't want to play that with a controller..

 

[Ra]

It works fairly well on an Xbox One controller with Steam's button remapping, just not nearly as fat as KB/M obviously.

Certainly not impossible or unplayable as is being suggested here in this thread.

At 4K ultra a 2080 Ti gets about 55 fps. So new consoles can run at lower settings.

Click to shrink...

And almost 100fps at High settings. As always, forget everything to Ultra.

 

[Doctor Avatar]

Mouse and Keyboard are non-negotiable

Click to shrink...

Thing is we've heard that claim about any number of genres in the past. FPS games. MMORPGs. Point and click. Grand strategy. Diablo action RPGs. Town builders. Basically any game that starts on PC is said to be "impossible" with a controller. Until it suddenly isn't.

I have no fear that, just like all of those other genres, with a bit of work it could be made to work well enough to be acceptable. Especially since in Total War you can pause to issue commands - meaning it doesn't have to be as slick and quick as M&K anyway.

 

[HgS]

It would be great to see the genre and a host of other strategy genres come to console... even if they had to be m&k only and come with a million warnings that a controller wouldn't work.

Total War Series, Age of Empires, Starcraft Remastered and 2, They are Billions... there are tons of fantastic games out there that it would be great for more people to experience.

 

[supercommodore]

And almost 100fps at High settings. As always, forget everything to Ultra.

Click to shrink...

Yeah high settings probably with some tweaks would be target for consoles. Main thing is I try everything to get max unit sizes. Small unit sizes look rubbish.

I'm still playing it on my 1060 3GB... think I'll upgrade for the 3rd game. I've sunk a lot of hours into 1 and 2 so will be worth it.

 

[EvilBoris]

I'd be interested for more RTS games to come to console, but I don't think the Total war games are going to be the ones to reignite that fire.

 

[Deleted member 50374]

They could add mouse and keyboard input on Xbox and Playstation, FFXIV and other games do have it. But will they bother? Is there an actual public on those platforms? RTS are one of the smallest niches nowadays.

 

[ekim]

RTS has never had a power issue. It's always been about control. Mouse and Keyboard are non-negotiable unless it's Pikmin level simplified.

Click to shrink...

I played through Dune 2 with only the keyboard - it's going to be fine. :P

 

[Kuosi]

is the audience there tho?

 

[Richter1887]

I would love that.

While I am on the subject, Sony needs to do a Killzone RTS game.

 

[Deleted member 50735]

You could certainly capture a large part of the control with a pad. Similar to how civ vi captures the map movement. I always played with the TW camera as though it was a FPS in terms of moving around the battlefield. For console: Left and right trigger does zoom. Right joystick does the first person vertical camera axis pivot stuff. The left joystick does the horizontal axis movement, strafe, forwards and backwards.

Selecting units could be done via shoulder buttons cycling and also simply moving the camera near a unit auto highlights it and highlighting unit then simply selected pressing A. Only issue really is issuing the various unit commands etc. But I really dont see an issue for the core mechanics and a pad. Of course as with all TW's you could always pause it, issue commands and unpause again anyway if things got too hectic.

I played over 1000 hrs in MEII and Empire, but lost interest after Rome II. I reckon the ones I played could work great on console. Rome II was actually more arcadey and dummed down for me anyway.

 

[Socky]

I'm an on-off TW fan and if they could sort out the controls, I would buy this on console.

I'd like to see them support whatever Sony come up with as a VR/Move replacement controller, which should make console play a breeze. As Doctor Avatar says, it's always impossible until it isn't. Making a controller a decent option is a heavy ask, but with DS gyro functionality there are definite possibilities there. XB controller, maybe a step too far though.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

Yes. If we have some CA people here reading this, please do it. I would love for Total War and Mount and Blade II (which I think has been confirmed) to come to consoles.

 

[Euan_1981]

I'd be down for this. Another example of contollers doing well on pc games is the switch conversion of roller coaster tycoon 3, the duel wheel system is excellent.

 

[jem]

RTS has never had a power issue. It's always been about control. Mouse and Keyboard are non-negotiable unless it's Pikmin level simplified.

Click to shrink...

No reason why they couldn't just require mouse and keyboard/not bother with controller support.

Both consoles support them.

 

[sredgrin]

Technically possible doesn't mean actually enjoyable.

See like every one of these ports that does come and nobody buys (like what Paradox attempted, and they ported their slower / less complicated games). There's a reason they didn't bother with Crusader Kings 3 despite partnering with Microsoft with Gamepass PC. Because while I'm sure there's a controller mod out there for that game, it doesn't mean it isn't tedious as shit to use.

If strategy devs thought controller input was remotely ideal, they would be putting it into their games by now

 

[AmFreak]

No reason why they couldn't just require mouse and keyboard/not bother with controller support.

Both consoles support them.

Click to shrink...

The reason is called sales.

 

[jem]

The reason is called sales.

Click to shrink...

Games which require dedicated peripherals such as guitar hero or kinect titles etc had no difficulty selling.

Pretty much everybody has a keyboard and mouse lying around.

No one is going to buy a Total War game to play with a controller.

Some people might buy it to play with a mouse and keyboard

 

[Calabi]

Thing is we've heard that claim about any number of genres in the past. FPS games. MMORPGs. Point and click. Grand strategy. Diablo action RPGs. Town builders. Basically any game that starts on PC is said to be "impossible" with a controller. Until it suddenly isn't.

I have no fear that, just like all of those other genres, with a bit of work it could be made to work well enough to be acceptable. Especially since in Total War you can pause to issue commands - meaning it doesn't have to be as slick and quick as M&K anyway.

Click to shrink...

Yeah it could be done quite well on PS5 with motion controls as a mouse I think.

 

[DaciaJC]

I've love to see it happen, but translating the full experience to a controller input would be a herculean task.

 

[Deleted member 50374]

Games which require dedicated peripherals such as guitar hero or kinect titles etc had no difficulty selling.

Pretty much everybody has a keyboard and mouse lying around.

No one is going to buy a Total War game to play with a controller.

Some people might buy it to play with a mouse and keyboard

Click to shrink...

They probably scrap by even on PC, your best bet is on Xbox since it must be closer to PC than PS5 in terms of porting.


-


Btw, how isn't this thread a port begging thread lol?

 

[JahIthBer]

Please no, they clearly planned a console release of Rome 2 & it almost killed the series, we don't need TW's gameplay consolised, unless they force M/KB support, then whatever.

 

[Nolbertos]

Nah bruh, needs K & M to play Total War. Playing with just a controller, no thanks

 

[Spark]

They could have released a cut down version of the game for consoles if it were worth the investment. The controls can't be translated to a controller and requiring a M/KB for a console is not a jump the industry has taken yet.

 

[ThePunisher]

Microsoft allows for mouse and keyboard support, but it's up to the devs to implement it. They are Billions is the only RTS game I can think of that has that support on console though. However, the cpu on consoles have a hard time when all the zombies come at the end. I'm really looking forward to playing it again on the series X with that better CPU.

 

[Armaros]

Thing is we've heard that claim about any number of genres in the past. FPS games. MMORPGs. Point and click. Grand strategy. Diablo action RPGs. Town builders. Basically any game that starts on PC is said to be "impossible" with a controller. Until it suddenly isn't.

I have no fear that, just like all of those other genres, with a bit of work it could be made to work well enough to be acceptable. Especially since in Total War you can pause to issue commands - meaning it doesn't have to be as slick and quick as M&K anyway.

Click to shrink...

the hardest difficulty removes your ability to issue orders while paused.

 

[Coxy]

Would need mouse and keyboard support. No way you can play this on controller.

At 4K ultra a 2080 Ti gets about 55 fps. So new consoles can run at lower settings. Depends how much of a step up the 3rd game is visually.

Also, needs mod support.

Click to shrink...

This. It needs mouse and keyboard

 

[Kwigo]

I'd love some good RTS on console, but you'd need to basically reinvent the genre to make it work as intended without kb+m.

 

[Thorrgal]

I'm sure they can find a way to make it work with a controller, it wouldn't be ideal but of course is not impossible

 

[Castamere]

I'd love some good RTS on console, but you'd need to basically reinvent the genre to make it work as intended without kb+m.

Click to shrink...

I enjoyed Halo Wars, Endwar, and Ruse *shrug*

The problem is that the "doomed to fail" mentality means that strategy games never get the budget or marketing they need.

 

[Kwigo]

I enjoyed Halo Wars, Endwar, and Ruse *shrug*

The problem is that the "doomed to fail" mentality means that strategy games never get the budget or marketing they need.

Click to shrink...

Wasn't Endwar the one where you used voice commands to order your troops?

I never played Halo Wars and never heard of ruse tbh. Isn't Halo Wars more of a small scale RTS? (As in: a small batallion of troops instead of huge armies)

 

[Lausebub]

It would be a serious investment, to make it work on consoles UI and controle wise. Controling 40 units in one battle seems almost impossible, so maybe they have to cut some stuff, but smaller battles with less units should work just fine.

 

[Armaros]

It would be a serious investment, to make it work on consoles UI and controle wise. Controling 40 units in one battle seems almost impossible, so maybe they have to cut some stuff, but smaller battles with less units should work just fine.

Click to shrink...

designing around only having smaller battles with less units would require completely rebalancing units/factions and the economy.

there factions that use lots of fodder units to tie up enemy forces. Also economies would have to be scaled down.

 

[Lausebub]

designing around only having smaller battles with less units would require completely rebalancing units/factions and the economy.

there factions that use lots of fodder units to tie up enemy forces. Also economies would have to be scaled down.

Click to shrink...

You can already play like this right now in total war, if you don't use the control large army option, although getting your second army as reenforcements is a bit useless. Maybe you have to fight a second battle with the reenforcing armies, or if you have two full armies and the enemy only one, he can't use his full army to simulate you having an overwhelming force.

 

[Zedelima]

I was thinking about that too!
Is the perfect moment but they really need to nail the UI to make it work...but if paradox made stellaris work i think CA could do it too

 

[Adrifi]

What console gaming needs is a real sequel to Civilization Revolution. No, the phone game doesn't count.

 

[Fawz]

They've tried pushing into alternate modes of play for the Total War series, and though I think the Overworld could work quite well with a controller I'm not so sure about the RTS combat unless they rework it quite a bit (Fewer units, less detailed control, go back to a focus on R-P-S and abilities)

 

[Pyro]

Couldn't help but think of this due to the title:



But yeah I would hope so. I've always wanted to try them, especially the latest one set in ancient China.