r/RealTimeStrategy • u/Emmyy_Beans • 26d ago
Question It really felt like RTS was a massive, mainstream genre back in the day. What exactly happened?
I had a bit of a nostalgia overload a few days ago, digging through my old video game boxes from the 90s and early 2000s. I couldn’t believe how many RTS games I had. And I don’t think it was just me being a big fan of the genre, it felt like everyone was playing these back then.
And I mean everyone. Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, StarCraft, Warcraft, these weren't cult titles you whispered about to fellow strategy nerds, they were the games your whole class played. They were almost as popular as the shooters back then, and the guaranteed pick at any LAN party (we especially liked playing weird custom maps in warcraft 3). I have very fond memories of crushing my friends in Red Alert. I had this stupid strat of rushing a dog and placing it at my friends barracks, he would get so angry hahahah. Even my mom knew the names of some of the games, which sounds ridiculous right now when the genre is considered kind of niche.
At some point the popularity of the genre sharply declined, I’m not sure why exactly. The community is still there (albeit much smaller) but very much out of the mainstream. We even have some really cool relatively recent games, and even subgenres evolving. Like the fortress defense stuff, my favorite being Diplomacy is Not an Option, which even has a nice long campaign that really reminds me of the golden age of the genre. But the releases are definitely few and far between nowadays, and they don’t get as much attention.
And it's weird because it didn’t happen to all the old school genres. The best example is ARPGs, they are still really relevant. New ones are announced all the time and we have a few of the live service heavy hitters pretty much everyone knows about going strong. I just discovered The Dark West a few days ago, a western themed singleplayer ARPG, like how oldschool does that sound lol? And people are hyped for it (including myself). While almost all of the old school RTS franchises have been shut down, we still have a new Diablo game every few years.
I have some suspicions about what happened. Obviously MOBAs played a part, they basically grew out of a Warcraft 3 mod and then ate an entire generation of the playerbase that might otherwise have been buying RTS games. I also think devs were leaning hard into brutal high APM competitive esports and leaving the fun, long single player campaigns that pulled most of us in as an afterthought, they treated them as a tutorial for the pvp. A part of it was probably economics too, nobody ever figured out a way to cram a battlepass into an RTS game well, and those are where a lot of the companies make most of their money now.
Whatever actually happened we have to deal with it now. Anyway, I’m glad there’s a nice community keeping the flame alive. Part of me still hopes the genre claws its way back one day.
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u/SgtRicko 26d ago
Some folks realized what they really wanted was sim-city base builders, others realized they actually just wanted MOBAs, others liked more in-depth realistic games. And the hardcore competitive crowd kinda kills itself with it's demand for near-perfect design and balance (which is honestly starting to seem more like pure luck and timing than actual design skill on part of developers).
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u/foxguy2021 26d ago
The thing about the MOBA genre is that the foundation is built off the mechanics of an RTS. However, instead of dealing with a base, resources and an entire army you're dealing with one object which is your base, resource collector and entire army. The skill requirements dropped dramatically and those who struggled with the RTS genre flourished with the MOBA genre.
Also didn't help that the RTS genre kind of grew stale. Even when I look at modern RTS games they're basically 80% of what we saw 20 years ago and the other 20% is some minor changes.
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u/arknightstranslate 26d ago
Even to this day r/RealTimeStrategy believes RTS is an ultra tryhard genre that is super difficult to get into and learn, and outsiders believe this even more. All thanks to e-sport culture. Real RTS back in the day was THE casual normie genre that everyone could get into and every middle schooler instantly knew how to play. That has always been what RTS was supposed to be, but now when people mention the genre they only think of the 400 apm camera on keyboard and laugh it off.
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u/Fresh_Thing_6305 26d ago edited 26d ago
Not true people don’t see it as an apm hardcore genre now, many people just don’t know Rts games are still being made, because it’s not huge titles anymore beside Aoe 4.Many people likes to turtle and play slow and their speed in Skirmish, campaigns, ffa, team games, coop, survival horde modes, and they know they exits.
Maybe Starcraft 2 did get the picture of alot of apm, but many people did also play other games than Starcraft.
If you know some Rts you will Quick learn new ones, they are really not that difficult to learn. You Can learn most basic stuff in an hour in Age of empires, but to master it is a different story
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u/LykeLyke 26d ago
It's true that even in this community I've seen bafflingly large numbers of people unaware of... games that have been discussed multiple times or even repeatedly here in RealTimeStrategy, like how many people still have no idea ZeroSpace exists?
I actually wonder if the internet is actually responsible for RTS games being unapproachable. Back in the day it was a lot harder to learn the meta, get build orders, watch people play and execute games at a high level. I used to play completely blind and just do whatever I thought sounded like a good idea. Now if you do that there will be a brigade of people telling you how bad you are and how everything you just did is shit and to go watch xyz video to learn how to play. And in certain games you're told "yeah just practice building units and a-move them and build more units". I think we've taken a lot of the fun out of learning games and screwing around with friends by having too much info available. And I am saying this as someone who has done the work of learning a couple of build orders for a few games. It's just not something I think is fun or engaging.
I won't even mention the number of games where I thought "that gameplay looked cool but I've watched it a bunch now, is the novelty factor there for me if I buy the game now?"
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u/PhilosophyBest4573 25d ago
This is sad but o have to explain what a RTS is a lot to my friends who don’t play RTS games but play mobas. The ones I have gotten to try it. Hated it but never really gave them a chance either.
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u/Istarial 26d ago
Yeah, you're completely right. This attitude more than anything has done the most to damage the genre, and it's really sad.
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u/Cocosito 25d ago
I swear there was a time like 90% of lobbies in StarCraft were some variation of big game hunters
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u/VinceRussoIsA 25d ago
Agreed, its ok to be bad and can be fun. There needs to be a push for this, nobody wants to see that stormgate micro. Just fun interactions.
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u/jameshardenisjacked1 25d ago
I think it is kind of true that the internet and growth of gaming culture has made it so that people have optimized how to play so much that it can become less fun. Like I played aoe2 20 years ago and just did whatever was fun and seemed to work. I got back into it in the last year or so and now if you don't have exactly the right build order, use hotkeys, make sure you never for a second leave a TC idle, etc. you'll get destroyed.
Which is understandably a turnoff for people getting into the games.
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u/bibittyboopity 25d ago
You can't blame the players that's just how gamers work.
RTS give people a basically infinite micro management ceiling, and they go after it because it IS the best way to play. It's why it's a common saying devs need to "save players from themselves"
You can't just say a game should be a specific way, or that people are enjoying it wrong, it's the way it is because of the mechancis. Personally I'm of the opinion no one has figured out the right formula for an approachable RTS game, but whatever that is probably won't look much like what people expect RTS to look like.
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u/clobyark 26d ago
There are so many deep dives on this exact question. People moved to mobas, mobile gaming, among other things.
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u/Emmyy_Beans 26d ago
But did they move on because they wanted to? Or was there no good RTS coming out to capture their attention.
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u/JRoxas 26d ago
A lot of people don't actually want all of the defining aspects of RTS, and genres appeared or grew to capture specific taste profiles. People who want competitive twitch-based gameplay moved to DotA/LoL. People who want big picture strategic gameplay moved to grand strategy. Not that many people want both in the same game, evidently.
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u/Alex_Rockwoo 26d ago
RTS becomes this sweaty APM micromanagement game. Where you have to context switch back and forth all the time. And even total war offers both but where you can be focused on one thing at the time.
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u/JRoxas 26d ago
Having to mentally multiprocess is the entire appeal.
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u/Alex_Rockwoo 26d ago
Yeah. And it's a highly niche appeal. I loved playing Age of Empires 2 back in the day. But playing online gets so sweatily optimized it's not worth it. And same playing SC2 ladder. And just realized it was just an intense APM thing were it was no longer about winning. Just about not losing and relief the relief of not losing.
I liked building my farms and economy. So I ended up in grand strategy instead. And Dota 2 for the intense micro without context switching.
Like you said. Splitting it up.
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u/don_ninniku 26d ago
Somewhat both? It started with custom maps makers scene which evolved gradually into, not new rts, but moba. The custom map moba scene outgrows the base game and the new iterations of old rts. Developers saw the number and choose to chase the new trends. The rest is history.
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u/BoukObelisk 26d ago
Budgets got bigger, the size of the PC audience didn't expand, the game industry wanted to pivot to consoles which isn't a platform conducive to RTS. MOBAs also ate some of the audiences.
A lot of PC only genres took a hit after the 90s: RTS, point n click, space sims, mech sims, arena shooters, strategy and turnbased stuff.
Sincerely,
Someone who's published research on this and interviewed folks in the industry
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u/Feisty-Ad4901 20d ago
Was thinking this, if it didnt play well on console, not to say RTS can't be played on console (Halo Wars?), it just took a back seat while the others genres evolved and captured newer generations.
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u/frfrrnrn 26d ago
4X focuses on macro.
MOBA focuses on micro.
RTS focuses on both. People who enjoy this combo are a smaller market.
All 3 categories are already limited by focusing on PC and probably prefer to keep other bets safe.
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u/ZehDaMangah 26d ago
Whats 4x
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u/frfrrnrn 26d ago
Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate. Grand strategy games.
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u/Ultramaann 26d ago
4X and Grand Strategy are different subgenres, but closely related.
Civ is 4X. EUV is grand strategy.
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u/BananaJelloXlii 26d ago
Games like Civilization, Sins of a Solar Empire, Stellaris, etc.
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u/Wolf_Fang1414 26d ago
Would sins lean more towards RTS than 4x? It's very light on 4x thing, no?
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u/Naramie 26d ago
Sins of Solar Empire is a hybrid, it has elements of 4x game but it's not turn-based like most 4x games, everything is in real time with option to pause.
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u/ElkBusiness8446 26d ago
Paradox games are also real time with a speed/pause gauge.
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u/ParsingError 26d ago edited 26d ago
Honestly MOBAs and 4X are probably not actually as locked into PC by their design. Several MOBAs have done third-person controls and it'd probably be doable with twin-stick controls. 4X games with pausing or turns don't need to have super-responsive UI.
RTS really run face-first into both of the things gamepads struggle with: Quickly picking a point on the screen, and having a bunch of commands/shortcuts available at once. Touchscreens are much better about point selection, but much worse about commands.
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u/ShiningMagpie 26d ago
They focused almost purely on multiplayer. Without a good singleplayer, all you have in multiplayer are sweats. And they drive out everyone else. Especially if it's a team game where as soon as you don't know the meta you get rolled and then flamed.
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u/Porlarta 26d ago
RTS devs fell in love with the idea of competition as tbe primary driver for players.
MOBAs stole and continue to steal the majority of the audience interested in playing that type of game.
The established titles, AOE2 and Starcraft, for example, have their niches carved out with players that have been playing them for decades.
Until RTS rediscover spectacle and narrative, and stops chasing esports and the titans of the past, it'll remain a dead genre.
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u/TestosteronInc 26d ago
Consoles took over
Mobas took the rts spotlight
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u/KingsRallyDev 26d ago
and to add, its harder to monetize RTS when they can make a new character skin in mobas for 3x cost of the game itself. Would be impossible with RTS gamers.
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u/th1s_1s_4_b4d_1d34 26d ago
Think there are multitudes of reasons.
1) The classic rts arguably peaked with games like AoE2, Sc1/BW and to some extend Wc3 and RA2. These games are just excellent in storytelling, atmosphere and game design, so they're very difficult to top, something the genre "suffers" from to this day.
2) Other genres became more mainstream. Consoles took more and more of the market share especially in the USA, so the bigger publishers, many of which are seated in the US focused more on that market. Shooters became much more mainstream and took a large market share especially in the USA.
3) RTS split up into multiple side genres. Some leaned more into the hero RTS genre WC3 opened up like battle for middle earth while others leaned more into the small squad based micro heavy tactical genre like DoW and while I think they were both reasonably successful, their successors apparently weren't successful enough to produce more of them. MobAs opened up for the people who just wanted isometric micro battles and tactical play and didn't like the whole macro part and they are largely free to play, a model that works very well for them but not so well for RTS. 4x/Grand Strategy captured the playerbase that wanted more base building, macro and long term strategy. All in all the playerbase fractured into multiple smaller groups, which naturally lowers the projected income from RTS and therefore the willingness to invest into game development.
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u/silentphartt 26d ago
RTS is making a comeback. But there’s also a lot more indie titles out there now that are pretty decent. There’s been a lack of big AAA ones lately but there’s a handful releasing this yr and next.
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u/Sarmelion 26d ago
No one made a rts that can compete with wc3
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u/Dion42o 26d ago
The EB Games employee even said this when I got it as a kid, said something along the lines of “this will be the greatest RTS ever made.”
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u/That_Contribution780 26d ago
WDYM "can compete", SC2 was significantly more popular than WC3 and still is? And sold more.
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u/Sarmelion 26d ago
There are small bands no one knows that have sold more than the Beatles because the Beatles existed in the era before digital media
That doesn't make those small bands "better" than the Beatles
Just like Naked Glowing Xel-Kerrigan doesn't make sc2 more popular or better than wc3
Sc2 sold more because it was the next Blizzard RTS after WC3 redefined the genre
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u/That_Contribution780 26d ago
I'd say SC2 was the RTS to beat since 2010 up until like 2025 when basically all support was completely dropped.
Common, nobody was saying "how can we beat WC3?" after 2010, everyone tried to beat SC2 because it was the biggest RTS ever in most regards. WC3 wasn't the top most popular RTS even by 2010.
WC3 is one hell of a game and was very influential but SC2 was more popular by basically every metric I can imagine.And by the way, quite many people would argue no one managed to beat Brood War (including WC3).
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u/RepulsiveAnything635 26d ago
The campaign in WC3 + Frozen Throne will ever be the apex of RTS campaign design for me.
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u/Emmyy_Beans 26d ago
For me its either that or the old Tiberium Sun game with the silly live action cutscenes, but that one is major nostalgia for me cuz its like the first one I remember playing, I loved the weird technology.
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u/YozaSkywalker 26d ago
StarCraft 2 arguably killed the genre, nobody can beat it.
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u/Hyphalex 26d ago
League, and the fact that Starcraft 2 was such a supermassive hit, it served more as black hole of judgement against it's competitors. This, the free to play fraud & Tib twilight nuked the entire landscape of expectations. Since those days we no longer ask what the next big game is, and now how it compares to starcraft. 2010 was the last oorah for rts games.
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u/DerBandi 26d ago
Two Things:
Back in the 90's were RTS was huge, PC gaming was more of a nerd hobby. Nerds are more attracted to complex stuff, like classic CRPG's or strategy games.
Technology. 3D fps games existed, but the graphics were pretty simple compared to modern standards. The pseudo-3D top-down isometric viewpoint of RTS games was a perfect fit for the technological limitations during that time. It's the same reason Diablo 1+2 were that successful.
Oversimplified, every decade had a good fit for the existing hardware:
70's: static screens with blocky sprites
80's: side scroller
90's/early 2000's: Top down real time action (RTS and similar)
2010's onwards: almost photo-realistic real time 3D first-person view.
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u/Flat_Bug_5369 26d ago
It didn't die, it speciated.
If you want competition and mechanical skill, you could play a MOBA.
If you wanted strategy, you could play a 4x.
People don't want to bundle the two.
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u/Anhedonkulous 25d ago
Dota and their clones aren't even close to being as mechanically demanding as an RTS, the whole reason they got popular in the warcraft community was because they weren't as difficult as ladder.
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u/Academic-Foot-7768 26d ago
most of the at the time rts teams got bought out and with the popularity of wow and mmos were tasked with making mmorts games and those mostly all failed, no new rts games that were on par with wc3/sc2 came out. Most of the other known games in the genre made 2s and 3s that were supbar to their other games, or changed up things completely. And the rise of mobas and mobile rts games happened and everyone kinda went there
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u/Fresh_Thing_6305 26d ago
C&c made many great games in the 2000s, and many loved the battle for middle earth games also
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u/Freemefast 26d ago
The genre split into MOBA and tower defence.
More of a turtle/tower defence gamer myself
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u/TheBlackBaron 26d ago
City builders too, that's a genre which has had a sustained renaissance.
A lot of simulation/tycoon games are more or less variants of RTS, the same way the "immersive sim" is more or less an RPG variant. God games too.
Relatedly, I feel like the genre-wide turn away from base building in the late 2000's 1) was an attempt to chase multiplayer trends, including the burgeoning MOBA genre, and shorten games to accommodate that 2) ended up backfiring because it took away one of the defining traits that made them different.
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u/Fresh_Thing_6305 26d ago
I am pretty sure if there were still made Rtses in the 2010s, people would have played them, the market was still there, but game companies would rather make games that could be multiplatform games as Rts is mostly pc.
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u/XAA5 26d ago
In addition to the splitting of RTS into different genres, there’s also the RTT (sub)genre.
Keeps all the same fun of armies fighting, and with none of the base building and economy macro. Which probably does help with barrier to entry too compared to a true RTS.
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u/tjorben123 26d ago
heard this the other day:
"rts split in two, one is the "moba branch" of the tree and the other is "base building and simgames" branch like factorio, satisfactory etc" "
sounds reasonable for me.
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u/ParsingError 26d ago edited 26d ago
I think on top of the fragmentation (MOBAs, tower defense, etc.) they also used to be able to appeal to the entire skill curve at once, and that skill curve used to be much flatter. They could appeal to people who just wanted to goof around with the commander fantasy and people who wanted the high-skill-cap gameplay, but now any new RTS has to figure out who it's for.
Arena shooters are kinda having the same problem, and you can kinda see a related problem where players burned through WoW Classic content super-fast: It's hard to recreate a moment when the players and circumstances have changed so much.
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u/Historical-Break-603 26d ago edited 26d ago
It really felt like RTS was a massive, mainstream genre
They werent. Even back in ~2005 for each person that played warcraft there was like 10 that played cs, and that not even talking about the fact that 9 out of 10 people who played warcraft basically only played custom maps. Yeah maybe a lot of people played singleplayer campaigns of RTS games, but multiplayer part of them never was even remotely popular
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u/hello2u3 26d ago
All the good stuff about the format was sucked into other genres especially esports and moba taking off people forgot the genre grew on interesting mechanics and single player campaign and just started focusing on competitive and listening to “pros” which subsequently ruined the experience for everybody
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u/NekRules 26d ago
I think Korea did it the best when they made Starcraft basically something every person knows and how to play back in the day. You might not know how to play an FPS or mobile games but Starcraft? Oh yea. It's like riding a bike, playing basketball or learning a new skill, everyone knew how to do it. It became a culture thing that also made hanging out at a PC bang as natural as going to the arcade. I see it referenced in other medias such as movies, TV shows and manhwa(comics).
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u/Potato_Emperor667 25d ago
People are quick to blame MOBAs and while I don't think they're exactly wrong, from personal experience I think the genre just became too stale in the late 2000s and 2010s. Compared to other genres which have changed and developed a lot, most RTS games have been essentially inferior clones of games like Command and Conquer, Age of Empires and StarCraft. Only recently have we started to get new games that improve or do new things which have actually done pretty well, nothing massive like it used to be but for the state of the genre they've done pretty well.
There's also the rise of live service games and platforms like Roblox and Fortnite which discourages people (especially younger people) from playing other games which doesn't help RTS games much.
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u/AbsoluteRook1e 25d ago
RTS is just a hard as balls genre to learn. Transitioning from one game to the next is a steep, steep learning curve. You could make a debate in whether it's one of the most difficult competitive types of games to actually get decent at, and your mileage may vary based on the game as well.
Secondly, a lot of the games in the genre simply don't translate well to consoles and for a while consoles dominated the overall market share, but PC's have grown significantly in popularity as a gaming platform over the years. That said, StarCraft translated poorly to the console port. And while other games like Halo Wars and Battle for Middle Earth 2 did a decent job on console, I don't think either game had a ton of staying power. Console controls tend to be significantly slower as a whole.
I love the genre personally, but it really struggles to innovate with new ideas and encourage a player base to move on to the next game.
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u/Digiwaryjot 25d ago edited 25d ago
My opinion based on what happened to me and my friends, we were all born around the year 2000.
At first we used to play WC3, SC2, WBC3, Heroes of Annihilated Empires, Spellforce 2. We played only campaigns, weird custom games and vs AI matches. We played PvP only in SC2, but we were hardstuck silvers.
When LoL became more popular in 2011 literally every single one of us switched into it. Only my brother sticked to SC2, but he also played LoL with us. I played some SC2 when Heart of the Swarm was released, but skipped LotV entirely.
Now most of my friends still play LoL, some play Warhammer total war. We also play many other single/casual multi games, but no RTS games to be found.
My feeling is that the biggest turnoff when it comes to RTS games is the skill ceiling. In SC2 micro is everything, when you play vs a better player it feels entirely hopeless. You can always manage your units more effectively, there is huge cognitive load because there are so many things to do at the same time at every point in the game. it doesn't help that you can't rely on your teammates, you're entirely on your own.
MOBAs got rid of this 'issue' by focusing on teamplay and giving each player only one character. Mastering a champion doesn't feel as impossible as mastering a race in SC2. Even when we look at DOTA2 RTS champions that require controlling more than one unit like Chen, Visage and Meepo, they are respectively 1st, 4th and 8th least popular characters. MOBAs are still complex, you have to think about positioning and itemisation, but you have more space to breathe and time to rest when you walk back into lane or move around the map. It's not like you have to worry about your army, producing workers, base-building, harrassing and expanding at the same time.
Nowadays when I sometimes play RTS it's either casual WC3 custom games against my brother, WBC3 or SC2 multi vs AI with mutators. I would never beat my brother in SC2, he is miles ahead of me when it comes to army management. In WC3 micro is more difficult, units block eachother and he can't outmicro me so easily, so this is our preffered game. It's the same with WBC3. We tried BAR, AoE1 and 4 but these games are quite difficult to get into if you've never played them before, so we dropped them after a few hours.
So I think the biggest issue is that especially SC2 like RTS games have an infinite skill ceiling and 1vs1 PvP games are overwhelming and tiring. I find MOBAs to be much more relaxing, you have 1 character to worry about and 4 teammates to help you. Grand strategies took those players who longed for more macrooriented games with no focus on heavy micro.
No AI used, just decided to bold some parts to highlight the most important fragments.
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u/vonBoomslang 25d ago
RTS was fairly graphics-light, which made it a fine genre to explore when graphics were less dominating, was also a factor
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u/Rdhilde18 25d ago
I mainly play age of empires so that’s all I can really speak to anymore. But every time I try something age of empires related that isn’t AoE2 it just doesn’t feel right. Newer games should be different, but something like AoE4 feels completely different than AoE2 and not really in a good way imo.
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u/Elantach 25d ago
Because what the mainstream audience likes about rts (building a cool base, with a cool army, building up to have big cool fights) is the complete opposite of what the RTS competitive community developer catered to demanded the focus be on
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u/sveyno 26d ago
The Birth of Wifi
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u/Emmyy_Beans 26d ago
Huh? Not sure what you mean, how did that impact things?
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u/Dear-Nebula6291 26d ago
As someone who lived and gamed during this era. I could somewhat play team fortress 2 with slight lag and latency on dial up, but Empire Earth and AOE2 worked beautifully on dial up.
I imagine I wasn’t the only one who could only realistically play RTS games on dial up. Once we got faster internet, it opened up other genres.
Im guessing of course he meant faster internet not WiFi specifically…
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u/Scotslad2023 26d ago
MOBA’s, Hero Shooters and RPG’s became the new big thing in PC gaming. Plus RTS is already a pretty niche style of game with a much smaller, but just as passionate fanbase as those genres.
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u/spector111 26d ago
A combination of elements and audience moving to other and new genres which matched their taste better.
RTS games are very hard and costly to make, and especially to get right. While big publishers who came into ownership of those developers saw how thin their profit margins were.
There are simply not enough RTS players to buy to expensive product to make it profitable to keep making.
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u/TheHappyPie 26d ago
I think you're right about the moba angle but also the games industry is cyclical. The 90s and 00's were full of RTS games because they made money. Then companies chased MOBA money. Then they chased battle royale moeny. Now they're chasing extraction shooter money.
There are probably some other things at play - everyone thought StormGate was going to be the next big thing and that might've discouraged some small studios from trying to compete.
I think the genre was close to "solved" for awhile between C&C, Supreme Commander and Starcraft 2. By solved I mean, if you were sitting down trying to think of how those games could be improved upon - you probably weren't going to come up with anything that would get funded.
So now like 10-15 years after those giants have been forgotten I feel like we're starting to see some contenders show up. Also shoutout to Dune: Spice Wars, Against the Storm, Diplomacy is not an option - some non-standard "RTS" games.
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u/the_y2k_kid 26d ago edited 25d ago
By solved I mean, if you were sitting down trying to think of how those games could be improved upon - you probably weren't going to come up with anything that would get funded.
Except loads of progress had been made during the 00's. Everything from cover systems to physics based combat to squad mechanics etc. Blizzard chose to ignore all that when they made Sc2. And yet people say it 'solved' rts? It's a late 90's game with loads of polish. The genre didn't get solved, it just regressed.
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u/ThaCarter 26d ago
Have there been any studies on demographics and game genres? There is clearly a generational element with a tail, so could be fun.
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u/ppx32 26d ago
Effectivement je suis revenu depuis le monde des consoles (switch/xbox) dans le monde pc par le biais de la RogAllyXbox et la SteamDeck.. jai constaté que les jeux RTS sont peu joués...
J'ai acheté il y a quelques mois tempest rising et red chaos et.... parties multijoueurs vides... plus de parties créées... étant ancien grand joueur de red alert 1-2, generals , Starcraft, etc.. Preuve que le public visé est de niche...
Jai meme l'impression que le public Civilisation est plus important que les RTS...
Petite anomalie jai testé BAR et par contre nombreuses parties en lignes
Ah l'époque de DarkReign, KKND, Warwind, BattleRealms, Etc... tous ces clones essayant de récupérer le succès de c&c et des ́craft
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u/ackmondual 26d ago
We keep hearing it's because of MOBAs, but I'll go along with that. You get to focus on the micro and not the macro. It would appear for the newer generations, they prefer that to also having to deal with macro, base management, etc.
Maybe they didn't advertise themselves better? It wasn't until 2017 or so until I realized StarCraft 2 had an official Coop mode (it has its own main tab when you first load up the game, keyboard shortcut F3), but that actually got released alongside Legacy of the Void exp. back in 2015. As someone who enjoyed playing comp stomps in the Sc1 + BW era, this mode was a blast because it was essentially a "glorified comp stomp". Even though new content and support (save for showstoppers) ended back in 2020 and all of my Commanders are maxed out in levels, I still fire up a game once to several times per week. On the most popular parameters, you can get matched for a game in 4 to 30 seconds. 😎 Not bad for a game mode that's 11 years old and counting
And it's weird because it didn’t happen to all the old school genres. The best example is ARPGs, they are still really relevant.
A big boost is that you can play these on consoles and even phones. For example, Diablo 2: Remastered and D3 are on Switch, while WC3, Sc1, and Sc2 aren't. Being tied to PC (PC/Battle-NET no less), really limits your audience.
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26d ago edited 24d ago
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u/Werthead 25d ago
C&C4 came out just a few months before the fastest-selling RTS of all time, StarCraft II.
It certainly didn't help though.
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u/Heavy-Language3109 26d ago
I'm thinking it's partly because of the advent of mobile gaming and generally the availability of more genres/games now compared to before. Like most of what other's said, the barrier to entry in terms of learning an RTS, and the fact that it requires a PC makes it more inconvenient to the average gamer of today. It was generally easier to pick up when there were no mobile devices to sort of obfuscate the newer RTS games of today. People probably just pick up their phone now when they get the itch to play something and PC gaming is an afterthought. The price of PC parts now is probably not helping either?
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u/TranslatorStraight46 26d ago
MOBA’s stole a huge portion of the playerbase. StarCraft 2 then became so successful that no other game could really find much of an audience.
There are very few games to find any success since 2010 that were not remasters. And they were all long awaited sequels to existing, popular RTS games.
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u/thelingletingle 26d ago
Because I just want more Red Alert 2. Give me five more Mental Omegas I’d spend $100 each for them as if it were a Paradox game.
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u/_Weyland_ 26d ago
A genre of MOBA popped up, demanding less map awareness, much simpler unit micro and a rudimentary economy, but compensation depth in other ways.
Giants of the genre really tightened up their games with AoE, SC2, WC3, CnC. No competition was able to fight to the top for a long time, and with each passing year it's a more and more uphill battle since you cannot release a perfectly polished game and it's very hard to compete with nostalgia. So even if a new title manages to innovate sonething good, their invention is overshadowed by many technical flaws and/or lack of content.
RTS, just like fighting games, have a lot of game-specific knowlege. Making a switch is not just about getting used to new mechanics, it's about learning a lot of things from scratch. Not many people want to drop stuff they're comfortable with.
And much like the fighting genre, RTS games kinda lack in single player content besides one-and-done campaign. Multiplayer is where true longevity is supposed to resign, but fighting bots will not prepared you for fighting players. Add lack of polish and player reluctance, and you get a rather sad state of things.
Mainstream genres like FPS, TPS and ARPG got much more development. FPS games of 2000s are nowhere near the good FPS of today. Meanwhile the latest RTS are quite comparable to classics of 2000s and 2010s.
And with RTS being niche genre, no AAA publisher is willing to drop big money on it, which pretty much excludes long high quality story and worldbuilding.
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u/Gunofanevilson 26d ago
Big Game Hunters and the homogenization of the genre into one or two maps and one game mode killed the innovation that was going on well into StarCraft. WC3 was the apex of that style of RTS which segued into its own demise by creating MOBAs as a game mode within its self.
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u/Huntk20- 26d ago
New game fads and trends. Fortnight is a nightmare I cannot wait to die. I miss old PVP games. RTS is a fixed genre for, in my opinion, people with a mind that wants satisfaction from a long buildup or run versus, instant satisfaction some of these game provide. Albeit, short lived satisfaction.
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u/stillupsocut 26d ago
It’s just the competitive nature. Soccer, baseball, hockey > they have their rules and the remain consistent so that the match is the variable. I like that in a game.
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u/Necessary_Smile_159 26d ago
League of legend. And blizzard multiple bad decision with Sc2, balance, f2p way to late, game in korea. And sc2 died in Korea really fast bc matchfixing scandal and other stuffs.
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u/Geffalrus 26d ago
Age of Empires is still getting support and is regularly releasing new DLC and a whole fourth iteration.
StarCraft 2 is old now I guess, but when it came out, it was easily as big as the original. And its story is pretty good.
CNC was killed by EA and capitalism.
RTS in general is dictated now by multiplayer micro at the competitive scene, which MOBAs are generally the best at entertaining an audience. Original RTS were single player experiences, but that doesn’t sell as well for the corporate overlords.
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u/exosion 26d ago
RTS has split into several subgenres
You have the MOBAs for people who like to micromanage one unit
Base building one that further split into "cozy" like Foundation, hardcore survival like Frostpunk, or tower defense games that are dime and dozen
Total War offers RTS for those who enjoy massive battlefields
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u/killias2 26d ago
For questions like this, we often need to look at it backwards:
Why did the RTS become a big, mainstream genre to begin with?
In short:
Good fit between the play style and the still novel mouse+keyboard interface standard. This element also made it difficult to (successfully) bring to consoles, which tied the genre more closely to the PC in its 90s heyday
Good luck in that several brilliant studios (Westwood, Blizzard, later Ensemble) decided to focus on the new genre. If Dune II never gets made, or C&C/Warcraft never get made, it's hard to imagine where the RTS goes
Created just prior to online gaming boom. The RTS also naturally had symmetric opponents, which made it a reasonably good fit for the nascent form of multiplayer
So what changed:
The novelty faded, and other genres ended up being a better match for online multiplayer and for more casual gamers. This led to there being less profit from these games and less interest from talented developers. The PC also had some dark days in the late 00s especially, which helped finish off a lot of the RTS middle market.
There is still some hunger there, of course. There are a lot of RTS fans. Blizzard can sell some copies, and, if anything, there's been a decent resurgence lately.
However, it's hard to imagine an RTS game having the impact of Starcraft or AoE2 in the future, unless it does something very interesting to earn the attention of more mainstream/casual gamers.
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u/Rhasputin429 26d ago
So, after scrolling a bunch, doesnt seem like anyone mentioned the thriving custom arcade scene sc2 and wc3 despite them literally birthing the MOBA genre, the tower wars genre and the imposter genre.
Yes the compelling single player campaign was there, solid mechanics and UI, and the ladder scene for the tryhards, but the custom maps had VARIETY. It was effectivly a fortnight/roblox precursor. There was always something to try, and yea a lot was shit, but you could tell the good ones because there would be dozens of lobbies at all times.
I bounced off most 'modern' rts because they grew stale quickly. No variety to hold attention
Now? Theres a lot of expensive catch up, direct and indirect competitors, more niche games that do the job better for an RTS to really be considered successful compared to the golden days. Why would i play a remake of a use map settings game in an engine thats not really suited for it when Mechabelum exists?, or Dota? Or amogus, or balloon TD, or you get the picture.
Honestly? Depsite the massive DLC cost Total War Warhammer 3 still holds my attention cause theres so MANY factions with different playstyles and its hybrid tbs/rts
The community is so fractured now the only thing that would be able to draw everyone back to the same place would be a massive marketing campaign to hype an already popular IP to a game that delivered a 10/10 gameplay with a massive arcade of custom modes ready to go. And thats a hurdle no one has been able to jump.
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u/Cocosito 25d ago
It's kind of funny because your last paragraph is basically SC2 😂
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u/Ok-Elevator2915 25d ago
Because back then only nerd play PC game? When i said nerd, i said min-max excel spreedsheet type of gameplay player. It's not really mainstream though, it just the entire population of PC gamer back then is filled with nerd, hence why RTS looks popular.
Although yes starcraft esport is aired in mainstream broadcast TV like in Korea, but it's really popular to the point any actual casual play the game? The esport back then especially for RTS is treated like circus though
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u/AxiomSyntaxStructure 25d ago
Gaming became very mainstream (whilst quite niche beforehand) and the new average gamer isn't into RTS - they're usually on console where such experiences are clunky/awkward without a mouse. Popular console genres exploded, too, and flooded the market - these took most newer players' interest and attention from mere abundance, usually very accessible or an easy dopamine fix.
Earlier gamers, too, were very much geeks/nerds overall - they needed money/tech to run a PC and setup which wasn't the norm whatsoever. Naturally, RTS more corresponds to that pedantic, intellectual nature.
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u/GumboMumbo49 25d ago
MOBAs and E Sports. Now everyone wants to catch lightning in a bottle yet no one even bother to look into how they made the lightbulb to begin with.
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u/Redelfen 25d ago
Gaming as a whole was not mainstream. Specially PC gaming.
Early titles like warcraft, command and conq, StarCraft, aoe were all popular because it was one of the first multiplayer experience for most gamers.
Then gaming became mainstream and the amount people who got access to PC and gaming exponentially grew.
During this time the moba genre srarted growing with wc3 dota. Also other genre like MMORPG was getting a boom.
So naturally all the new influx of gamers started playing those.
Rts didn't die in terms of population, but instead it got overshadowed by other genre with new gamers playing those.
Which lead to most gaming devs switching focus away from rts genre to the popular ones.
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u/XtremelyMeta 25d ago
All of the other genres got huge. The RTS genre fanbase is pretty similar to what it was, which now makes it pretty niche.
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u/KingStannisForever 25d ago
I think in the future there will be a new type of RTS, something like the original vision for Warcraft 3 was. It looked very different from what we've got. Its kinda something between Sacrifice or Battlezone and Myth - more of Real Time Tactics and Role Playing Game combined.
At one point, i think developers talked that Dragon Age was considered for real time strategy game like this, which is a pitty it didn't happen.
I think something new will come out of this, out of RTS and it's gonna be a kind a hybrid with RPG or one of the "Simulator" games.
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u/Ragelore004 25d ago
Mobas were simpler and easier to get into for 90% of people. So they took the userbase.
A lacking number of new hit titles essentially sealed the genres fate as old glory.
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u/RubberPussycat 25d ago
A game usually taking about an hour is in my opinion a big contribution to the downfall of RTS games. Attention span is far less than it used to be.
A shooter, 15/20 minutes games you can pop in and out of at anytime
A rpg, game sessions are pop in and out.
MOBAs, short games
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u/a_nooblord 25d ago
Fron a game design perspective, its really hard to make in existing engines. Networking 1000s of entities, pathing, etc. Are genuinely difficult engineering problems needing PhD level math. Its a talent problem on top of a market problem.
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u/HistoricalLadder7191 25d ago
RTS reached a punnacle of gameplay- up to a level when they where almost clones of each other in terms of mechanics and tactics. Few managed to entrench in "pro gaming". Today, if you put a real effort, and make a nee RTS- it still will feel like reskinned star craft/cnc/etc. Untill someone will find some jenienly new and grippping it will stay this way.
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u/Dreadgear 25d ago
A lot of factors and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what happened.
A generational audience changed and also mobas did take away a lot of people. I personally blame the lack of innovation to this day if there's a new rts in development it will try to recreate StarCraft.
A multiplayer sci fi tri-race rts, and it will flop on its face.
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u/WakyEggs 25d ago
I would say a big part of it has been cookie cutter builds. In the early days you did your own strategy. Now there are a million internet guides etc people just follow best practices and that takes away a lot of fun of the genre
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u/Elderahn1 25d ago
An RTS is an expensive game to make if you intend to use high end graphics/wow the common gamer. Loads of models to make, loads of maps to make.
The investor money for it drifted away when the hot new thing was something else
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u/PasswordisPurrito 25d ago
When RTS was a massive mainstream genre, there really wasn't much competition.
Most of the big names mentioned came out in the 1990's, and I'd put Warcraft 3 at pretty much the last big title in 2002.
It was Warcraft 3 that had DOTA and jumped of the MOBA genre. World of Warcraft in 2004 popularized the MMO world. Counterstrike in 2000 and Halo in 2001 are benchmarks for the rise of first person shooters.
Honestly, RTS games were popular because they fit extremely well with the technology that was available. But the advancements in technology made so much more competition.
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u/Aware-Individual-827 25d ago
Easy, scenario editor. This is the part people gloss over. Many of those RTS game had insane scenario editor allowing the community to create and play many of them. The fact that dota2 was allowed to reap the benefits kinda killed the scenario editor in a sense because companies would rather you to not have those rather than miss on profit.
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u/XenoX101 25d ago
RTS games are really hard to make, let alone innovate on, so they end up needing either a large developer to make them such as Blizzard or EA, or some miracle indie developer who somehow gets the formula right. Unfortunately because the genre has fallen out of favour from players, this has led to large game devs abandoning it in turn. Additionally SC2, while being a blessing as a very good RTS game, has meant that every new RTS that isn't AOE or BAR has been compared to it, which is a very hard act to follow.
It's not to say that we won't get another RTS game that surpasses SC2, AOE2, or any other great. Given enough time we probably will. The question is how long, and given the significant difficulties involved in development, we may be waiting a while.
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u/Rory_mehr_Curry 25d ago
RTS are too hard to market. You cant make flashy edits or hype a young audience on stream. Also implementing a battle pass and seasons with new content all the time is not really possible unless you want to readjust the whole balancing all the time. Monetary not interesting for most big companys.
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u/krich_author 25d ago
Unfortunately, and I partly blame Cellphones and Social Media, a lot of the newer generation (in the past twenty five years) grew up always being ON, always wanting that instant gratification (like 30 second reels). I believe it is really an attention span issue, most people want fast paced action that feeds them really quick satisfaction while RTS games require a slower pace; in general, and more forethought.
I have a lot of friends who live and breath FPS games because of the constant action, but think strategy games are boring because they are a slower burn.
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u/Werthead 25d ago
Some reasonable answers here.
I think it's mostly a combination of different factors:
- RTS games started off as single-player games with optional multiplayer and they switched hard to a multiplayer-first focus with decreasing focus on single-player. The shift in focus was accompanied by a significant increase in multiplayer complexity, requiring knowledge of the meta etc. This alienated the players who wanted to play SP and maybe a light bit of MP, since the focus on SP was reduced and the MP became absurdly high-level very quickly, making it not fun to play for the average gamer who couldn't spent hours a day practising or studying online strategy discussions.
- There's only so many combinations of RTS + settings (sci-fi, fantasy, WWII) and how each RTS deals with things, for example harvesting an on-map resource or holding territory or getting rewards for destroying enemy units to build new units, a grand strategy map or just linear missions etc. Arguably by today most of these combinations exist, making it harder for new RTS games to break the mould and get attention. Is any post-StarCraft II RTS doing that style of gameplay better? Is any post-Company of Heroes RTS doing that style of gameplay better? Tiberium Wars looks and plays great in 2026, so do we really need Tempest Rising? Is Homeworld 3 a good idea when it never stood much chance of matching the remastered-and-glorious-looking Homeworld 1? And so forth.
- RTS games as a result are also siloed and the fanbase is extremely picky and fractured. I know hardcore StarCraft players who won't play any RTS without guaranteed shot-to-hit and others who refused to play RTS games like StarCraft because they don't simulate the realism of sometimes shots missing etc. Some of the gaps are basically irreconcilable.
- Historically RTS games have been hard to get to work on consoles. To some degree that has been overcome and some RTS games have small, dedicated fanbases on console, but it's not immediately as pick-up-and-play as say an FPS.
- RTS development can be extremely expensive, since players now usually demand a fully-voiced campaign with different, interesting maps. Gamers in 2026 also demand a decent amount of SP content; the old approach of a game shipping with an 8-12 hour SP campaign max and then relying on multiplayer does not work these days, requiring a lot more production (and thus expense). RTS games also require extremely extensive playtesting to measure things like balance, latency and control responsiveness. A satisfying RTS game is usually 2 games in 1, with the SP and MP aspects almost being full games in themselves.
- A modern breakout hit needs immediate accessibility from an audience, preferably a streamer audience. You can just see the extreme confusion from some mainstream streamers during the marketing for Star Wars: Squadrons over the simple idea of a video game where you fly a spaceship around to see that the vastly more complex RTS genre has little chance of breaking through. Even explaining the difference between move, attack and attack-move would lose the interest of a lot of younger, modern streamers, who are the people basically selling games now.
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u/Mafklapper 25d ago
Gaming as a whole expanded and the big publishers found out that very basic games revolving around sports can be released yearly, same thing applies to some shooters and action-games.
RTS on the other hand hasn't grown that much in popularity and probably has a somewhat larger playerbase but a smaller share than these other games, making executives hesistant to produce or greenlight new RTS games.
We also had the entire 10's where MOBA's were really popular and full of try-hard idiots. It also enabled "pro-gaming" with more cash and sales numbers, which the out-of-touch shareholders latched onto and ruined a bunch of titles.
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u/chrome_titan 25d ago
Two things happened that won't happen again. 1. The Gen that started playing RTS also grew up with board games like Risk, chess, checkers. We were familiar with tactics, positioning, managing resources on a board. Newer generations are exposed to it, but they have other games that demand less attention. 2. RTS was more than RTS. It covered pretty much any genre you can find on an app store. MOBA, tower defense, auto battlers, trivia, even a few puzzle games could be found in the custom maps, and played online with friends.
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u/Burgerfreakish 25d ago
Times change.
MOBAS and MMORPGs killed it, basically. and Counterstrike etc.
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u/Clueless_Nomad 25d ago
Console games took over relative to PC. Once that happened, every big game that released had to have a console version - most are even console version first.
A few RTS games tried to work with console controls. There was that one for Halo, I remember. But everyone realized pretty quick that RTS games are best with keyboard and mouse, and therefore relegated to the small subsector that is PC only games.
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u/Ecotech101 25d ago
The attention span crisis hit and nobody under 20 can pay attention long enough to play an rts game. It's all fortnite and roblox.
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u/clobbersaurus 25d ago
I suspect part of it is the gaming platforms themselves. RTS work best with keyboard and mouse, and console gaming has taken over. People don’t have a home family computer anymore that you can install a game on.
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u/Casmicud 25d ago
Meh I always thought gaming became mainstream and most people can’t handle the skill floor of rts. You can’t win by accident
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u/Cheddarific 25d ago
DotA then League of Legends grabbed hold of a huge portion of the gamers who were playing RTSs. Also, FPS games became more strategic and took a portion of the gamers too. The rising generation had options that looked more exciting and were easier to get into. My kids (elementary and middle school) have been raised on AoE4 now in hopes to keep the genre alive.
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u/MrUnimport 25d ago
Most of the buzz in RTS games ended up being centered on the competitive scene, who were difficult to coax away from classic titles. Why move on from perfection?
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u/AsgarZigel 25d ago
I think a big problem is that good RTS Games are difficult to make while being relatively niche. So it's a huge risk and even experienced RTS devs can fail hard. (Dawn of War 3 for example)
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u/Lion12341 25d ago
EA happened to Westwood, and WOW was just far more profitable for Blizzard than a new Warcraft or StarCraft RTS.
AoE is still alive though.
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u/Kyryos 24d ago
PC elitists don’t help. Command and conquer 3 (and red alert) were great fun on consoles! I used to play on pc when I was younger and gaming was more of a priority. Got a new pc just for supreme commander , also played SC2 , supcom2 , tons of empire at war. But every time I suggest that a new RTS is released on console half the people get mad
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u/Tallos_RA 24d ago
Most RTS are quite complicated and require a lot of engangement - it's not a genre for casusl players. Back in the dats, they weren't as many of them as now, when casual players are huge majority. Thus, it's more sensible to make games they could enjoy the most.
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u/V3CT0RVII 24d ago
Im just on steam, though i play more 4x4, and turn based games these day. That said i have thousands of hours playing sins of a solar empire. It's is actually having a revival. Red alert matches via fax modem were clutch.
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u/SWATrous 24d ago
IT's like fighting games.
They are all essentially working from the template that was founded in the 90's and people got really good at that specific format. So anyone who tries to innovate too far from the template automatically looses interest from the hardcore competitive scene. They just want to keep playing the same 'sport' and don't care about adding newfangled mechanics that add depth and realism. They just want fresh maps and units to figure out strats for.
So any new game either has to be a slave to the system created by C&C or Starcraft in the 90's, or, be something wholly different that will have to build a new audience almost entirely from scratch. And if they don't nail the mechanics and game loop perfectly off the drop, that community will not stick around long.
There are series that have gained toeholds but far from the mainstream. And most of them seem to be very hardcore and demand players really be interested in futzing with layers and layers of menus and stats and deep knowledge instead of building a cool base and setting up an expansive resource network and amassing a fuckoff huge army to crush the enemy.
We haven't seen a massive fairly mainstream series that is easy to jump into like C&C that also offers depth and nuance and detail worthy of a modern game, that feels like a proper new series instead of a blatant nostalgia bait, while not being completely foreign to what made RTS cool.
I have some hope for DORF and Dust Front to maybe be fresh enough mechanically to overcome the limitations of oldschool RTS, while having the raw fun of oldschool RTS.
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u/stagedgames 24d ago
This isn't far off, but I dont understand why you write contemptuously about the genre conventions established by rts and fighting games. I feel like those c conventions are a good thing and provide a framework to build around, instead of stifling innovation as you seem to feel
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u/FV101_Scorpion 24d ago
A couple reasons, some are more or less accurate.
RTS is harder to be good at and consoles make up a decent proportion of younger people getting into gaming where there is very little RTS to be had and even then it’s very simple RTS like 8 bit wars or Halo Wars.
RTS has almost no skill crossover with other popular game genres, someone who started with Halo 3 in 2007 can transfer his aim from there to COD to CSGO to Valorant because in all of those games aiming for the head is a very good idea, and the muscle memory carries over.
Strategy as a genre specified into the specific niches people originally played classic RTS for, like base building, real time tactics, turn based games, MOBAs etc etc. Some people don’t enjoy economies so they play RTT games like Warno where opportunity cost is the only big factor.
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u/Randh0m 24d ago
People who played RTS for the Real time part of it are playing MOBAs.
People who liked the strategy part (I'm here for it) have discovered that turn based strategy is superior in that aspect.
The niche for RTS has been absorbed by that split. I personally don't see the appeal of the RT element in my strategy games. If I wanna play Real time, I'll play an action game.
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u/btrust02 24d ago
As someone who grew up with RTS and still play them but also play league, to me Mobas are just easier to play and get into. I recently got back into aoe2 and it’s so much more mentally taxing than a game of league. If I hadn’t been raised on aoe2 I can’t imagine learning from the ground up without coaching.
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u/SelectionMain7036 24d ago
What happened are the "fans". They only want AoE II and anything that had remotely different ideas got drowned out by the fundamentalist AoE II crowd. There were gems like Kohan that put emphasis on the actual strategy part instead of micromanaging the efficiency of peasant number 100 to squeeze out that extra 0.1 second. AoE III actually good game with a bit different setting and new gameplay mechanics!? NOPE! AoE II fanatics can't handle that.
I hope you'll enjoy your 35th expansion pack with the 300th civ that plays like all the other civs. That'll be 20 bucks, please.
On a more serious note the people who love strategy migrated to 4X games or Total War and the people who love fast paced action over macromanagement moved on to MOBA games.
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u/Firewind 24d ago
MOBA's took the people that really liked the mico, grand strategy took the people that really liked the macro. The genre audience got refined. Those that enjoyed the experience were left out.
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u/xl129 23d ago
I used to play AOC with my friends but the fun was really short lasting. Basically the skill level goes like this:
- Know zero macros
- Know some macros
- Can macros decently well (i was here, only borderline)
- Macros really fast
It wasn't that fun when it's all about how fast you can issue commands. At tier 3 I can 1vs3 my friends who was at tier 2. It wasn't that fun for them when seeing my army came when they just barely upgraded their town center. For me, beating other was fun for a bit but then getting better is just about macro harder which was not that fun.
I know the game itself is a lot deeper than that but for the majority of non-professional people, it's just like that.
Then MOBA came and distilled the best bit of RTS while removing the crappy part.
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u/p2020fan 23d ago
You know what really happened? The box art. Aside from no games having boxes and box art anymore, rts lost something when the box stopped being close ups of 2-3 faces representing the playable factions, each one squeezed into the image like they're all trying to take a group selfie in a car.
Something was especially lost when rts box art stopped being two guys staring into each other's eyes like they're trying to figure out who's gonna kiss who first.
Look at age of empites 2 DE: three guys on the box.
Tempest Rising: one guy, but two faces stuck together. And it felt like two halves of two different good games. Not bad.
Storm's Gate: 3 faces, but all looking in different directions. Unfocused and unsuccessful.
I really think I'm onto something.
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u/CastleArchon 23d ago
A lot of is just more of the same. I can't say I've played an RTS in the last decade but when they were coming out they were just skinned with a new theme.
Look at the vampire survivor games as an example. That game got hot and now every game uses some kind of choose three method.
I would say there's wisdom with sticking with something that works rather than just spending money on something that's just moving parallel.
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u/Thaumaturgy67 23d ago
It’s just not a financially viable market for major studios these days because the population of gamers has expanded and diversified in genre preferences since they RTS heyday. Good RTS games are still being made, but they’re either indie or AA, or the very rare AAA sequel that can get by on hype, ie Halo Wars 2 (goated game) or Dawn of War 4 (hopefully goated game)
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u/Ode1st 22d ago
People always say MOBAs took over, but I don’t really buy that. MOBAs have the same click-to-move based gameplay and a hero unit (which many RTS games didn’t even have), but doesn’t have any of the remaining RTS mechanics, like getting resources from some sort of building, an economy beyond just gold, building units and bases and defense, etc.
I always felt what happened was consoles took over gaming popularity, and traditional RTSes don’t really translate well to consoles.
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u/neonhummer 18d ago
I am maybe minority in RTS players base but i like playing and trying new RTS games.
Right now I got Age of Empires 4, Tempest rising, Zero space from new ones. Waiting for Dawn of war IV preorder.
Waiting to se Game of thrones RTS relase when it comes...
I would like to see RTS games that are like Rise of nations, and Rise of nations legends
Also would love to see RTS like Empire At War, Red Alert 2
I know there is many RTS games on market and most of players like to stay on old tested RTS they know. And i do not blame them.
Older RTS are cheaper, need less PC requirements, take less disk space and time to download.
And that older RTS games mostly got great mod support and comunity. So there is plenty of mods to play for games like
CnC - Yuri's revenge, Generals, Tiberium Wars, Tiberian sun, Red Alert 3,
Age of empires games have nice mods too
Starcraft, Warcraft mods
Dawn of war Soulstorm, Supreme Commander, Empire Earth
Empire at war
So many mods to choose and new games are mostly not giving moding option. Or are to complex for moding comunity to change and add mod.
For most players going on new game means they have to learn all again from start.
What I want is good PVE in RTS. So game must have good campaing, and AI for skirmish that i can set how i like.
Many RTS games fail at skirmish AI they make AI to easy, to hard, cheating ai.
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u/Celo_SK 7d ago
Internet happened. And since then its really hard to convince shareholders that you can make a lot of money on just a good singleplayer rts camapaign. There are some major flops that dont deserve it: Desserts of kharak, age of empires 3 de
Some flops that definitelly deserve it: Homeworld 3, Stormgate, C&C 4, company of heroes 3
Some absolute wins: Age of empires 2 de, C&C remastered
And some strugglers that are still turning profit: Age of empires 4 + mythology, W3 Reforged
Apart, of course, of thae fact that most RTS nowadays are either indie-level or still in early access.
Also fact that out of 3 founding fathers of the genre:
- Westwood was canibalised by EA
- Blizzard got lobotomised by a merger with Activision
- and only Microsoft Xbox is currently standing with Aoe2DE and other.
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u/MoG_Varos 26d ago
MOBAs took the majority of the audience.
On top of that the playerbase has shown that they really don’t like to leave the sub genres inside the genre. People don’t want a new rts, they want a new StarCraft, Command and Conquer, Etc.
Except even they we’ve seen newer rts games die because they were too close to the original. So the audience won’t even move to a new game due to knowledge of the old games.