RTS Health Check: State of the Genre

The flags blowing in different directions distracts me more than I would have expected.

Kain still has hp which means Kain lives!

RTS underwent a devolution into MOBA games. A fate worse than death, some might say, but also lucrative for its publishers.

The future is in the hands of Slav Indie game developers!

Healthcheck for Homeworld 3: "Do you have any family or loved ones we should call?"

God, you are such a cool YouTuber, I wish British people were real 😔

I think the genre is generally doing pretty well, I think part of it's recent stagnation has come from what has felt like a bit of genre re-treading similar to MMOs and WoW. Where new developers weren't trying to make a new MMO, they are trying to make a new WoW and by chasing a pre-existing product, they fail to make a good game. Thankfully I think we are beyond that phase now and there is more variation in new titles, which has imo lead to more interesting titles.

I feel like the rts genre isn't made for huge games by big publishers : the triple A tendency to add too much functionalities and different gameplay is at odd with the fact rts are best when they are easy to learn and hard to master. Some gems keep being pushed by little studio, like empire of the undergrowth recently, and I think that's were the community and the genre is heading : medium games polished for years with great and unique flavors.

he said "go and build a cool base" as i had factorio on the background

If we are talking about popularity, then we also need to look at the age component of the community. Yes, of course there are young indie developers, there are new players, but most of them are those who have caught more c&c releases. Those who watch starcraft tournaments without ever playing it. When they leave, will the community have the same purchasing power to remain attractive for the release of large projects like AoE4. This is not a question of the next 5 years, it is a question of 20-30 years ahead. If we look at how Stormgate/ZeroSpace was supported on kickstarter, then now the community is still very alive and able to make a profit.

There is something I call the "Only Game In Town Effect". When you are the only game in town, you get a lot of players, because its that or nothing and it creates a false sense of popularity or success. But the moment any sort of alternative comes along, you bleed audience like no tomorrow. You see this a fair bit in small towns, where a long established business keels over and dies the moment any competition shows up because they weren't actually very good or efficiently run, they were just the only game in town. As computer hardware allowed more variety of games, RTS's lost the segment of the audience that played it because it was the best available rather than what they really wanted. And, of course, the hit and miss of advertising and word of mouth, and as you pointed out the confounding segment of players that are a "specific game fan" rather than a "genre fan".

I always hated how NOD the soviets or the japanese get no healing for their infantry... Good things mods exist personally i recommend Tiberium Essence for Tiberium War 3 And the High Tech mod for Red Alert 3(something something tech i forgot thr actual name) And as for stuff like Tiberian sun you can easily edit the unit files to add a medic unit to Nod by copy pasting the GDI medic information for Nod's army (you can google how it is done it aint hard)

The issue with tracking popularity with RTS games is that they are can be drastically different from each other, like sure there is base building, collect resources, train troops, but even then, the how and such are still different, end result, they will play differently as starcraft 2 will drastically play different from age of empires 2 or even command and conquer.

I have been saying this for years and 'Project Pitchers/marketing people' looked at starcraft 2's success and popularity and took the wrong message, that INCLUDES how they built and marketed their games, Wanting to make quiicker /moba style or esports-targeting game, where they thought their game would become an esports darling. This happened to Cnc4 and it happened to dow 3 too, and so many other games. Instead of wanting to make a good game first and community around it. And as for releases, You should have includes the Men of war games, The continued interest in EaW/Foc and its modding scene and The Steel division games.

I have to say i subbed to your content about 6 months ago and i have to say you're one of the most underrated youtubers I'm subscribed to, always enjoy your insightful videos.

Great video! I love the genre myself so it was nice to hear this more optimistic take. I'm still playing R.U.S.E, BFME, and Halo wars these days. Those three play like classic RTS for me. Newer ones I would recommend are Dune: Spice Wars, Diplomacy is Not an Option, and Manor Lords (still really early development and more city builder). Check 'em out if you haven't tried one of these titles!

The moment AAA game companies required their products to be online regardless of the mode you were going to play in ended my interest in buying new games from the them. I still buy games, but not from them, mostly older games updated for new computers from GOG or smaller developers.

RTS playerbase got split up between variations of the genre that they prefer For those who prefer city building ,We have pure city/park builders like Cities Skylines or simcity For those who prefer PVE RTS , we have Frostpunk and Against the Storm For those who prefer Strategy/planning combat ,we got turn based combat like Xcom or Into the breach For those who prefer Macro, we have 4x games like Civilization or Crusader king For those who prefer Micro, we have MOBAs like Dota or League TLDR : RTS are Niche because it require you to like all 5 aspect of RTS game(city building,PVE/PVP, strategy, macro ,Micro) While most people only like 1-2 aspect of it ,just Play one of the specialize genre for the aspect that you like

I'm definitely not in the zeitgeist of gaming but I feel like I've been doing very well for RTS games. The Cold War space has been blessed by both Warno and Regiments. With many in those circles anticipating the near future setting Broken Arrow release. Though probably not RTS city builders seem to be in the same spot. Your video has been a wonderful breakdown and I hope you keep up the good work.

i think the evolution of dawn of war is a good illustration of companies' interpretation of what a RTS might look like versus how an audience think it should look like, where a company would try to hybridise the gameplay to (what I can only assume anyway) hit more targets regarding live service, microtransactions & dlc, and audience types to try and get that $$$. so of course you wind up diluting the actual core of what an RTS is and start heading towards MOBA style which I'm sure has an audience type somewhere around the globe. but I'm sure not that audience, and I'm pretty sure RTS fans aren't that audience either. regardless, we're never getting another proper DOW dawg (side note, i think you shouldn't use ai, it's difficult to connect with the personality in your video when its veiled under that kind of stuff)