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What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

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Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#11
post #4
post #2

I don't play games much anymore, but when I did, I always had an affinity for RTS games(Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc), and Action RPGs (Diablo, Torchlight). It's exhausting to find games nowadays that don't nickel and dime you to succeed. I like the Kingdom Rush Tower Defense games on iPad when I'm traveling. Any other suggestions?

0AD is pretty good.

I second this. It can be played with a very modest laptop, also.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#12
post #2

I don't play games much anymore, but when I did, I always had an affinity for RTS games(Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc), and Action RPGs (Diablo, Torchlight). It's exhausting to find games nowadays that don't nickel and dime you to succeed. I like the Kingdom Rush Tower Defense games on iPad when I'm traveling. Any other suggestions?

Bloons, despite the goofy aesthetic, is probably the most balanced and polished tower-defense game I've ever played, and mobile/tablet is its primary platform

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#13
post #2

I don't play games much anymore, but when I did, I always had an affinity for RTS games(Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc), and Action RPGs (Diablo, Torchlight). It's exhausting to find games nowadays that don't nickel and dime you to succeed. I like the Kingdom Rush Tower Defense games on iPad when I'm traveling. Any other suggestions?

Zero-K would be my RTS recommendation (it's open source!): https://zero-k.info/

For ARPGs, the elephant in the room is Path of Exile: https://www.pathofexile.com/

Neither is really viable for mobile, but I didn't quite catch whether that was a major criterion for you.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#14
post #8

Starcraft is still very much around. But I suspect people went to mobas like League of Legends because they wanted a more social, team based experience and they liked playing a hero.

I think Starcraft was actually part of what pushed people away from the RTS genre and into MOBAs. Blizzard deliberately made WC3 and then SC2 much faster-paced and more micro-based variants of their predecessors. Then they started pushing the e-sports angle, which in my opinion made it even less about the traditional strategy elements of RTS and more about APS, multi-tasking, ability matching, etc.

MOBAs are then the natural step from fast-paced micro-heavy RTS - strip out the base building part and make it 100% about micro, abilities, and squad control. It's the evolution of what happens when RTS gets ADD. In a way, I think Blizzard basically gave kids candy instead of vegetables and now the mainstream player attention span isn't there for traditional RTS games anymore.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#15
I play older games, the ones without a forced online requirement or telemetry.

I wonder if this colors the author's statistics, because he is getting his statistics from games that collect them.

I have a library of steam games I downloaded then have been playing in offline mode for quite some time.

free to play? (grind or pay) bah.

I would love to hear people's suggestions for favorite offline games.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#17
> Some people from Relic split off to found Blackbird Interactive. They made a prequel to Homeworld which is apparently really good. They’re now also working on Homeworld 3.

Said prequel is Deserts of Kharak, and is indeed quite good. Am replaying it right now, and despite being land-based and 2D rather than space-based and 3D, it still feels like the original Homeworld in terms of pacing and strategy.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#18
The most popular, recently released RTS I can think of is Factorio. It seems like RTS game elements have been splitting into their constituent parts and forming a game around those.(e.g. production to Factorio, or combat to DOTA) It may be that way there’s a greater ROI on smaller/simpler games than building out all the components involved in an RTS game.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#19
The 'combined arms' approach where your 'macro' is turn-based and your 'micro' is real-time is doing very well in Total War franchise (briefly mentioned in the article).

Turn-based aspect of settlement/empire management flows much better than real-time base-building aspect of the classic RTSes. Battles being fought in a separate real-time ux means that you can field thousands of troop models while micro-managing tens of 'squads' -- and you don't have to worry about strategic side in the middle of the battle.

Both aspects are richer as a result of separation.

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