New Total War survey asks fans about space battles and potential settings

Warhammer 40,000, Star Wars, and other candidates

Developer Creative Assembly is currently planning the future of its iconic Total War series and is asking the fans for feedback in a new survey, which naturally made some waves online and led to heavy speculation about possible future settings for the franchise. I’ve already listed some of the settings I’d love to see featured in Total War and, funnily enough, many of those are actually represented as options in the survey. Does that mean anything? No. Is it exciting to speculate a little bit? You bet.

First of all, you can take this survey over at the Total War G2G page, in case you want your voice to be included.

What will the future of Total War hold? Creative Assembly is asking fans for their opinions :: Creative Assembly / Sega

Let’s dive into some of the interesting things asked in there, starting with historical settings. The survey asks for player interest in the following potential time periods and conflicts:

• World War 1
• The Vietnam War
• The Byzantine Empire
• The Ottoman Empire
• Ancient India
• The Viking Age
• Spanish Conquest of the Americas
• World War 2
• The Medieval Era

World War 1 has been widely speculated to be in the cards for a future Total War iteration, but more modern conflicts like World War 2 and Vietnam come very surprising – and may simply serve as a filter to categorize people into groups relevant for analyzing the survey. I’ve learned how to conduct these at university and some questions are only there to filter certain opinions out.

I’d expect the Medieval Era to land high on the list here, since many fans seem to clamor for Medieval 3. Vikings have already been represented in Thrones of Britannia and I’m personally getting rather bored with them after they were basically everywhere in popular media in the last couple of years.

What about fictional settings? Well, there is quite the selection of those as well:

• Lord of the Rings
• Star Wars
• Star Trek
• Clash of the Titans
• Game of Thrones
• Warcraft
• The Witcher
• Dune
• Battlestar Galactica
• Warhammer 40,000
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Marvel

Due to Total War: Warhammer’s success, a 40K game has been heavily speculated on already, so it’s not a surprise to see it listed here. Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are obvious potential choices as well – LotR mods have been very popular in the past and Game of Thrones always shows up in fan discussions. Star Wars is one of the settings on my list, mainly because I’d love a spiritual successor to Empire at War and I think Total War may fit that formula.

Lots of misdirection here as well, though. Total War: Marvel? Yikes. I shudder at the thought of it.

When it comes to questions about gameplay systems, we find many potential features that would need to be implemented to properly support settings like World War 1, Warhammer 40,000, or Star Wars. For example, the survey lists “More tactical features in real-time battles such as air support and dynamic cover” or “A new type of RTS battle such as naval, airborne, or space battles” – which conveniently leaves out the fact that naval battles have been a thing in the past for the series.

Time and money has gone into this survey, so disregarding it – even if old-school fans may want to do so at first glance, as it heralds a potential transformation of the series – would be a mistake. Creative Assembly seems to be ready to make big changes to Total War, if players wish for them.

Sega wants Creative Assembly to focus on Total War again