Chris Taylor is Working on a New RTS That Mixes PC and Phone Play

Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander and Dungeon Siege creator wants to change the RTS 'paradigm' and 'shock' players.

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Chris Taylor has said much since he left Wargaming late last year. While he has been working on creating pottery to relax, though, he has been plotting his comeback, and it looks like he wants to make some major changes to the RTS genre, even as he gets his new company together.

Taylor, who has such titles as Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander and Dungeon Siege to his credit, said that he wants to make another game that people will associate with his strength, and that is creating an RTS. He has given it a lot of thought, even before leaving Wargaming, but finally is opening up about what he envisions, and that includes altering the RTS "paradigm."

"My goal is to put RTSes on more screens than ever," he told Eurogamer in a rather extensive interview. "I want to move the football way down the field. I want to change, fundamentally, not only the way we play RTS but the way we access the RTS experience."

He didn't get into specifics, but more of an overarching blueprint of what he hopes to do.

"What if I told you you could be playing on your dual-screen PC with your quad-core whatever and when you had to run to a meeting you could continue playing on your phone, because you want to, because you're dying to, because you don't want to have to wait to get back?" he said. "What if I told you you could just turn the power off on your PC and when you went to your phone you could continue playing without any disruption in the experience? A real continuous experience on any device."

He said he plans a free-to-play game that will "shock" people, while changing the model at the same time. He said it should spur other developers to think about why they haven't tried it before. And he wants to do it all independent of the big boys in distribution.

"No Steam, no GOG, no App Store," Taylor said. "It's going to be on my own website. People will hear about it and get a link and go to my website and play the game, and that's all there is to it. Absolute pure independence."

Taylor said he has been slowly recovering from the depression that stemmed from the circumstances that forced him to sell Gas Powered Games to Wargaming in 2013. The pottery has helped, but he really wanted to get back into games. His new company hasn't officially been announced yet, but it involves joining forces with "a large cloud-based company."

While we have seen developers talk big and fail to deliver, Taylor has a rather strong track record, despite his failed Caveman Kickstarter. This will definitely be something to watch, especially if it produces another Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander.

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