14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that Creative Assembly, the studio behind the long-running Total War series of history based strategy titles, is planning to create a sports title for publisher SEGA. The Brisbane team has posted a job listing which talks about a next generation sports title that is under development, with the team needing a Lead Gameplay Programmer, who should be able to lead a team, collaborate with other departments and create and maintain the structure of the game.
The announcement seems to indicate that the new sports title will be created for the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the PC, probably delivered with Steamworks, but there's no indication about the real life sports which the Creative Assembly is aiming to bring to gamers. The company has worked on sports games early in its history, with EA Sports handling the publishing duties. In 1995 and in 2001, they created official games linked with the Rugby World Cup and they also put together the official videogame for the 1999 Cricket World Cup and titles simulating the Australian Football League.
At the moment, the world of sports focused videogames is dominated by EA Sports and 2K Sports and The Creative Assembly is probably thinking about putting out more niche titles, with both rugby and cricket being good choices. It's not clear whether the game will be a close to the real world simulation or whether the team is more interested in delivering a casual experience.
The Brisbane studio of The Creative Assembly has done work on Medieval II: Total War and has also developed Stormrise, a real time strategy title which was launched on consoles as well as PC in 2009 and which failed to impress critically or commercially. It's not clear whether the company is planning to launch a new Total War title in the near future.