Meet the Team – Mitchell Heastie

I sent a few questions to the fastest man in Wales, Mr. Third Place himself and now regular stream guest – Mitchell Heastie for our next meet the team segment! Check out his answers below:

What’s your role at CA?

I’m a designer, currently working on the Warhammer new content team. The first thing I worked on after joining was the Empires of Sand DLC for Total War: Attila, and I’ve worked on every single DLC for Attila and Warhammer ever since!

How long have you been working here?

2 years and a half years.

… but I was a modder for many years before that, and had visited the studio many times for 5 years on and off, so it feels like a lot longer!

What’s your favourite thing about working at CA?

For me Total War is my favourite game series of all time, my dream jobs were always to either become a fighter pilot or to create Total War games. It’s still a bit surreal, the feeling of waking up in the morning and realising the job I’m about to go to is my dream job – this is my first job too, making it even crazier! I don’t think the feeling of walking through the doors at CA every day, excited to start work, is ever going to get old, as they say do a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. So yeah, stopping to think about how lucky I actually am is my favourite thing, it’s all a bit mad really.

What’s your favourite Total War title and why?

The original Rome: Total War holds a lot of nostalgia for me, it was the game that really made me become a fully-fledged PC gamer, and it is a very very very close second place. Ultimately though I can’t look past Shogun 2 as the best of the series, it’s such a fantastic display of getting the core elements of the series right, and I can’t help but feel if ever the perfect Total War game was to be made it would use the design of Shogun 2 as at least the framework.

Which historical period is the most interesting to you?

I love the Roman era, and that is totally due to playing Rome: Total War when I was younger. Ultimately though I have a real interest and passion for the history of World War 2. The time surrounding that war is so full of stories that are utterly captivating, horrifying and unbelievable that it’s hard not to learn about the period without coming away wanting to learn more.

What kind of games do you enjoy the most?

Grand strategy games have captivated me more than any other throughout my gaming life I think. Generally anything that makes me think, and something that I can really sit down and know I can sink hours into and feel progress each time I play will always interest me. I’ve always loved the promise of what space games offer, games such as X3 for instance, but no space game has ever delivered the kind of experience I’m after to date which is intriguing.

Tell us one interesting fact about yourself that people might not know:

My one interesting fact is that I used to be an extremely fast 100m sprinter, I never lost a tournament I competed in. For some reason though nobody at work believes me, which is annoying as it’s my one interesting fact…