What happen to RTS games?

[Panmisiek]

Since WC3 and AoE3 there is quite nothing to play.

Every other genre gets their fair share of games on monthly basis, shooters, adventures, action, mobas and so on.

AoE 4 announced last year August, no screenshots since, nothing.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

After Starcraft 2, the most anticipated RTS ever, wasn't as successful as Blizzard expected (but still awesome, IMO), it sent signals to PC developers that RTS is a dying genre. Probably because they're impossible to port to consoles.

The only RTS not named Starcraft I'd be interested in buying are the Total War Warhammer games, but even the first one is being sold at full price on Steam, with a dozen DLC campaigns at full price as well. Total cost for game + all DLCs = $230.

I'd pick it up for $60, but not a dollar more.

 

[KaNesDeath]

A wave of RTS's were released in early and later part of the 2000's. Problem is they werent lucrative in attracting the casual and Brood War Pro scene. Leading to developers abandoning the genre and or shutting down their game studio entirely. Blizzard even had to make Starcraft2 free to play.

Every other genre gets their fair share of games on monthly basis, shooters, adventures, action, mobas and so on.

Game development of genre types happens in waves. In the early part of 2000 every Pc shooter required a multiplayer component to sell units. An when DayZ on Pc became popular. 1-3 years after it was a constant wave of survival games being released. When World of Warcraft had 10+ million subscribers game studios began working on their own MMORPG's. Right now the craze is the Battle Royale genre. Which development time is comparable to mobile games. Resulting in the large wave of Battle Royale games we're seeing atm.


Evolution of the RTS genre is a hybrid MOBA with what C&C Generals(?) tried to do. Set amount of human players on one team. That has a commander with human players taking control of single units or a squad against a team/teams of other players.

 

[Panmisiek]

A wave of RTS's were released in early and later part of the 2000's. Problem is they werent lucrative in attracting the casual and Brood War Pro scene. Leading to developers abandoning the genre and or shutting down their game studio entirely. Blizzard even had to make Starcraft2 free to play.




Game development of genre types happens in waves. In the early part of 2000 every Pc shooter required a multiplayer component to sell units. An when DayZ on Pc became popular. 1-3 years after it was a constant wave of survival games being released. When World of Warcraft had 10+ million subscribers game studios began working on their own MMORPG's. Right now the craze is the Battle Royale genre. Which development time is comparable to mobile games. Resulting in the large wave of Battle Royale games we're seeing atm.

I think they just lack ideas. If I had a budget, trust me, I would make an RTS playable for the next 20 years easily.

Besides SC2 could never match WC3. Because:

WC3 had heroes, spells, creeps on the map, items you can use. All these aspects where adding extra value to the game and lot of different ways of approaching a game. I was always calling SC2 an amputated version of WC3. Setting played a major role too. WC world was more appealing to me than SC. Lots of different sceneries, maps and so on.

 

[Panmisiek]

When it comes to RTS games, I am looking for replay value. I wanna enjoy playing game for the next 10 years.

When I started playing AoE3 I initally played with only one country. And today I know them all, and I got unlocked all the skills for each of them as well.

 

[Hyperglide]

Frostpunk? Civ 6. Lots of games just look around dude.

 

[rob mafia]

The only RTS not named Starcraft I'd be interested in buying are the Total War Warhammer games

isn't that turn-based?

and fwiw, i thought sc2 sucked. or at least... was incredibly disappointing.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

isn't that turn-based?

and fwiw, i thought sc2 sucked. or at least... was incredibly disappointing.

Don't think so, haven't played it.

In retrospect, it was a poor decision to make the Terran campaign the ONLY campaign in the initial release, then the Zerg campaign as DLC nearly 3 years later, and finally Protoss 2 years after that as an optional stand-alone.

They should have had three 10-mission campaigns for each race for each release.

But, as far as multiplayer goes, I don't know what the percieved mistakes were made. It seems crazy some of the Korean pros perferred the original Starcraft over Starcraft 2. All the problems I had with the original were fixed (only being able to select 12 units at a time, being the #1).

 

[rob mafia]

@GearSolidMetal

yeah, the campaign was kind of terrible. and i had long given up on the game by the time the first dlc came out.

i didn't like the multiplayer much, either. but some of that could be because i was hoping for more races and more unit types. and the fact that the campaign had 2-3x the unit types that the multiplayer seemed to add some insult to injury. but i just didn't really find it fun and quickly abandoned it.

and i double-checked. total war is turn-based.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

@GearSolidMetal

yeah, the campaign was kind of terrible. and i had long given up on the game by the time the first dlc came out.

i didn't like the multiplayer much, either. but some of that could be because i was hoping for more races and more unit types. and the fact that the campaign had 2-3x the unit types that the multiplayer seemed to add some insult to injury. but i just didn't really find it fun and quickly abandoned it.

Um... what? The Wings of Liberty campaign was awesome. I've played through it at least a dozen times.

Loved the different upgrades for units, and you could pick the order of your missions.

It added to the replay value.

Oh, and the five optional Protoss missions were awesome.


Don't know what you're referring to with the 'more races and units.' They already had more units than the original Starcraft. Adding a new race would complicate the 'Rock/Paper/Scissors' element of the multiplayer between the three races, and keeping them all balanced is already a pain in the ass.

But yeah, the Zerg and Protoss DLC campaigns weren't as good as the Terran's, and it seemed like most of the Protoss's missions were cut&paste from the best of the previous campaigns, with a lack of inspiration for the original aspects of the 3rd campaign.

But, when you keep in mind Blizzard has made over a hundred RTS maps between the three Warcraft games, Starcraft 1, and two Starcraft 2's campaigns, it's understandable they're running out of ideas for Starcraft 2's final campaign.

Oh, but one thing about the Zerg and Protoss's campaigns which is unexcusable - the stories suck. The Terran's story was awesome, with only nitpicky complaints. But Zerg's was filled with Hollywood-style predictable cliche's, and Protoss's (my favorite race) was plain boring.

 

[rob mafia]

@GearSolidMetal

re: campaign replay value - for me, it was 0.

the upgrades were fine in theory, but ended up dumb in practice. iirc, the campaign was pretty easy. iirc, the protoss missions were retarded. iirc, the story was absolute crap (and why some of the protoss missions were retarded).

Don't know what you're referring to with the 'more races and units.'

it's self-explanatory. i was hoping for more than 3 races and way more unit types than each race had. ie: the terrans had way more unit types available in the campaign, i saw no real reason to only include half of them in multiplayer (other than laziness).

Adding a new race would complicate the 'Rock/Paper/Scissors' element of the multiplayer between the three races

laziness.

Oh, but one thing about the Zerg and Protoss's campaigns which is unexcusable - the stories suck. The Terran's story was awesome,

lolwut? no, it was crap. i'm guessing it was written by whatever 8 year old wrote d3's story. compare it to sc1/bw - it has no substance and doesn't even really make sense.

 

[SeefourDC]

This post is kind of funny to me. Starcraft 2 is still being supported and is a huge esport. The online competitive and arcade modes of the game are incredibly strong and the other mode I can’t think of the name of just got new content as well.

I think this actually brings up a bigger issue in gaming. I think I’m gonna make a thread on it.

 

[Chubz]

Good RTSs still exist, but the genre has completely nosedived since the early to mid 2000s. I'll just copy--paste a post I made several months back in a similar thread:

The classic RTS genre is in a major rut right now. There have been a few good games over the past several years, but I wouldn't say there are any standout hits.

My favorites have been the 8-Bit franchise (Armies, Hordes, Invaders) and Tooth and Tail.

The 8-Bit games are from Petroglyph (former-Westwood guys) and play just like the old C&C games. What's really cool about them is that if you buy two of the games or even the entire franchise, you can mix and match the factions. Armies has two modern military factions, for example, and Hordes has fantasy humans and Orcs, so if you buy both Armies and Hordes then you can potentially have a modern military facing off against Warcraft-like Orcs. I highly recommend buying all three games just so that you can have access to all of the factions at once. It's a whole lot more fun that way, and the franchise pack only costs about 16 bucks.

Tooth and Tail is a unique RTS. Instead of controlling the camera, you control a single "general" unit and run around the map scouting and constructing buildings. When you want units to attack, you simply rally them to your location and send them forwards. Although this simplifies things quite a bit, there's still enough depth to allow for numerous strategies and give it lots of replay value. The game also plays beautifully with a controller, which is actually what it was built around (don't worry, M&KB still works fine).

Some other notable ones you can check out are:

• Ashes of the Singularity
• Cossacks 3
• Grey Goo
• Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
• Planetary Annihilation: TITANS

Another game I recommend is SpellForce 3. It's an excellent mixture of CRPG and RTS that leans much closer to the RPG side than Warcraft 3 ever did. The user reviews aren't great, but to me it's the very definition of a hidden gem. The SP campaign is just outstanding.

 

[Summoning]

Since WC3 and AoE3 there is quite nothing to play.

Every other genre gets their fair share of games on monthly basis, shooters, adventures, action, mobas and so on.

AoE 4 announced last year August, no screenshots since, nothing.

Try Company of Heroes!

 

[Grassshoppa]

The 90's ended.

 

[Madmick]

Since WC3 and AoE3 there is quite nothing to play.

Every other genre gets their fair share of games on monthly basis, shooters, adventures, action, mobas and so on.

AoE 4 announced last year August, no screenshots since, nothing.

They became the most popular genre of games in the world, and came to dominate eSports. This was always almost an exclusively PC genre:
https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-20-core-pc-games/

MOBAs are technically a subgenre of the RTS genre. They hijacked the genre when Dota grew out of Warcraft III:

1. League of Legends (#1)
2. Dota 2 (#11)
3. Heroes of the Storm (#18)

Meanwhile, for eSports viewing hours on streaming platforms like Twitch/YouTube, Starcraft 2 remains at #9 nearly a decade after its release (with the above in tow at #2, #4, and #7):
https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-games-twitch-youtube/

Here is the Top 100 most played games currently on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Here is Steam's "Popular" tab for RTS:
https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/RTS/#p=0&tab=ConcurrentUsers
Seems like the hybrid turn-based games that manage the battles in real-time have taken over, generally (ex. Total War: WARHAMMER 2, Europa Universalis IV, etc)

Otherwise, I think RTS has really shifted to become the predominant form of hardcore gaming on the mobile (Android/iOS) platforms with games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, etc, and ports of old PC classics that those devices now have the horsepower to handle.

 

[sweede]

I think TS should look around and there are some really good games. And as someone mentioned already, Frostpunk is a really awesome. As of late, indie developers has really been improving both in movie and game world. Now I feel like creating a new thread with a particular game in mind.

 

[echohead]

I don't subscribe to the idea that league and DOTA are RTS's just from playing them.

I know for me the difference was getting into 4x games. I like how they bridge the game between tradition RTS and big view games like Civ.
For other people I think the problem is the learning curve is even more brutal than MOBA's which has to hinder the competitive scene.

 

[echohead]

I think TS should look around and there are some really good games. And as someone mentioned already, Frostpunk is a really awesome. As of late, indie developers has really been improving both in movie and game world. Now I feel like creating a new thread with a particular game in mind.

This is the real answer to 99% of the posts commenting that gaming is somehow worse today. Games haven't gotten worse, consumers have. Get out there and dig around you can find amazing niche games that are what you are looking for most of the time.

 

[ookii]

After Starcraft 2, the most anticipated RTS ever, wasn't as successful as Blizzard expected (but still awesome, IMO), it sent signals to PC developers that RTS is a dying genre. Probably because they're impossible to port to consoles.

The only RTS not named Starcraft I'd be interested in buying are the Total War Warhammer games, but even the first one is being sold at full price on Steam, with a dozen DLC campaigns at full price as well. Total cost for game + all DLCs = $230.

I'd pick it up for $60, but not a dollar more.

You just have to keep an eye on Steam everyday for sales. Right now X-com 2 is 60% off at $20. Not that long ago, you could have got the complete Warhammer1+2 including all DLCs for around $60.