Before he founded Gas Powered Games, designer Chris Taylor worked at Cavedog Entertainment, where he helped create Total Annihilation, one of the most popular and beloved real-time strategy games of all time. Now Taylor is looking to revisit the RTS genre with his newest game, the recently revealed Supreme Commander. Considered the "spiritual successor" to Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander looks to deliver a unique style of gameplay to the real-time strategy genre. This is a real-time strategy game that will actually feature a strategic scale, and you may have multiple battles occurring on the map simultaneously. Intrigued to learn more, we caught up with Taylor recently to get the early details on the game, which is due out next year.

Supreme Commander is the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, so yes, get excited.

GameSpot: So, after Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege II, why did you feel it was time to revisit real-time strategy after so many years? And what are your current thoughts on the state of the genre?

Chris Taylor: Ever since I left Cavedog and started Gas Powered Games, I have wanted to do another RTS game; it's just taken a while to get all the details hammered out to make it happen. I think the genre has matured in all of the conventional ways, and this has created an opportunity for us to introduce some great new ideas--stuff that players will be excited to check out and that dramatically changes the experience that everyone has grown very accustomed to over the past eight years.

GS: We understand that you may not be able to make too many references to Total Annihilation, your previous strategy game, because another publisher owns that license. But fans of Total Annihilation (of which there are many) are understandably excited about Supreme Commander, viewing it as a spiritual successor. Are they correct? What can they expect from Supreme Commander?

CT: If you like and enjoy the design sensibilities demonstrated in Total Annihilation, you'll feel the same way when playing Supreme Commander. Supreme Commander pushes the genre in a lot of ways we just couldn't eight years ago, with stuff like full strategic zoom, huge scale difference between units, and the gigantic maps that make battles on an epic scale possible.

GS: There's going to be a focus on strategy in Supreme Commander, much more than what you'd expect in a typical real-time strategy game. Can you explain how that will work? For example, we know that there is a "global" view, and that you can also zoom down to the tactical level for battles.

CT: Indeed, large-scale strategy is definitely what we are injecting into the genre, and in a much bigger way than I believe has been done before. The size of the maps is the key to this. For example, you can't really have nuclear missile submarines that hide in an ocean if you don't have an ocean; lakes and little waterways that skirt the edge of the map don't really allow for this. In Supreme Commander, it's insane; you can have a group of destroyers on a search-and-destroy mission, or a battle group defending a strategic port or "preparing" a stretch of coast for an upcoming beach landing. It's important to be able to watch this sort of thing unfold at a strategic level, but when the shooting starts, you'll want to zoom in (as appropriate) to get a good sense of how the battle is shaping up, and then make tactical adjustments as you see fit.

GS: Can you give us a rundown of the three races in the game? We know their names: the Terrans, the Aeons, and the Cybrans. But is it a case of three identical sides (in terms of gameplay) that just look different, or are they completely different in playing style, as well?

This isn't traditional real-time strategy as you know it.

CT: Our goal is to create three "balanced" sides, but not simply by skinning them differently. The fictional universe has a history, and each side emerged from that history with a different twist, something that sets them apart politically, socially, and philosophically. These differences are reflected in the actual unit designs. We still try to give players a rough equivalent, because without it, it can be quite frustrating, but we are definitely averse to simply giving everyone the same unit with a different paint job.