games – AllTalkAllGame

Alex Verdini

One of my fondest gaming memories is when my older brother and some of his friends—one of whose dad was an assistant principal at a school—went to a school over the summer and loaded up copies of Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness onto desktops in the computer lab. Perhaps dubious by today’s standards, it was an awesome “LAN party” where we spent all morning playing games in teams and in free-for-all matches against each other.

In today’s blog post, we’ll take a deeper look at a genre that seems to be… fading. Or at least, not the powerhouse that it used to be.

Why Do People Love Real-Time Strategy Games?

First, let me tell you—I’m a pretty terrible real-time strategy game player. I think to be a good real-time strategy player, you need a brain that can multitask ten different things at once. That’s definitely not me.

Nonetheless, I’ve always enjoyed a good real-time strategy game. Something about the mixture of managing your economy, your units, and putting it all together creates a special experience. However, I think the classic real-time strategy game has struggled to find success from a sales perspective in recent years. One of the big hopes, Stormgate, is currently sitting at a peak player count of 126 as I write this blog. So, what’s the cause of this? Are the games just not as well-designed as they used to be? Maybe it’s simply a fading genre? Let’s dig into it.

**A battle rages in Age of Empires II, still a top real-time strategy game almost twenty years after release.**

The Downfall of the RTS Genre

Interestingly, the real-time strategy genre has been doing well in the competitive scene. I watch an egregious amount of Age of Empires II, and the scene has seen an increase in A and S-tier tournaments in recent years. Yet, it’s the old-school/legacy RTS games like Age of Empires II or Starcraft that seem to still have the greatest popularity. Is it because those games were just better designed compared to modern titles?

I believe it’s because those games were masterfully designed, they’re rife with nostalgia, and due to the fact that there’s been extremely low innovation within the real-time strategy genre. However, real-time strategy has influenced the evolution of many other game series.

**A closer look at managing a naval battle in Hearts of Iron IV.**

The Evolution of the Real-Time Strategy Genre

Hearts of Iron, Civilization, Stellaris. The next-gen version of real-time strategy games. They tend to focus less on the absolute insane multitasking and instead emphasize deep strategy and tactics to varying degrees. For olds like me, that’s a really nice way to make the game more approachable while adding depth.

Hearts of Iron IV allows for an incredible amount of randomization and replayability with tons of different countries, research options, focus trees, and unit types that enable varied play styles and unique games each and every time. That’s something many RTS games—often limited to just a few factions or civilizations—can’t emulate. I think it’s why Age of Empires II has seen continued success in recent years, offering a ton of variation in each match thanks to its many civilizations with unique play styles.

In fact, I believe there have been a lot of great real-time strategy games that don’t fit the traditional mold—games that require you to think, reason, and make tough decisions. Frostpunk comes to mind, where you’re in a race against deteriorating weather and must make difficult choices to ensure your people’s survival. Time and management are still important, but even just the ability to pause and slow things down to think is a great addition to strategy games.

Enter the New Real-Time Strategy Game

While the old strategy games still have popular followings and more recent entries have struggled, there’s finally been some innovation and niches that seem to have sparked interest in the genre. Battle Aces, which aims to remove the crazy multitasking aspect, could pose an interesting entry into the real-time strategy genre with a stronger focus on strategy and tactics.

Another game I’m excited for, Broken Arrow, focuses on the battle, or micro, aspects of the game with big strategic overtones. There’s no need to worry about intense base building, as it’s all about managing your units with a constant supply of reinforcement points that allow you to bring in new units over time.

So, Are RTS Games Officially Dead?

I think the ongoing success of games like Starcraft, Starcraft II, and Age of Empires II shows that the genre is clearly not dead, but there will need to be continued evolution for it to find success with new titles. Spin-off genres like grand strategy are a great option, but for those looking to keep the core mechanics in place, hopefully, some up-and-coming games like Broken Arrow can deliver more of that classic experience.

Anyways, that’s enough rambling for now. If you enjoyed the blog. If you did, consider adding to your bookmarks to come back for me. You can find me on YouTube, Bluesky, or feel free to join my Discord if you want to chat more about games! Or click on the links below to find my socials/other content.

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Picture this: your character is holding another character at gun point. The ‘X’ button is blinking on the screen. But you don’t want to shoot that character! Yeah, sure they’ve probably done something terrible, but you still don’t want to do it. Maybe they were your friend. Perhaps they even betrayed you — but it just feels wrong. So you wait, hoping another option will appear. But after a while either nothing happens, it shoots automatically for you, or the character turns the table on you and kills you. Game over. Try again.

I can’t tell you how frustrating that is in video games for me. I understand the developer may have a story they want to tell, but giving the illusion of choice is far worse than railroading us down a certain path. By no means am I saying every game should have dialogue choices or plot choices, but I do believe that when we allow players to make choices that have a meaningful impact it can completely change the feel of the game. It allows for video games to shine and show it’s true power: being an interactive medium.

I think most people can agree that in video games giving players a choice is a genuinely good thing to do. While there’s nothing wrong with playing a linear story, I have found that when given freedom and real choice it leads to a unique and engaging experiences – particularly when it comes to narrative-focused games.

Many of us recall seeing “Claire will remember that,” but did Claire really remember it? Did it impact their decisions further down the road? Not always. And many of the choices given to us in those style of games led to the illusion of choice, but any replay of the game could tell you many of the “choices” lead to the exact same outcomes.

I love getting to make an impact on the world around me in games. Playing Dragon Age makes me feel like a hero because of the choices I make and the feeling that I’m actually changing the course of history due to my choices and actions.

I mentioned this in my post discussing the game Freedom Fighters, and even though choices were limited in that game, the choices of which mission to undertake did make a difference on later missions.

Sometimes it’s just the subtle things in the world that makes your presence feel important, like in GTA when they talk about events you’re involved in on the radio. Or when you walk past NPCs in Dishonored and they speak of the person terrorizing them.

It’s important to make the player feel like their choices and decisions in the game are valued. Personally, I’d rather have a smaller world in which to play (looking at you open world games) if it means the world I’m in reflects the decisions and choices I make as a player.

And certainly this doesn’t apply to just narrative games either. Any decision can be made interesting under the right circumstances. Take Escape from Tarkov. Do I bring in my good loot to try and kill some enemies and risk losing it? Do I shoot and risk my position with the loot I have? All important decisions with meaningful consequences.

The choices I had to make in the recent closed betas of Hell Let Loose comes through frequently as another example in my mind. Should I place a garrison in a riskier spot that gives my team an advantage to getting to the next capture point quicker? Or do I play it safe? Should I rush out from cover in an effort to help my teammates being flanked? A game with fantastic design has players constantly making unique and interesting choices. And the best part about choices? You can always stop, reflect, and ask: is there anything I could have done better or differently next time?

Well that’s it for discussing player choices! What do you guys think? Is choice good? Is it too difficult to implement from a game design perspective? Tell me what ya think on Twitter. Likewise, if you want to see me live playing games check me out on Twitch. Hope you all enjoyed!

Tag: games

Is the RTS Genre Dead?