Total War Saga Series Announced, Will Focus On Historical Spinoffs

The games will be designed as standalones, with two already in development.

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The Total War franchise from developer Creative Assembly has been popular among fans, focusing on large epochs of time or key people during those periods. But publisher Sega has now created a new brand called Total War Saga, which create will focus on specific, briefer moments in history.

The new series will be standalone titles, with key historical moments pulled from previous games. The games will only encompass a few months or a few decades at most, while still carrying through with the same mix of turn-based campaign strategy and real-time tactics. Creative Assembly announced last month that its "historical team" and "historical flashpoint team" were already working on projects, but today we found out that those new teams are part of the new Saga series.

The key moments from the previous Total War games make great fodder for the Saga series. "They’re a powder keg, where anything can happen and history could have gone in any direction," Flashpoint team's creative director Jack Lusted said in a Q&A on the official Total War site. "Sagas are epic stories, and we felt that name described those moments well, and allows us to go into the kind of individual detail we love."

The concept of Sagas is to give players a more focused look at how history could have been different if events had played out differently. "They’re what I like to call table-flip moments in history, where events are in the balance and could go any number of interesting and unique ways," Lusted said. "This makes them a perfect fit for Total War games, where we give players the freedom to depart from the actual historical events and explore what might have happened had things gone differently."

Creative Assembly and publisher Sega aren't ready to go into more detail yet, although Lusted said his team's project will be out first. He added that people who follow their blog or social media will likely find out before everyone else when it comes time for more announcements on both game.

In case you missed it, check out our Total War: Warhammer 2 Interview from E3 2017.

For more videos, including gameplay and interviews, visit the Shacknews and GamerHub.tv YouTube channels. 

You can also find all of our videos from E3 2017 on our Shack @ E3 2017 YouTube Playlist.

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