RTS renaissance

[Skatan]

I'm an old RTS lover, but I admit I haven't played much the last decade or two. But I've noticed there seems to be a sort of renaissance for RTS games coming up now with several games that look like they want to invoke the old style from the golden days of RTS.

My personal favorite of the new ones is D.O.R.F. which looks to be true to form. It just screams Westwood studios all over! The rock music, the graphics, the factions - everything looks fantastic.


Another one that looks very gritty and cool is Dust Front. Not true to the old formula exactly, but interesting nonetheless. The battles looks very cool, the atmosphere is super-gritty. Haven't watched a lot of game play footage yet but it's on my radar now.


Tempest Rising is another one that looks great! Haven't tried it yet, but it's also in the wishlist now. This one is already released. Haven't heard much chatter about it just generally, but it has good reviews it seems. Would love to try out on a "LAN" with some buddies, an event I manage to do once per 10 years on average

 

[Antimatter]

Interesting. I'd say that for the majority of gaming, the RTS genre is still in a "crisis" of ideas, and it's pretty niche. AoE IV released 4.5 years ago, but never gained the same popularity AoE II still has. It seems the indie scene is where these games are now mostly on.

The last "strategy"-like game I played (excluding TBS) is Against the Storm, which has real-time management elements with roguelite elements. I also played Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition at release and even managed to beat it on the hardest AI level. It was nice to get back in time and recall some approaches (and adjust others as the AI improved). But I remember the game required me to focus very hard, like every second mattered (probably due to the difficulty setting), and every time the match ended, I felt some relief.

Or maybe I just played AoE II and Starcraft too much in my teenage days that I still don't feel ready to come back to the genre. A bit similar to how I feel the Baldur's Gate fatigue.

That said, I looked at the Steam pages you listed, and they look very solid.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

The early 2000's were a golden age of 8/10 RTS games. Among them Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2, Impossible Creatures, and the ps2 Alien vs Predator.

 

[Skatan]

I know Dungeon Keeper, but the rest of them I haven't even heard of. Had to google to see what they were. I liked Dungeon keeper 1, played it a bit, but to be frank I wouldn't even call it an RTS. It's a very cool game, quite unique (or at least it was back then), but it's very far from C&C, StarCraft, KKnD, TA, AoE etc that I played a lot.

But with that said, I don't want gatekeep the RTS genre. I don't even know if there's a standard definition, but then again, even if it exist I guess it would be debated like the never ending discussion on "what's an RPG", hehe.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

Battle for Middle Earth is probably fairly self explanatory in how it plays, but the most interesting part is the "hero" system where you can summon a powerful unit you create for a lot of resources. You allocate the stats and abilities and what have you. And they don't have to be of the good races! You can do a goblin, orc, sauron-aligned human, or even an ogre. Extremely fun.

Impossible Creatures is actually quite similar to Battle for Middle Earth in playstyle, but with much more customization. You design your entire army from scratch. It's campaign mode gets surprisingly hard by the end. The game knows its own systems, because in one campaign they will spam you with some absolutely top-tier units that I didn't even think of creating myself.

Alien vs. Predator learns heavily from StarCraft, including its campaign mode with three factions, and that's not a bad thing.