Are RTS games fully dead? or is it a genre on life support.

[Jared]

Recently I got into warcraft 3 ,which i can confidently say is my favorite game now.It hurts my soul to see blizzard mishandle and botch warcraft 3 reforged. Was this a killing blow to RTS? Ive been an RTSfag for awhile but im not in-versed with the genre enough to truly call the shots if its dead or just pretending. Im aware that many previous RTSfags have moved to shitty games like mobas or such of the like, unfortunate to hear but there is ultimately nothing in our control that we can do about it.

 

[VelvetApe]

I would really like to see a sequel or remake to battle realms

 

[ZinRicky]

I'm quite into AOE2 and (when I could play it on Xbox Game Pass) AOE4. On Steam those games have dozens of thousands of players daily, so they aren't dead. A similar story can be told for Civ.
If you're looking for more variety, however, I think they don't reward the average player enough and they don't usually rely on strong storylines to appeal the broader audience. I don't see a massive gain in popularity anytime soon

 

[Yakito]

In my opinion what killed the RTS is a combination of an inherently limited audience with the always rising costs of developing games.

I think you could make a successful RTS title, but you need to aim for a niche and keep your budget and expectations in check. Make a good campaign. People miss those.

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

As someone who has played C&C since '99, I'm afraid that RTS may actually be dead, but hope it is just cryogenically frozen until a later date.

Like Yakito said, RTS has a very limited audience and today's gaming culture does not foster an environment which RTS could thrive in. It pushes for maximum graphical fidelity, which would severly impact an RTS title. Microtransactions, which would not be terribly lucrative in an RTS. Generic and simple gameplay, not something that can make an RTS unique and stand out.

Maybe RTS will rise again, but not today.

 

[deepfreeze]

It's not a traditional RTS but this thread is really making me miss Ground Control

 

[Yakito]

Generic and simple gameplay, not something that can make an RTS unique and stand out.

I think that is true for all games. You need to have an appealing product first. Because even if it's a free/shareware game people actually spend their time with it, so you need to make a good enough deal for them to do so.

My biggest objection is that the genre is stuck in a double hell. One is the endless nostalgia and the fear or making a new IP, the other is focusing on the e-sport aspect of the games and ignoring the campaign.

If Star Craft didn't had a good presentation, people wouldn't have stick around for so long in such great density that it have spanned an e-sport scene. SC only got good because people basically laughed at the original footage because it was a literal reskin of Warcraft 2.

StarCraft alpha

The alpha version of StarCraft generally refers to either the early alpha version unveiled at E3 1996 or a later alpha version revealed in 1997. These versions used the engine of and graphics similar to Blizzard's previous RTS WarCraft II, having its dashboard on the side, for example. The...

starcraft.fandom.com

 

[punishedgnome]

The RTS genre is dead. It's too complicated and slow paced to find success with today's gamers. Tower defense games, MOBAs and phone games like Clash of Clans have been created out of its corpse, and I think with a few exceptions, AOE 4 for example, that's all you're going to see for the foreseeable future.

 

[NETCOM]

that's all you're going to see for the foreseeable future.

As a counterpoint, I think we've also seen an interesting mutation in the RTS formula which goes the opposite direction from its simplified counterparts (in my opinion). For example, I've had a lot of fun playing Wargame: Red Dragon and Steel Battalion. They're definitely not "classic" RTS games, but they've captured a solid niche of players, and it seems like they're not gonna stop making them anytime soon. Likewise, those Warhammer Total War games were pretty massive, even though the newest one was a flop. I think RTS games definitely aren't dead, but it would take a miracle to boost their popularity in any significant way that hasn't been done already. I could be talking completely out of my ass, though, I'll admit I'm not the biggest RTS fan. As a side note, I'm looking forward to Starship Troopers Terran Command, I think it looks fun as hell.

 

[deepfreeze]

I'm one of those psychos that unironically enjoys Carrier Command 2. Running around the ship and flipping all the tactile buttons is kinda cool, and I bet it's pretty immersive in co-op but seems needlessly tedious when you're playing by yourself. I was considering undertaking modding in something akin to an RTS interface. I've done a fair amount of programming but I don't know much about Lua specifically. Wonder how close I can get. I need to to focus on my job search right now but maybe I'll take a crack at it once that's resolved. It wouldn't change the fact that its a bad game no one plays but it could be a neat project.

 

[?!MemoryHead!?]

i think its mainstream appeal is minimal. but it has its hardcore fanbase. people still play Age of Empires 2 which came out like 20 years ago lol. it still gets patches, updates and expansions

 

[LukasDayOff]

I grew up playing a lot of Red Alert, Company of Heroes, Age of Empires, etc. so it sucks to see the genre dead, however a lot of us found refuge in grand strategy games like the ones from Paradox Interactive.

The RTS genre is dead. It's too complicated and slow paced to find success with today's gamers. Tower defense games, MOBAs and phone games like Clash of Clans have been created out of its corpse, and I think with a few exceptions, AOE 4 for example, that's all you're going to see for the foreseeable future.

Also time investment as well. Some RTS games take literal hours to do a multi-player match which does not appeal to a lot of causal gamers who are used to being able to drop in and out.

 

[vale-aroma]

RTS games had a lot of variations and experiments that were trying to evolve the genre into the next phase - of all of them, MOBA was the most succesful. In that respect, I wouldn't say the genre died so much as mutated into a new format that was faster & flashier for the average ladder-climbing competitive multiplayer fan.

Personally though, of all the variations the genre had the one I found the most interesting was the underexplored minimalism of Multiwinia. I never liked how complicated RTS games got, with exhaustive lists of counters and stats, that I always felt ran counter to what made strategy games truly complex. Details paradoxically limit possibilities and make strategy shallower and less abstractly flowing. Compare the "meta" of Starcraft to the depths of a game like Go or Chess - simplicity creates a much deeper set of strategic possibilities. Multiwinia was my favorite RTS due to this, it's minimalism was to me, a glimmer of hope for an RTS that could have the same elegant but deep simplicity of a traditional strategy game.

 

[Augustus]

​

As many already mentioned, the genre does not have mainstream, casual appeal and therefore developers are unlikely to pursue making such games as the return on investment is uncertain. Game companies are heavily invested in as revenue source in the modern day.

Having said that, the best RTS games such as AoE2, a 20 year old game, are still being played and supported to this day.
I mention AoE2 specifically because it may be the greatest RTS ever made. There exists AoE3 and now an AoE4 and yet, AoE2 is still supported and updated regularly.

Other game genres which rely heavily on story get old and people look around for something new. With RTS there is little reason to do this, as you can always improve your micro, vary your strategies and the game will continue to be interesting. To those who like the genre at least.
Would you say "Chess" is dead? No updates, still played across the global, just doesn't have a mainstream appeal.

 

[zalaz alaza]

Warcraft 2 on LAN was ultimate.

Warcraft 1 hooked me first tho.

Back when computers used phones but weren't phones.

 

[RisingThumb]

It's not dead, but it's got a small audience, which means you don't see it from AAA as much anymore(still bits and pieces every now and then like Halo Wars 2). I haven't played an RTS since Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Halo Wars 1.

Personally, I think the genre mutated somewhat into others. You have the real time strategy of base building games(Rimworld, Factorio, Dwarf Fortress) and also the real time... tactics of some games like Syndicate(on the Amiga), which both appeal to me much more than the rock paper scissors infantry creation tropes of a lot of popular RTS games. Also you have MOBAs(which was probably just the product merging games like Warcraft and Diablo/other mmorpgs together).

Admittedly, I haven't played much in the RTS genre... What recommendations do people have for "best in its class" games for this genre(particularly for Solo-play)?

 

[deepfreeze]

Apparently Supreme Commander is still pretty active as well. I occasionally get shoutcasted competitive matches showing up in my YouTube feed and they're pretty fun to watch despite the fact that I never particularly enjoyed playing the game.

 

[Drifloon]

AOE2:DE got an expansion yesterday. It's nice to see this game get another update. But it's strange the first game got ported to AOE2 with this expansion when it was originally remade separately.

 

[brentw]

What recommendations do people have for "best in its class" games for this genre

This:

Apparently Supreme Commander is still pretty active as well.

Yes, Supreme Commander has such a dedicated fanbase they literally built their own matchmaking service to replace the official one that got shut down.

Forged Alliance Forever

FAF Community Website

www.faforever.com

My all time favorite RTS by a mile.

 

[punishedgnome]

AOE2:DE got an expansion yesterday. It's nice to see this game get another update. But it's strange the first game got ported to AOE2 with this expansion when it was originally remade separately.

The expansion costs less that AOE:DE. Lmao