The real warfare was going on in the crunching of numbers between two colliding forces. One of the things I liked about 2016’s Offworld Trading Company was that, whether intentional or not, its existence as a real-time strategy game without combat was a sort of commentary on how tanks and spaceships and soldiers in most RTS games were just window dressing. Whether it was Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Dune 2, WarCraft or Age of Empires, screenshots and trailers made it look like these games were about the art of commanding armies in the field like an officer, a sensation the actual gameplay - where you end up being more of a shepherd - rarely provided. RTS games have always presented themselves as these destructive little dioramas, miniature studies in simulation warfare. Me, though, I’d always wanted something more. Which is fine! I appreciate that millions of people love RTS games for that consistency, that entrenched set of expectations, and the studios making good ones have made a lot of money doing so.

It’s never gone away - you only have to look at StarCraft II or Deserts of Kharak to see good, recent examples - but for a long time it’s felt to me like a dead man walking, with developers seemingly unable (or unwilling) to make the kind of major, serious advances you see in other genres like first-person shooters (compare Call of Duty to Call of Duty 4) or even turn-based strategy (compare Civilisation III to Civilisation VI). Other genres have come and gone thanks to shifting market tastes, or advances in technology.įor me, though, the RTS is different.

Adventure games died on CD-ROM and were reborn on digital shopfronts. With flight sims, it was the decline of the joystick. The popularity of certain types of games can wax and wane depending on all kinds of things.

Mobile games like company of heroes