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Creative Assembly’s Halo strategy game will not resemble its smash-hit Total War franchise, the developer has told MCV @ Gamescom.

Halo Wars 2 was the shock announcement at Microsoft’s pre-Gamescom press briefing.

Creative Assembly says it is paying closer attention to the original Halo Wars (created by now defunct studio Ensemble) than its own IP, as well as taking advice from Halo developer 343 Industries.

There’s loads of pressure,” studio boss Tim Heaton said. We are absolutely using Halo Wars as a starting point. This isn’t going to be a Total War: Halo kind of game – this is Halo Wars taken to the next stage.

We really rated Halo Wars. It’s something we can add to and build on. As we’re learning about the universe, we’ve been working closely with

343 Industries, and that’s been a really interesting learning experience.”

While the studio’s PC team is focused on Total War: Warhammer, the development of Halo Wars 2 falls to a significant portion of the team behind last year’s sci-fi smash hit Alien: Isolation.

We’ve crafted the Halo Wars team, but primarily we are able to use the Alien: Isolation developers,” said Heaton. They’re our console-ready team. It’s the perfect combination: we have great strategy knowledge, great PC knowledge and now great console knowledge because of Alien.”

Halo Wars 2 will mark the UK outlet’s second console title in recent years, despite being a largely PC-centric developer throughout its 25-year history. Could this be a precursor to Total War coming to consoles?

Nothing is off the table,” Heaton said. We know we can do more with Total War.

PS4 and Xbox One have over-delivered on what some people thought they would do. The consoles are definitely an interesting place to be, and there are going to be loads of opportunities with them.”