Creative Assembly is at its very core a PC strategy game developer. Here's a studio that enjoys words such as 'anti-aliasing' and 'mouse acceleration'. What, then are they doing with a real-time strategy franchise that can be played with a controller?
Well, for a start, they're making it better. Unlike its predecessor, Halo Wars 2 now lets you manually sort your units into control groups and quickly switch between them using the d-pad, providing the kind of micromanagement we've come to expect from an RTS. Creative Assembly has included that feature in its games for almost 20 years, but we rarely see it on console.
If you're playing with a mouse and keyboard it's still a more intuitive experience, as you jump between locations by clicking on the minimap, or drag a box to precisely select the units you want to control. Those are always going to be difficult actions to replicate with a gamepad and so Halo Wars 2 provides some clever alternatives. Holding down the left bumper, for example, makes your cursor move more quickly, which in turn lets you to traverse the map with some urgency. The original game got a lot right when it came to gamepad controls, but the added expertise of Creative Assembly is welcome.
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