"The Death" series returns today with the RTS. Once my favorite genre, now only a distant memory... fleeting at best. Comment below with what game, genre or industry trend you'd like to see explored in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. -TL
The issue is the genre has a hard time improving as its a very conclusive concept. Games like We are Billions is one of the recent examples of one that has new ideas. This is a similar problem to sports games.
It's actually really sad because I have such great memories playing Empire Total War (which ran like garbage on Mac though) and Age of Empires III (I don't like II, too slow) even before my teenage years !
Downward Thrust downward trust can you do a vide in paradox studios and there buying of games with giant moding community’s and there top tier strategy games and there problems with micro transactions. Some are ok like stellaris as it adds a new system all together but the others seems rushed or don’t add anything.
No mention of the rise of MOBAs, or the drop in attention spans with future generations of gamers with little taste for deep strategy??? What about Microsofts efforts with the excellent Halo Wars series, and in their plans to revive the seminal Age of Empires series? Do your research Tone!
I don't think rts is completelly dead but it isn't at is popularity peak for sure. As it was pointed out very well in the video the main problem is the learning curve (and the fact that today's generation chase the instant gratification so they have no patient to struggeling around a bit) and the lack of innovation. Look at Blizzard right now, instead of they take a big risk and create warcraft 4 with a lot of possible innovation (interactive terrain which can deeply influence the battles, multiple interacting dmg type which needs to be strategicly considered, reimagined upgrade system etc.) they go down the beaten path and use nostalgia to sell their 10+ years game remastered for the much more secure profit. And I love Wc3 that was my all time favourite game but I'd still rather see finally something new.
In order for a man in korea to get married he must first defeat his wife's father in 1v1 Starcraft brood war match. Starcraft will never die as long as tradition stays strong.
Let's face it. The bloat that got into the gaming industry demanded a constant stream of revenue. What was designed out of passion before, now just resembles a money making scheme.
I was thinking exactly the same. Plus when you shift the target from the curious/passionate player to...the public, this is what happen. It happened with "pop" music (of every genre), it happened with "best seller" books, it was our turn now.
Cmon 2000s kids are just not smart enough or too lazy to play something like Starcraft 2 ( let alone Starcraft Brood War). They like shiny things and Fortnite or skins in CS GO.
true if you look at games there are like couple of templates. But there also is (not big enough) space for mid-tier games. And indie games. So if not in AAA space the RTS might be reborn as mid-tier or indie titles. (check out the Grey Goo). The point&click adventure died as well, but they resurected with remasters of classic as well as new titles like Deponia saga or The Book of Unwritten tales to name a few there were way much more in indie space as well with retro graphics focusing on puzzles and story. I'm usually not unutterably optimistic. But I believe that the market does not like the void, and there will be companies to fill it. have a nice time gaming!
@@Realmjumper4099 Come on if nothing else there is one thing you've got to give to Tiberian Sun: Atmosphere. By that I mean the combination of fluid visuals with stylized graphics and perfectly fitting tunes in a dark and gritty post apocalyptic world. It has the best atmosphere out of any RTS title for me, with only Warcraft 3 coming close
Right? Losing Westwood cut me deep. EA is a mortal engine, devouring and recycling good series for profit. Bioware after... And Activision getting hold of Blizzard...
Tower Defense games too, TFT etc. RTS just turned into Warcraft 3's popular custom maps. People who made custom maps kept innovating while people who made RTSs gave up cause more money in MTX games.
This. DOTA and mobas sadly started spelling the end of RTS. Why make a RTS with online multiplayer and single player campaigns when you can spend a fraction for a moba filled with microtransactions.
yeah RTS games weren't as profitable as other styles. Instead of finding ways to make them more profitable game companies just abandoned them. So many of us love RTS :(
RTS was already diverging in the late 00's. Titles like Warcraft 3, DoW2 or C&C focused on smaller rosters of units with rosters of spells and stances and micromanagement. Titles like supreme commander and sons of a solar empire pulled back and focused more on sweeping scale and macro. Eventually, the end point of the former design philosophy was the MOBA, which boomed in the early to mid 10's. The latter design philosophy developed further into the genre of the Paradox style grand strat, like Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron. People on this end of the spectrum, who often felt too much pressure from the fast pace of real time, appreciated the more relaxed pausable time, or even full on turn based strategy of games like Civilization. The Core RTS fanbase essentially splintered into the strategy subgenres that do well now based on what aspects of RTS they wanted more of.
Pretty much. Whatever ends up happening to RTS, the strategy genre is doing just fine. I do wish more strategy games had actually involved combat though. Total War is about the only one.
Sins of a Solar Empire... nostalgia. So many multiplayer hours with friends and family. Warcraft 1-2 and Dune2 where the best for me out of the genre tho. I didn't like the Command and Conquer series much. There was also a really dark and hard RTS that I forgot name or did I... was it called "MYTH" ? It undeads in it and was insane hard. Loved it.
RTS never died, it's marketshare precentage got smaller, and what used to be Triple A in the 90's/ 00's is now middle market. Total War is very much in between middle marker and Triple A, Starcraft 2 was a Triple A game and is currently supported like a middle market game post launch- which is good and smart and doesn't really hurt it's quality. RTS is just fine, you just need to know where to look for, and even though Mobile RTS is filled with trash MTX we can't just ignore it.
Yea but lets admit total wars are pretty much almost triple AAA nowadays like currently warhammer 2 had 27k people playing 2 days ago in comparison most well off games have between 3k to 7k thats damn impressive if i ask me
I think the reason RTS games are dying is because this type of games does not resonate well with casual gamers. You do not just hop on and play a quick match for fun. You need to commit to playing. With no casual gamers, AAA studios wouldn't care to make an RTS, leading to existing RTS players burning out, making there even less hardcore players. And the cycle continues.
Not true at all it has nothing to do with casuals if anything more complex games have been on rise in popularity even on console , you can look at plenty of games that require commitment and skill and thought and they are doing just fine , really what I think it is is we have not had anything genra defining in a Rts for years , seige is popular because it was genra defining not just because it was a shooter competive shooter , I think but we got some Rts game.that were new with big stuios behind them we would.be gold but the issue is most Rts games are bland indy titles that are shit , you can bet your ass when age of empires 3 comes out people will buy it age of empires was genra defining
@@matt2.052 To me the death of RTS is comprise of a lot of reasons and In my opinion one factor was that RTS is primarily a PC experience and with the rise of the consoles, specifically the 360 and ps3 era and FPS genre a lot of company shift focus to what was making more money at the time and they made development for consoles their main priority , they even tried to bring RTS to console and failed hard for reasons like you just can't fit the convenience and speed of a keyboard and a mouse for the RTS genre in a controller and the other being the learning curve and commitment required for this types of games against a something as simple as just Run, shoot, reload mechanics that most FPS were about.
Mobas simplify the RTS gameplay mechanics to the point that they are considered different genres and Overwatch is nothing like starcraft or any other RTS. Orange and apples
My dude glosses over Age of Empires like it’s nothing when they are remastering and making a new game while huge tournaments are still happening as well??? Like what?
RTS are hard to play that's one of the big reasons why RTS are not as famous as it was companies know that ppl want easy games for western players why do u think a lot of ppl play league
I remember when RTSs were everywhere and they were proclaiming the "death" of turn based. RTSs are still alive. For example, They Are Billions is a brilliant RTS game.
I'd argue that this isn't a good thing to do, since the cause is death of the home culture, and resultant loss of interest in intellectual pursuits. It's better to inspire people, and attempt to prevent complete collapse of the industry.
yet turn based and RTS both have their place..... RTS's work best on PC, not on consoles turn based work well on both yet gamers kept bitching about turn based games on consoles and we've seen the death of that genre...... I remember playing Gladuis and Front Mission 4 on PS2 both were fantastic turn based games, then Squeenix turned FM into a generic Armored Core clone and destroyed the franchise then with Left Alive it drives yet another nail in the franchise coffin, hwat pisses me off more is they could have released the saga in the west but decided to release a game here and a game there then declared no interest in the west for the series yet if they released all the games like they do for FF games they'd see more success so it's a self fulfilling prophecy eww there's not enough interest in mecha in the west meanwhile in the 2000's Gundam Wing became super duper popular for awhile a decade late mind you but yeah and I personally went on to enjoy Gundam Seed & 00, 08'th MS team, Gundam 0079, Unicorn and a couple others....IDK how big those shows are here but if there was English localization for em id say they're big and interest exists....Gundam is the grandaddy of mecha anime..... point is we are interested in mecha here and I would say as well we are interested in RTS and turn based games too
7:28 "Perhaps because the RTS genre lacks innovation or inherent potential" This couldn't be further from the truth. I would argue that RTS might have the biggest potential out of all genres because of its extreme complexity. MOBA is essentially a dumbed down version of RTS, where each player only control a single hero unit with unique attacks, movements, skills,etc... and that alone is enough to make some of the most complex, challenging yet fun and addicting games that still remain popular today (DOTA2, LoL) For me the genre that actually lacks innovation/potential is the FPS genre, and they are still flooding the market today with all the remake, remaster, recycled shit with a new number every year. Players are tied with the first person PoV, the skill ceiling mostly comes down to quick reaction time and precise aiming, which I find very boring. The main reason for the decrease in popularity of RTS games is that they are simply not very profitable. They require too much resources and investment from both the developer side and player side. Making a RTS game becomes an increasingly high risk and low reward job for game developers, as publishers and shareholders become more and more greedy. So they simply stopped making them even though I would argue that there are still a large, niche audience for this type of games.
"This couldn't be further from the truth. I would argue that RTS might have the biggest potential out of all genres because of its extreme complexity." Wrong. RTS has to follow its "design rules" otherwise it is no longer an RTS but other genre of strategy game. If you make RTS much more complex it will end up being a wargame or RTT. "MOBA is essentially a dumbed down version of RTS" Its more like MMORPG then RTS. "For me the genre that actually lacks innovation/potential is the FPS genre, and they are still flooding the market today with all the remake, remaster, recycled shit with a new number every year." Sure if you ignore games like PBUG, Arma, Squad, Rainbow, Swat etc... "Players are tied with the first person PoV, the skill ceiling mostly comes down to quick reaction time and precise aiming, which I find very boring." In the case of Squad, Arma etc... you have to learn how to call fire missions, know how to call ranges, how to defned, how to assault etc... COD is like C&C while Arma is close to Command Modern Operations or Steel Panthers. "The main reason for the decrease in popularity of RTS games is that they are simply not very profitable." True however I would also like to point out that there are many many fans of RTS who have switched to other strategy genres such as wargaming, warsims etc... You have limited resources to buy units, limited ammo, limited fuel, terrain affects your units from obscuring the vision to accuarcy penalty and movement. Using tanks in forest is easy in RTS in wargames your tanks will get taken out by infantry hiding in spider holes. I started with RTS Warcraft 2 was my first game, then Red Alert 2, Generals, Starcraft, Empire Earth, Seven Kingdoms 2 etc... But the first time I downloaded SPMBT wich is a free game I got hooked on wargaming.
@Nero IV Really? Because last time I checked games like Starcraft don't have logistics, ammo, fuel etc... Flying units cannot engage in SEAD missions, DEAD missions etc... They cannot notch rockets etc... Comparing starcraft 2 to wargame such as Command Modern Air Naval Operations shows you how limited games like SC, Red Alert etc... are.
@@greatdude7279 Try Dawn of War Soulstorm with Ultimate Apocalypse mod. This game will change your mind. Every race have different mechanics and u can play so many tactics. StarCraft is too simple and really can't compete with that.
Cuz dumbasses are the majority. If anything you wanna is to "do the cash" than whom will ya chose: The minnority or dumbies who will eat everythin: skins for an ennormus ammounts of money, imbalance stufs like b2w and stuf like that. Its all about making money. In ancient times, PC were asosieted with nerds aka "smart guys" but nowdays.. even the dumiest can have a pc: chads bitches etc having a PC and playing video games. MOBa and the shit allike - its the way making money on their stupidity. Its not about laking ideas for RTS or etc thera allot ppl who loves them... no.. its all about making money on a tards...
There is a resource component to it with their point system, but I think it is safe to say it fits the RTS genre in an implied sense if not explicitly true to definition.
RTS are hard to commit to but MOBAs are easy to get into with relatively less skill required. In other words, it's more likely the average person will enjoy a MOBA over an RTS.
I disagree, the issue of rts games is that they became cookie cutter without character obsessed with balance centeres around stats causing Micro and rock paper scissors to become Way too abubdant. This mąkes stsrcraft boeing for me while making age of mythology beyond excellent. Its not that its hard to get into, its that its not really had any quality of life its too, clutteres or simply too Little immersive. Thats the issue a lack of character accessibility and immersion. Few games achiebes these three and they aicceedes.
Lord Tonald, I am glad to hear you are a lover of rts games. It's quite unfortunate that the genre has become forgotten. I just want another good Dawn of War game ;_;
RoN is one of my permanently installed Steam games along with Skyrim :) The sound of catapults, like a ruler reverberating against the table top, will be forever with me :D I wonder if a third person MOBA could work for consoles; Monday Night Combat died on PC but might be different outside PC space. Or RTS crossplay where PC handles strategy/resources, and other players handle one hero unit each with a few AI minions like Mass Effect or Republic Commando.
You missed the most obviois reason: RTS Play aweful on consoles! Those designed for consoles are overly simplistic, while those on PC got more niche and complex. Once Halo figured out how to do controls right on a console FPS right, the genre was booming. This will never happen to RTS - unless consoles support/demand mouse controls (or touchscreen). We of the PC MR don't like to admit it, but consoles have a huge market share and therefore dictate to a degree how games are designed and played!
This is actually a really good point. Consoles are a huge market, and they're expected to continue outstripping the PC market, for a lot of reasons. It makes a lot of sense to develop a game that you can put on two or three major consoles and also port to PC rather than develop a game that will only fully work on PC, and even then only have niche appeal. Kudos to Paradox for figuring out how to make a city builder work quite well with a controller, but city builders don't require the same speed that an RTS does.
CoH 2 is a sham of a game compared to CoH 1. One of my biggest let downs gaming-wise. CoH 1 is pure gold. Hands down one of the top-tier RTS games to this day.
CoH 2 might be an ok game mechanically, but is literal nazi propaganda narrative-wise. When you play the campaign in that it's basically Goebbels yelling in your ear. Made me so mad that I will NEVER give even one cent to Relic ever again.
Die hard RTS fan over here ^^ Still playing the older ones as I struggle to enjoy the new total war series. aoe3 and rome total war are my all time best enjoyed games!
Also: DotA happened. Handling armies too hard for you? Handle one hero! The amount of new games through the decade skyrocketed, while the time for playing each game for a person diminished. Same time, more games, less average time available for each game, and RTS have always been way too above the average time required. Man, Starcraft will always be my best game ever. I spent 10.000 hours on it, and unfortunately life will never give me another 10.000 for any other game, so I have to stick with Crash Royale :( Also: I can say with confidence Starcraft's music was (still is) P.E.R.F.E.C.T, no buts, 100% true to the word. 12 tracks in 10.000 hours and it never bored me, it fits perfectly in the universe, is not invasive, suits the art style, makes you feel completely immersed. I even thought Terran's themes were way beyond their time, until I learned about 80's instruments. Starcraft introduced me to the best music in the world, saving me from Reggaeton culture. Finally: Censorship. I still believe one of the reasons Starcraft 2 didn't hit as hard a Starcraft was because the first game had darker narrative and it was free from mainstream shenanigans. Starcraft 2 on the other hand was developed to appeal a bigger, much bigger audience, so they couldn't be as creative as they wanted. No marines being disintegrated by hydralisks acid, no ugly teeth, no holy shit I'm being massacred by dragoons, and that affected directly with the story as well. They had to make a stale plot so the risk of the success of the game wasnt that high. It worked, but it abandoned a lot of potential just to be safe. Not a bad decision, just a shame they were forced to go that way. And of course a lot of other things, but I focused on that one for now. You know what RTS I miss too? Commandos, Beyond Call of Duty. I love RTS, never forget that.
A friend has often told me that the rts genre has always been too overwhelming for him because there were too many options and too many details to pay attention to. I think that alone explains why rts is failing, most people these days prefer simplicity over being actually challenged.
Remember when we were supposed to get C&C Generals 2? EA: Oh people like this? Maybe we should make it f2p with lots of surprise mechanics *Everyone disliked this* EA: Fine then you don't get anything *Everyone hated this*
Bros I love RTS games , if I am given a choice of having a great pc , I'd choose to play StarCraft 2 and Age of Empires 3 again rather than playing any other modern game
No mention or even footage of Empire Earth or Cossacks? (sry if I just missed it) I think those should be mentioned as well. Empire Earth was very good game and it has 3 games. Cossacks also has multiple games and Cossacks 3 came out in 2016.
1. MOBA's didn't replace RTS's, they're a separate genre that was spawned out of RTS game map editors. I consider them closer to ARPG's than RTS's - they're basically team versions of POE or Diablo. 2. RTS games now have more ways than ever to monetize: DLC campaigns/factions/alternate modes and more, purchasable unit skins and announcer packs, etc. If sports games and FPS games can monetize in other ways, surely an RTS game can find a fair model to be profitable. 3. IMO, the big hurdles are innovating gameplay, getting studio execs to be unafraid of stepping into an RTS, and finding the right talent to build an RTS (a lack of games means a lack of experience).
My favorite rts was the original dow series. Four land raiders, terminator drop terror, plasma scout swarm, etc. It got funky with soulstorm and flyers. Still, I loved that game. I never played the later games. My pc couldn't handle it. I'll never not smile when thinking of orbital bombardment, and the surprise bloodthirster. 🍺💨
Its not that the RTS genre is death or have fewer players than it use to, its more that the big Dev's focus more on game formats that gives more revenue, like moba's, mmo's and mobile games. The funny thing is, that the big company's they tell their customer's, that we know better what you want from/in a game than you do.
I think you nailed it when you looked at what RTS has to compete with. Sidescollers are particularly beloved by those who love them, but don't have mass appeal. Comparatively, the other gaming genres that exist today are far more exciting to look at for those who aren't into gaming, and have a much better chance of pulling new customers in. I also want to address Total War specifically: I played that series from Medieval 2 to Rome 2, then jumped off the series. When I picked it up, I was particularly eager for a medieval setting RTS, and Med 2 really filled the boots. I had recently tried Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, as well as a LotR themed RTS that I don't even remember the name of, and neither held my Interest, but Med 2 reminded of how much I loved Lords of the Realm as a kid. I loved it, but it had some glaring flaws, which initially I could forgive, until later Total War titles kept these flaws going. On single player side, the AI was so bad that beating it up was boring. Increasing difficulty didn't help because it just gave the AI unfair buffs, but didn't make it smarter. I faced the same stupid AI that would do stupid things that I would properly counter, then lose anyways because stat buffs. As for the multiplayer side of the house, I found they didn't have enough community to have an entry level player pool, and matching against players who were experienced in the multiplayer field was so one sided as to not be fun. Combine this with the development team always pushing the graphics of a new Total War title to the edge of what computers of the day can handle, which both limits the player pool who can join the franchise, and means those same development resources weren't spent anywhere else, and I think that Total War was a victim of it's own developers.
I agree that this is at least a part of the reason. This is what I wrote on the topic elsewhere : RTS got ruined by Koreans and hypercompetitive players. Most people played the old RTS like total noobs - turtle, build a death ball, attack move into the enemy base, and the same happened when playing multiplayer against other noobs they knew over LAN. But then Koreans started no-lifing Starcraft and showed everyone how it's done and RTS became about precise build orders and clicking 3000 times a minute. Competitive people started adopting that playstyle, which ruined the fun for people who wanted to play RTS casually, which excluded a large part of the audience from MP in classic RTS. However, companies want to rake in big bucks, so they started watering down the mechanics to also appeal to people who didn't want to make RTS their lives. Unfortunately, even watered down RTS are too hard for most people and they don't appeal to the hardcore audience, so now the entire genre is stuck in a limbo.
@@Wix92 Yep, I played 1 game on the Warcraft 3 ladder and 1 minute in I was base-rushed by the enemy player. After this I never queued ladder again. I went back to playing with bots cuz it was so much more fun playing a lvl 10 hero with a huge army and an expanded base than just losing the game 5 minutes in.
Hahahaha the comments here are actually funny. Well I have never mastered (played decent have a decent understanding) of both SC and WC3 even tho I tried to play them. They are kinda complex games but way more fun if u learn them. I think people today don't want to play "hard" games they want it to take it as easy as possible. StarCraft and Warcraft are my favourite games from the RTS genre but I never have learned how to play them. I moved to DotA because my friends were playing it and then I only played DotA, later Dota 2.
Tell that to Serral. Personally I always viewed RTS MP as way too hardcore to play. I only turtled vs bots as a noob and I believe that was the most popular way to enjoy RTS. The active MP RTS players are just the ones who are vocal anymore in RTS, the SP noobs (majority) aren't active in the scene anymore it seems. Tho there's not much of a scene is there lol
Folks, if you buy and play Planetary Annihilation you won't be disappointed. It's a good game that only needs more players to become great. And the dev's haven't given up on it yet: they still support competitive play and make occasional updates!
Dude... The other genres you mentioned haven't innovated any more than the RTS Genre. You cite the "same perspective, ui elements, and mechanics." What new mechanics did Uncharted add? It's still doing the same perspective and mechanics as Tomb Raider. The innovations to story games have only really been cinematic not mechanical and those same innovations have come to other genres as well. Here's what happened to the RTS Genre: The games market used to be a niche and a lot of the people in that niche were willing to learn a new RTS game and have fun with it. Enough that to games companies at the time (largely run by engineers with minimal business experience) they seemed decently profitable. And without true ranking systems or ladders, players were blissfully unaware of how bad they were at RTS games compared to the top players. They'd find random matches online, sometimes stomp, sometimes get stomped, but very few paid attention to the "Hardcore" (what woudl be come esports) scene. And if playing against other players became too much there were always custom maps and Comp stomps and friends at LAN parties to play with/against. This started to change with RA3 and C&C3 with the introduction of more competitive environments online. But it really hit home with Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 sold super well, invested heavily in esports, and it gave everybody a front row seat to how bad they are and how much work would be required to achieve even mid level competence. Meanwhile, the RTS genre itself fractured. While for years everyone had been repeating the same sort of "grand overlord RTS" style of game, DOTA -> Heroes of Newerth -> LoL -> Dota2 showed that there was an easier way. The MOBA is a subgenre of the RTS. And it's popularity killed the "traditional" RTS. It had wider appeal in the exploding games market (grown by games like WoW, casual games on facebook and iphones, etc.). Now to succeed on the level of Starcraft 2 was not enough especially as games companies became more and more beholden to the desires of the business executives calling the shots. WoW was the first "super-mega" hit of the modern era of games and when that blood hit the water around the same time as the big stock market and real estate scandals of 2008, all the greedy douchebros who would have continued making money pillaging that market saw more reputable opportunity in games and in silicon valley. MOBAs were perfect for this. LoL started selling heroes, talent upgrade packs, skins for the heroes, etc.. Dota2 takes it a step further with loot boxes (which Valve had already experimented with in TF2). During this Supcom and eventually Supcom 2 are released and fail to pick up steam. Supcom 1 was fairly popular but not on the same level as these MOBAs. Supcom 2 tried to address a lot of the barrier to entry issues to capture a larger market, but ended up alienating Supcom 1's fanbase and gaining nobody new. Total War continues to try to innovate and improve during this time period but can't seem to have a successful launch. But while Total War has RTS battles, it is not a traditional RTS game. The competitive modes of it are more akin to a digital version of Warhammer than a traditional RTS (which explains why Total War Warhammer 1 and 2 are so perfect and fantastic. And don't tell me they or TW: Three kingdoms didn't innovate. They did). In europe, Spellforce 2 does pretty well and is slated for a sequel. But MOBAs still control the majority of the market that would be RTS players. And they adopt practices from the waning MMORPG industry: daily quests, timed events, etc.. They find ways to turn playing their game into an obligation you must do daily crowding out the opportunity to learn a different game. This is still going on today. Most of the traditional RTS players have stuck with familiar ground rather than take risks on new games despite a lot of really good traditional RTS games coming out. Why this is is simple, it's very hard to learn a new RTS and get good at it especially if it innovates in any way. So rather than try, they just say "it sucks because it's not exactly like this RTS game I already know how to play." Examples of games enduring that BS: Dawn of War 3: Hampered by poor PR and marketing decisions, the game never recovered from a backlash that started before it released. Despite great solid mechanics, innovation on the hero/faction selection. Really well designed asymmetric factions. And being setup for that monetization, it never could really catch on. Relic abandoned support for it after less than year. Spellforce 3: It's initial release was rocky with an attempt at reinventing the resource and hero systems for the competitive mode causing more frustration and confusion than excitement. However it's standalone expansion has revamped the resource system, the factions, the heroes, and added two more factions for a total of 5. It is undoubtedly the best new RTS game in quite a while. Grey Goo was good but the studio behind it really didn't think people would try to play it competitively so early imbalances caused headaches for players. And also apparently did not benchmark any of the game against average machines of the day causing even the menu to absolutely murder typical machines at the time. Their next game: Forged Alliance was built on some fun innovations but they did not support the game after launch and instead moved onto their next project. Anyway... I like your content. But you're asking so many questions in your video that have obvious answers if you've been paying attention. RTS will make a comeback eventually as players get sick of being coddled by MOBAs and hero shooters and BRs and want to actually challenge their minds. But it's going to take one helluva RTS to do it with some amazing marketing behind it. Oh also, RTS games aren't as fun to watch on Twitch or TH-cam as more simple games like MOBAs, etc.. And they are usually 1v1 so people can't blame their teammates when they lose.
ZombieApocalypse09 a lot of interesting and good takes here IMO. All I’d really think to add would be that, the gaming market itself was more societally niche in the 90s and early 2000s. With a certain demographic and type of person. A mainstream hit PC game in the 90s is now a much smaller part of a bigger whole. The niche is still large but proportionality much smaller. SC2’s failures I agree with in part. I don’t think the issue was a focus on 1v1 and competitive, although it’s part of it. It’s as much that they botched Bnet 2.0 on launch, and all the social stuff that came with it at the same time. Warcraft 3 I could ignore the ladder entirely, have a clan, have a smoother messaging system, have a much better custom game creation and search ability. All sorts of stuff. SC2 didn’t have these at launch, still doesn’t have some of them and it really hurt the game as a hub to just hang around and have fun in. I still think focusing on 1v1 competitive was fine, it’s kept me coming back for years, we have a tournament scene to watch and be inspired by etc. Being a distinct downgrade as a casual experience, never mind not improving on WC3 in that regard was a terrible blunder though. Even small things made it annoying. The lack of unique usernames in Bnet 2.0 meant you couldn’t use the /w username command to message people, you had to click a button, find your friend, click there and then send your message. Fine for many games, really not good for a game as fast paced as Starcraft 2. For a good typist you can play smoothly and hit a /w message really quickly. With the new system you had to choose between focusing on your 1v1 game or being social and chatting to your online buddies. Sounds a minor thing but in WC3 I could just lounge all day and play and talk to people. In SC2 I just laddered, then conversed, then went back to laddering. Another backwards step was the inability to name your custom lobbies. You just made a lobby of a particular game, and people would get filtered into your game if they wanted a game of that type. In Warcraft 3, or SC1 you could browse lobbies and people would name their lobbies accordingly. So you could choose between a ‘DoTA - Noobs only’ or a ‘DotA PROS PLZ’ and pick a game according to your skill level.
They aren't considered traditional RTS where you can build economy and units in real time. They are more like RTT, real time tactics. Otherwise, should we include all the real time game that is remotely controlling units with mouse RTS? Than moba is RTS. but most people don't considered moba as "pure" RTS or traditional RTS, or RTS at all. So I will object your claim here. No, Total war isn't a traditional RTS, it's success didn't save RTS like age of empire, starcraft and warcraft or red alert.
My favorite game genre. I still play one of my favorites, BFME 2 age of the ring is amazing and recently updated i totally recommend it. There are many rts to enjoy while we wait for that "return". Nice vid.
You just casually glossed over Total Annihilation, when in the fan-rated polls back in the 90s it was always in the top 20 games of all time. Too many Blizzard fanboys loved only StarCraft, and the reviewers for some reason only liked Blizzard after a while. Supreme Commander tried to bring back the Total Annihilation crowd with amazing new graphics, but I feel like nobody cared anymore for anything that wasn't StarCraft 2 at that point. (and it did need a nice video card to run well at the time) Admittedly, when Westwood disappeared that was pretty much the end of the genre for a lot of players. And the downfall of PC gaming in favor of console gaming over the last 20 years is a lot to blame too, as it's tough to sell a RTS on a console without a mouse. In order to get casual players doing RTS again you need a campaign with stories and cutscenes. Nobody wants to spend hundreds of thousands making those cutscenes for the story anymore, like the good old Westwood Red Alert 1 and 2 movies.
If you think those cut scenes cost much more than a few actors hamming it up in costume in front of some props and a green screen then your nostalgia powers are too damn strong.
@@cattysplat In the 90s you could make a game by getting 4 people together for about 6 months. Once the engine was written it's all scripting, graphics, 3d models, and map making. Full motion video cut scenes were a huge expense when you don't already have a studio and you're making a game in a university computer lab or your basement. Having a 35mm camera (digital wasn't a thing back then) and film, hiring actual actors who fit the part who aren't random guys from a local university comp-sci department who work for free, buying uniforms, building a proper stage. You're looking at tens of thousands of dollars minimum, which was a huge addition to cost back in those days. Certain companies like Westwood and Origin went all out. Look up the film work for the Wing Commander series. They hired Mark Hamill and other professional actors. You think Luke Skywalker worked for a 24 pack of beer and some doritos? If so, you might want to run back to the kotaku and reddit forums to have more meaningless arguments about whether SNES/Genesis, or Xbox/PlayStation are better consoles. Take your gamer angst/hate and trolling elsewhere.
TA is the few RTS I respect in 90s. They are different than Blizzard's stuff. Dungeon Siege is another game I respect in early 2000s. Too bad they all got shadowed by Blizzard. Blizzard create the casualization/fast pace of trend in gaming. Their downfall and taken over by more casual and fast pace games is almost comical to watch.
Honestly, MOBAs just replaced them. Just look at the list of qualities you enumerated for Warcraft 3's success. You can apply virtually every single one of them to the Warcraft 3 to League of Legends transition as well.
Frankly mobas are more like ARPGs than RTS. You only have one hero to keep track of and its more about items and abilities than units economy or efficiency.
I think you nailed the main reason, lack of a profitable business model and inherent risk making one. SC2 had so much backing, had an initial boom in popularity, and nearly died (although seems to be slowly rising again). Besides the major technical challenges of creating one, I think the genre is mainly competitive and has a high barrier to entry similar to fighting games. It seems it will always be niche. Big reasons why we see mobas succeeding is that they address the business model and skill barrier to entry.
That's the real reason. It's hard to justify micro-transactions in an RTS so EA and Activision gave up on the genre. Hopefully SEGA continue to feel differently.
Maybe mention one of these things: 1. Rise of MOBA 2. Rise of World of Warcraft 3. Rise of Console Gaming 4. Rise of Mobile Gaming All of these things attracted the same audience that used to love RTS games. RTS is still a very big genre on the Mobile (Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, etc) and the yare constantly making new improvements and new games for the mobile devices. Only the PC RTS genre has died down.
Always loved RTS. My first RTS game was The Ancient Art of War.(MS-Dos) Still have good memories of it and it's follow up a few years later he Ancient Art of War at sea. Later Warcraft, StarCraft. C&C, Company of Heroes and Syndicate had the biggest impact on me. Moved over to 4X games for a long while. Sword of the Stars is still an absolute favorite! Pickings these days are slim. RTS gave way to turn based strategy like X-com and the like. Funny thing is RTS games age very well. Oh the graphics fall behind sure but if an RTS has a solid core experience you can extract a ton of fun from all the tittles you missed. RTS games are like chess. You can sit down to an old school black and white square and have a fun (or frustrating..) game with a basic set. If your looking for an RTS fix go back and find some of the old ones. After a few hours the graphics hardly matter as much as the mechanics and a good plan.
The kind of RTS I think would do well is something that natural selection did (the half-life mod thing) where a commander place down certain builds and the players build it and where you place an item would differ tehe type of strategy you need to use.. the commander also gives a heads up on what to meet because he gets all the info from his team mates.... So a fusion of RTS and FPS would be the next step and I believe it's fully doable with today's tech.
We're forgetting halo wars, which proved rts games could work on a console. It was simple and approachable, yet still had some depth to it. It had an amazing story and most of the levels were well made.
Man, I had some good times with Warcraft 2 battle.net edition and Warcraft 3.... I do miss when RTS games were big because I always loved them! I keep hoping for Warcraft 4 as do many other Warcraft RTS fans but it just won't happen :(
I honestly think the real issue with the RTS genre is that the industry as a whole has gotten more and more risk averse in the AAA market, while the middle market has all but disappeared. All you have left is small indie titles that can't really afford to get the marketing to get noticed (Tooth and Tail, They are Billions). The middle market is squarely where a LOT of genres belong, not popular enough to get the money to sustain a AAA budget, but with a loyal and frankly starving audience that would love to get their hands on *any* new content in their favorite genres. The climate in the industry right now just doesn't allow for anything else than what we're getting... but I'm hoping that as development tools improve and games get cheaper to make that the indie scene may yet be able to carry the slack.
RTS vet here. I started with AoE and moved from that to the likes of CnC and StarCraft. I don't think the player base has seen a good RTS since 2007s CnC 3.
Thankfully, I've found that many strategy titles have aged unbelievably well. I recently upgraded my graphics card so I could keep up with my friends computers, then realized that all of the games we were playing were at least ten years old lol (Dawn of War, Forged Alliance, Empire at War, even CnC 1). The modding community is an amazing thing.
48lowes this. Due to fact that it is standard to lower skill/learning aspects of the game towards “this gizmo has better stats” in market of microtransactions jt is not surprising to see that rts are either too simplistic to play or to unprofitable to make.
It was probably just like what happened with horror games. The industry decided it was a dead genre even though there might have been an audience, making it a self fulfilling prophecy. There really seemed to have been a huge hit to the genre when Westwood studios went belly up and it's never been the same since
It never died, there are plenty of fantastic modern strategy games. I don't know why normies think a genre is dead just because it isn't getting 5+ AAA releases a year. Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition plus the two DLCs that have been released, Age of Empires IV just released, Iron Harvest just released, OG Command & Conquer and Red Alert just got a remaster, next year in 2022 we're getting another Homeworld game as well as Total War: Warhammer 3 which have consistently been the best Total War games to date, etc. A genre isn't dead just because one is too lazy to search for them.
Wow, you actually had some vid from Dune 2000. However, I have to say that Age of Empires is still HUGE *sighs* companies dont understand that risk = money
My personal theory: Gamers nowadays don't like to think when they play. They would rather play something now that involves turning off your brain as much as possible, sort of like going home to watch TV or something remedial like that.
So many after thoughts. Imo mobas fall under RTS. Like when starcraft 2 came, i was quite happy. However, i just played campain and left, cuz i had hon / lol by my side. They are pretty much the same, isnt it? You got heroes, you got strategy plus a lot of content. Am i wrong here? RTS-ses like u want, classicals, evolved per to say. Second thought - Actually, if im gonna think about it, there is a great "classic" RTS games. Total wars, hoi series, EU series, warhammers, endless space. I might even say, that frostpunk or other similar building games shares a lot of rts traits. tl;dr - I just think, that RTS has evolved to subgames, and we dont understand or see that. Sidenote - sorry for english, not my mother language.
True, MOBA is a subgenre of RTS to the point MOBA being also called as "Action RTS/ARTS". However, it's really hard to call them the successor of RTS in general. MOBAs mostly lack base/unit building and only resource to manage and gather seems to be "gold" in most titles. MOBA titles are overwhelmingly focused on combat. Because of that, I think MOBA is closer to Real-time Tactics genre rather than RTS.
ProfesyonelCaylak ultimately I don’t see why they’re even considered a sub-genre of RTS. They lack the tenets as you say, not just resource gathering but also managing multiple things on multiple screens. To me they’re just action RPGs with a defined team format. You level your character, you get gold and gear, you get new skills etc. Much more like a 5v5 Diablo or something than an RTS. I think the only reason they’re even attached to RTS by such terms is solely because DoTA had its origins as a mod game in the RTS WC3. Not that I’m critical of the genre itself, I just find that curious. RTTs are RTS games where you don’t have resource management, but still control multiple different units in real time. Then Grand Strategy are slower RTS on a more epic scale, often encompassing differing fields of conflict that you have to keep an eye on (ground level vs space level or whatever)
@@StewartMillarTheManCave I guess that's why ARTS as a name didn't stick as much as MOBA did. At the time I wrote my comment, only those came to my mind. Also, I'm glad that some more contribution to my comment is made.
It really kills me that there may never see a Warcrft 4, Warcrft 3 was probably the game that got me started on games, it is the reason I still play WoW today.
I once had a dream where Metal Gear had a RTS games with many military factions and one faction can drop the Rex with six choppers dropping it by releasing the metal cables that held it.
Sorry for the long comment but rts games WAS my childhood and I still remember and love that period in my life. I was in 1st grade when I first started to play computer games. The 1st rts game that I played was Red Alert. I played the shit out of it and I still remember that I used to pretend sick so that my teachers would send me home so I can play Red Alert HAHA. Our pc broke down and I'm forced to rent and go to pc cafes. I was then introduced to StarCraft and it blew my mind, it's futuristic, and amazing. Then the pc cafe that I usually go to closed and I was forced once again to find another place to play. I still remember that I specifically asked the owner if they have StarCraft, they said they don't have that but they instead opened Warcraft 3. And oh boi, I really got addicted. I was introduced to Dota, Bleach vs One Piece, Fight of the Characters and many more custom maps from Warcraft3. Our pc got repaired and the repairman installed Age of Empires 2, Battle Realms, and Command and Conquer Generals. I also played the shit out of those games. We bought a second pc and my little bro and I would constantly battle in those games. Wolf vs Lotus, General Granger vs Dr. Thrax, China vs Celts. The good old days 😔 I wish I was back. Now I'm 20 years old and my brother installed Command and Conquer Generals again but now with mods. We're battlong again like we used to HAHA. I was frustrated when Generals 2 was cancelled but I am really excited for Age of Empires 4. Make rts games great again. Again sorry for the long comment, rts games just has a special place in my heart.
I'm so glad that the game is still quite populated and that people still make new content regularly.
5 ปีที่แล้ว +3
I just want to add rts games are recommended by scholars and researchers for elderly that forget stuff a lot. Also, do a youtube search for 2019 or 2020 rts games see what you get.
Ground Control was one of my personal favourites. I think it was the first RTS game that had no resource management. It was purely about tactics. Its graphics look great even now!
Well in terms of "lack of innovation": Look up World in Conflict. This game made everything right, changed the way units are commanded and the camera operates. No base building at all, no resource gathering, high dynamic, action based gameplay still with lots of tactical depth. Graphics kicked ass for that time, environment was 100% destructible (way before the Battlefield 3+ times), dual monitor support, a campaign with cutscenes, ranked multiplayer. This game did everything right and what happened? Barely anyone knows about it, which really is a shame. The issue is, tactical players are a minority. And if you really dare to try something new, your target playerbase gets even smaller. So while Call of Duty Part 69234 will be hyped and reviewed trough all media, real gems don't even have real chances to get resonance. Thats also why large companies are not willing to risk doing that, its cheaper to stick to the stuff that sells and/or milk successful online games (GTA Online being one of the worst examples imo). The problem is simply, that gaming became a serious business by now and stuff that dosen't sell well has no real future. At least not at the AAA industry, where the most resources are. Lose-Lose-Situation.
Compare WiC with Age of Empires 2, one of the most successful RTS games of all time, that still has around 1 million unique players per month. AoE2 is classic to fault, having all RTS mechanics that WiC did not, having a shared Tech Tree across 31 civilizations, with cutouts and differing bonuses making up the uniqueness of each one. RTS needs no innovation, people like the "same old, same old" as long as it is done right. The attempts at innovating have actually hurt RTS, and the only thing that actually sells right now is remasters, proving that RTS is not a modernizable genre. This is why it died, and why it was replaced with MOBAs, which are now dying off as genre, because they too cannot innovate. However, just like RTS, the best games of that genre will live off well into the next several decades.
A totally cute and innocent guy it’s different, is it necessarily better? It does look an interesting title and I’ve added it to my Steam wish list so thanks for turning me on to it. For whatever reason, RTS games with these ‘classic’ mechanics like base building, resource gathering etc have historically been the ones that have stuck around and have followings even now. Be it both Starcrafts, WC3 (which kept that stuff but is more innovative than basically any other RTS via heroes/levelling/creeps/upkeep mechanics, or AoE which still has a pretty solid playerbase. Games that deviate, for whatever reason don’t seem to last. My personal institution feels that non-RTS players aren’t drawn in by RTS games full stop, even ones that do things differently, and RTS veterans prefer to stick with games more similar mechanics to what they’ve played for years.
From a historical standpoint, RTS suffered from the "3D is the future" obsession of the late 90's. Converting RTS graphics to 3D did not fundamentally change the game play in any way, they played practically identical to 2D RTS, 3D RTS even with a good computer and graphics card to run would suffer slowdown and de-synchronised multiplayer was common. Game reviewers and publishers didn't like this, they wanted new exciting things done with 3D and the RTS being made by developers were not innovating unlike the mods and custom maps, so received reduced review scores and publishers considered them a dead end with a cornered market - why compete with C&C and AOE? When those big franchises died nobody wanted to touch RTS, I was very surprised when Blizzard made Starcraft 2 considering there really wasn't any demand for it and it turned out the game played very similarly to Brood War anyway, with the custom maps being blundered by blizzard's terrible social system in game. MOBA's took what made custom maps so popular and spun them into their own multiplayer phenomenon that was simplified and focused on team competition and the rest is history. RTS can return but it needs to innovate, building a massive army and attack moving into enemy forces gets old fast and there is still great potential in the genre for fun games and great ideas that are being shown in the indie scene.
Blizzard is becoming interested in Warcraft 3 lately.They announced Reforged and released quite big patches. I honestly hate the new graphics,but I'm glad that they're paying attention to Warcraft 3 again and that you can still play with original graphics.
There's a mobile RTS called Art of War 3 that got me super excited because it was so much like old school C&C games. The interface is a bit clunky because you don't use a mouse, but it was a blast to play... at first. You muddle your way through "earning" your first units and start making lots of rss. You spend your surplus of rss on some upgrades for those units while working on some basic campaign maps that make it easy and fun to play... at first. Then you start hitting bottlenecks in the campaign because your units are not upgraded enough. The upgrades start costing a ton of rss and days/weeks to complete (for a single unit/single upgrade). I started doing the math and it would takes years to freeplay your way to upgrading this stuff. Doesn't sound like fun. Even if you spend a bunch of money on the game, it won't be enough. You would need thousands of dollars to upgrade everything, which may get you a nice little bump in research, but the upgrades never end. You can spend money 2 ways, on rss to buy the upgrades, then on time towards the actual upgrade. So you can spend hundreds of dollars here and maybe only get 2 or 3 full upgrades completed. The level of greed becomes unpalatable at that point and you will want to stop playing, which is a shame. Kind of like in Dawn of Titans when they just decided to stop dancing around the issue and started outright selling titans for $100 each. Yah... gfys. Also, the matchmaking in PvP sux. It uses an alternating, overpower/underpower cycle for MP. One match you will crush the other guy who seemingly has no strong units... then the next match you get steamrolled by a guy making faster rss than you and was somehow able to build a fleet of aircraft and wipe out your base before you even really get started. Fun! The game also has no skirmish mode... boo. However, I can see how this model would be attractive to greedy companies like EA, but it's simply not sustainable. It used to be that they would make a game that people wanted to play so they would sell copies. Not anymore. Now they build a game based on how much money they can siphon with loot boxes etc. before everyone realizes the game sux because they skimped on dev costs. So not only are they forcing us to gamble, but they are gambling with their own reputations. I haven't bought an EA game since SW Battlefront back in 2015, which was so disappointing, I stopped playing after only a couple days. I have no future plans to buy any EA titles to date. Fight back with your wallet and, for the love of all that is good, stop pre-ordering games before release. Really looking forward to Cyberpunk and Diablo 4 tho!!!
The fact that this video exists at all makes me powerfully sad. RTS was the first genre I played with vanilla Starcraft back in the 90s. Its my favorite genre to this day. Honestly, I don't think the audience for these games have gone anywhere. Developers just quit making them because its easier to cram a bunch of bullshit microtransactions into a battle royale or a MOBA.
"The Death" series returns today with the RTS. Once my favorite genre, now only a distant memory... fleeting at best.
Comment below with what game, genre or industry trend you'd like to see explored in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in.
-TL
The issue is the genre has a hard time improving as its a very conclusive concept. Games like We are Billions is one of the recent examples of one that has new ideas. This is a similar problem to sports games.
It's actually really sad because I have such great memories playing Empire Total War (which ran like garbage on Mac though) and Age of Empires III (I don't like II, too slow) even before my teenage years !
Downward Thrust downward trust can you do a vide in paradox studios and there buying of games with giant moding community’s and there top tier strategy games and there problems with micro transactions. Some are ok like stellaris as it adds a new system all together but the others seems rushed or don’t add anything.
No mention of the rise of MOBAs, or the drop in attention spans with future generations of gamers with little taste for deep strategy??? What about Microsofts efforts with the excellent Halo Wars series, and in their plans to revive the seminal Age of Empires series? Do your research Tone!
I don't think rts is completelly dead but it isn't at is popularity peak for sure. As it was pointed out very well in the video the main problem is the learning curve (and the fact that today's generation chase the instant gratification so they have no patient to struggeling around a bit) and the lack of innovation. Look at Blizzard right now, instead of they take a big risk and create warcraft 4 with a lot of possible innovation (interactive terrain which can deeply influence the battles, multiple interacting dmg type which needs to be strategicly considered, reimagined upgrade system etc.) they go down the beaten path and use nostalgia to sell their 10+ years game remastered for the much more secure profit. And I love Wc3 that was my all time favourite game but I'd still rather see finally something new.
In order for a man in korea to get married he must first defeat his wife's father in 1v1 Starcraft brood war match. Starcraft will never die as long as tradition stays strong.
So pros daughters only get married to other pros... striving for them 800 apm gosu genetics
@@flatman3134 social engineering as its finest :p
Man! You made my day so much! :D thanks for this wonderful joke.
😂🕊😊👍🏼
I'm currently living in Korea and can confirm that this is entirely factual and accurate
Let's face it. The bloat that got into the gaming industry demanded a constant stream of revenue. What was designed out of passion before, now just resembles a money making scheme.
Look what EA made with command and conquer... The last release was a Mobile game... That's rock bottom, and generals 2 was canceled
I was thinking exactly the same. Plus when you shift the target from the curious/passionate player to...the public, this is what happen. It happened with "pop" music (of every genre), it happened with "best seller" books, it was our turn now.
Cmon 2000s kids are just not smart enough or too lazy to play something like Starcraft 2 ( let alone Starcraft Brood War). They like shiny things and Fortnite or skins in CS GO.
damn hit too close to home T _ T
true if you look at games there are like couple of templates.
But there also is (not big enough) space for mid-tier games. And indie games.
So if not in AAA space the RTS might be reborn as mid-tier or indie titles. (check out the Grey Goo).
The point&click adventure died as well, but they resurected with remasters of classic as well as new titles like Deponia saga or The Book of Unwritten tales to name a few there were way much more in indie space as well with retro graphics focusing on puzzles and story.
I'm usually not unutterably optimistic. But I believe that the market does not like the void, and there will be companies to fill it.
have a nice time gaming!
The brutal killing of CnC by EA still hurts my soul to this day. I will never forget how much Tiberian Sun + Firestorm blew my mind.
@ CnC is not dead ! They launched a mobile game hahahaha...ha (starts to cry)
Right in the Feelz
I actually thought Tiberian Sun was a disappointment. The end mission was weak. CnC 95 was excellent. Eventually I liked Tiberian Sun and firestorm.
@@Realmjumper4099 Come on if nothing else there is one thing you've got to give to Tiberian Sun: Atmosphere. By that I mean the combination of fluid visuals with stylized graphics and perfectly fitting tunes in a dark and gritty post apocalyptic world. It has the best atmosphere out of any RTS title for me, with only Warcraft 3 coming close
Right? Losing Westwood cut me deep. EA is a mortal engine, devouring and recycling good series for profit.
Bioware after...
And Activision getting hold of Blizzard...
They stopped making RTS’s and started making MOBAs!
Tower Defense games too, TFT etc. RTS just turned into Warcraft 3's popular custom maps. People who made custom maps kept innovating while people who made RTSs gave up cause more money in MTX games.
This. DOTA and mobas sadly started spelling the end of RTS. Why make a RTS with online multiplayer and single player campaigns when you can spend a fraction for a moba filled with microtransactions.
haa, remember when mobas were relevant
Warcraft 3 basically was the first MOBA.
yeah RTS games weren't as profitable as other styles. Instead of finding ways to make them more profitable game companies just abandoned them. So many of us love RTS :(
Hearing Warcraft 3 and Age of Mythology within 10 seconds of each other made me re-live my childhood, thanks for that.
RTS is the very first genre of game I ever played. I miss games like Battle Realms
Same here. In fact Battle Realma was the first RTS and game I legit played.
Battle realms was one of my earliest rts games i played
man i loved battle realms as a kid
"Forget the Orb. Become the Dragon"
starcraft was mine.....
RTS was already diverging in the late 00's.
Titles like Warcraft 3, DoW2 or C&C focused on smaller rosters of units with rosters of spells and stances and micromanagement.
Titles like supreme commander and sons of a solar empire pulled back and focused more on sweeping scale and macro.
Eventually, the end point of the former design philosophy was the MOBA, which boomed in the early to mid 10's.
The latter design philosophy developed further into the genre of the Paradox style grand strat, like Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron.
People on this end of the spectrum, who often felt too much pressure from the fast pace of real time, appreciated the more relaxed pausable time, or even full on turn based strategy of games like Civilization.
The Core RTS fanbase essentially splintered into the strategy subgenres that do well now based on what aspects of RTS they wanted more of.
I never thought of it that way but it's a pretty good take and I agree.
Pretty much. Whatever ends up happening to RTS, the strategy genre is doing just fine. I do wish more strategy games had actually involved combat though. Total War is about the only one.
...and here I am wanting something similar to TA. I don't care for EU / etc at all.
Damn, Supreme commander awsome game it blew my mind when I first played it
Sins of a Solar Empire... nostalgia. So many multiplayer hours with friends and family.
Warcraft 1-2 and Dune2 where the best for me out of the genre tho. I didn't like the Command and Conquer series much.
There was also a really dark and hard RTS that I forgot name or did I... was it called "MYTH" ? It undeads in it and was insane hard. Loved it.
Me: Plays campaign
Friend: is that DOTA?
*EVERY*
*SINGLE*
*TIME*
RTS never died, it's marketshare precentage got smaller, and what used to be Triple A in the 90's/ 00's is now middle market.
Total War is very much in between middle marker and Triple A, Starcraft 2 was a Triple A game and is currently supported like a middle market game post launch- which is good and smart and doesn't really hurt it's quality.
RTS is just fine, you just need to know where to look for, and even though Mobile RTS is filled with trash MTX we can't just ignore it.
This
Yea but lets admit total wars are pretty much almost triple AAA nowadays like currently warhammer 2 had 27k people playing 2 days ago in comparison most well off games have between 3k to 7k thats damn impressive if i ask me
Yeh no game genre ever dies and rts will always have a hardcore following
It is true but the era of the Triple A RTS is long gone sadly.
Question: is there a third person mod in medieval tw or any total war game like with third person mode?
I think the reason RTS games are dying is because this type of games does not resonate well with casual gamers. You do not just hop on and play a quick match for fun. You need to commit to playing. With no casual gamers, AAA studios wouldn't care to make an RTS, leading to existing RTS players burning out, making there even less hardcore players. And the cycle continues.
Not true at all it has nothing to do with casuals if anything more complex games have been on rise in popularity even on console , you can look at plenty of games that require commitment and skill and thought and they are doing just fine , really what I think it is is we have not had anything genra defining in a Rts for years , seige is popular because it was genra defining not just because it was a shooter competive shooter , I think but we got some Rts game.that were new with big stuios behind them we would.be gold but the issue is most Rts games are bland indy titles that are shit , you can bet your ass when age of empires 3 comes out people will buy it age of empires was genra defining
@@matt2.052 To me the death of RTS is comprise of a lot of reasons and In my opinion one factor was that RTS is primarily a PC experience and with the rise of the consoles, specifically the 360 and ps3 era and FPS genre a lot of company shift focus to what was making more money at the time and they made development for consoles their main priority , they even tried to bring RTS to console and failed hard for reasons like you just can't fit the convenience and speed of a keyboard and a mouse for the RTS genre in a controller and the other being the learning curve and commitment required for this types of games against a something as simple as just Run, shoot, reload mechanics that most FPS were about.
Say that to League of Legends or Overwatch, those games are basically RTS games just with less focus on multiple units and buildings.
Mobas simplify the RTS gameplay mechanics to the point that they are considered different genres and Overwatch is nothing like starcraft or any other RTS. Orange and apples
I didn't really think about it like that
My dude glosses over Age of Empires like it’s nothing when they are remastering and making a new game while huge tournaments are still happening as well??? Like what?
Total Annihilation.
1500 units each.
6 A.I's with Hard A.I.txt
6gb of RAM can't save you now.
RTS are hard to play that's one of the big reasons why RTS are not as famous as it was companies know that ppl want easy games for western players why do u think a lot of ppl play league
In August 2019 SC2 recorded highest number of active players ever.
and ao2 and sc bw are still there as well. :D
Wut ? Sounds fake tbh
@@Fruxaq www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sy=c&sx=a
It was May on this graph.
Yeah and yet takes ages to find any 3v3
@@AmateurTroll69 Well, about 90-95% of the players play mainly 1vs1...
With the "always online" "game as a service" the RTS uses more money to maintain the servers.
I remember when RTSs were everywhere and they were proclaiming the "death" of turn based. RTSs are still alive. For example, They Are Billions is a brilliant RTS game.
Oh it's great, just not as "big" as it would be if it came out a decade ago
I'd argue that this isn't a good thing to do, since the cause is death of the home culture, and resultant loss of interest in intellectual pursuits. It's better to inspire people, and attempt to prevent complete collapse of the industry.
yet turn based and RTS both have their place.....
RTS's work best on PC, not on consoles
turn based work well on both yet gamers kept bitching about turn based games on consoles and we've seen the death of that genre......
I remember playing Gladuis and Front Mission 4 on PS2 both were fantastic turn based games, then Squeenix turned FM into a generic Armored Core clone and destroyed the franchise then with Left Alive it drives yet another nail in the franchise coffin, hwat pisses me off more is they could have released the saga in the west but decided to release a game here and a game there then declared no interest in the west for the series yet if they released all the games like they do for FF games they'd see more success so it's a self fulfilling prophecy
eww there's not enough interest in mecha in the west meanwhile in the 2000's Gundam Wing became super duper popular for awhile a decade late mind you but yeah and I personally went on to enjoy Gundam Seed & 00, 08'th MS team, Gundam 0079, Unicorn and a couple others....IDK how big those shows are here but if there was English localization for em id say they're big and interest exists....Gundam is the grandaddy of mecha anime.....
point is we are interested in mecha here and I would say as well we are interested in RTS and turn based games too
There are still quite a few people who play Warcraft 3 today, especially since Reforged was announced.
7:28 "Perhaps because the RTS genre lacks innovation or inherent potential"
This couldn't be further from the truth. I would argue that RTS might have the biggest potential out of all genres because of its extreme complexity. MOBA is essentially a dumbed down version of RTS, where each player only control a single hero unit with unique attacks, movements, skills,etc... and that alone is enough to make some of the most complex, challenging yet fun and addicting games that still remain popular today (DOTA2, LoL)
For me the genre that actually lacks innovation/potential is the FPS genre, and they are still flooding the market today with all the remake, remaster, recycled shit with a new number every year. Players are tied with the first person PoV, the skill ceiling mostly comes down to quick reaction time and precise aiming, which I find very boring.
The main reason for the decrease in popularity of RTS games is that they are simply not very profitable. They require too much resources and investment from both the developer side and player side. Making a RTS game becomes an increasingly high risk and low reward job for game developers, as publishers and shareholders become more and more greedy. So they simply stopped making them even though I would argue that there are still a large, niche audience for this type of games.
"This couldn't be further from the truth. I would argue that RTS might have the biggest potential out of all genres because of its extreme complexity."
Wrong. RTS has to follow its "design rules" otherwise it is no longer an RTS but other genre of strategy game. If you make RTS much more complex it will end up being a wargame or RTT.
"MOBA is essentially a dumbed down version of RTS"
Its more like MMORPG then RTS.
"For me the genre that actually lacks innovation/potential is the FPS genre, and they are still flooding the market today with all the remake, remaster, recycled shit with a new number every year."
Sure if you ignore games like PBUG, Arma, Squad, Rainbow, Swat etc...
"Players are tied with the first person PoV, the skill ceiling mostly comes down to quick reaction time and precise aiming, which I find very boring."
In the case of Squad, Arma etc... you have to learn how to call fire missions, know how to call ranges, how to defned, how to assault etc...
COD is like C&C while Arma is close to Command Modern Operations or Steel Panthers.
"The main reason for the decrease in popularity of RTS games is that they are simply not very profitable."
True however I would also like to point out that there are many many fans of RTS who have switched to other strategy genres such as wargaming, warsims etc...
You have limited resources to buy units, limited ammo, limited fuel, terrain affects your units from obscuring the vision to accuarcy penalty and movement. Using tanks in forest is easy in RTS in wargames your tanks will get taken out by infantry hiding in spider holes.
I started with RTS Warcraft 2 was my first game, then Red Alert 2, Generals, Starcraft, Empire Earth, Seven Kingdoms 2 etc...
But the first time I downloaded SPMBT wich is a free game I got hooked on wargaming.
@Nero IV
Really? Because last time I checked games like Starcraft don't have logistics, ammo, fuel etc...
Flying units cannot engage in SEAD missions, DEAD missions etc...
They cannot notch rockets etc...
Comparing starcraft 2 to wargame such as Command Modern Air Naval Operations shows you how limited games like SC, Red Alert etc... are.
@@greatdude7279 Try Dawn of War Soulstorm with Ultimate Apocalypse mod. This game will change your mind. Every race have different mechanics and u can play so many tactics. StarCraft is too simple and really can't compete with that.
Cuz dumbasses are the majority. If anything you wanna is to "do the cash" than whom will ya chose: The minnority or dumbies who will eat everythin: skins for an ennormus ammounts of money, imbalance stufs like b2w and stuf like that. Its all about making money. In ancient times, PC were asosieted with nerds aka "smart guys" but nowdays.. even the dumiest can have a pc: chads bitches etc having a PC and playing video games. MOBa and the shit allike - its the way making money on their stupidity. Its not about laking ideas for RTS or etc thera allot ppl who loves them... no.. its all about making money on a tards...
I see Dawn of War, Company of heroes, and so on in the comments. But... World in Conflict, anyone?
I played those games aside from Dawn of War. World in Conflict is good and underrated imo
World of Conflict is considered Real Time Tactic if not wrong. You just control the unit tactically without considering strategic resources
YES!!!!
There is a resource component to it with their point system, but I think it is safe to say it fits the RTS genre in an implied sense if not explicitly true to definition.
World in conflict is an amazing game i still play it every now and then its sad ubi let it die so fast
RTS are hard to commit to but MOBAs are easy to get into with relatively less skill required. In other words, it's more likely the average person will enjoy a MOBA over an RTS.
I disagree, the issue of rts games is that they became cookie cutter without character obsessed with balance centeres around stats causing Micro and rock paper scissors to become Way too abubdant. This mąkes stsrcraft boeing for me while making age of mythology beyond excellent.
Its not that its hard to get into, its that its not really had any quality of life its too, clutteres or simply too Little immersive.
Thats the issue a lack of character accessibility and immersion. Few games achiebes these three and they aicceedes.
Lord Tonald, I am glad to hear you are a lover of rts games. It's quite unfortunate that the genre has become forgotten. I just want another good Dawn of War game ;_;
Isaac Santos start 40k :)
Rise of Nations is still the best RTS I've ever played and one of the best games
RoN is one of my permanently installed Steam games along with Skyrim :)
The sound of catapults, like a ruler reverberating against the table top, will be forever with me :D
I wonder if a third person MOBA could work for consoles; Monday Night Combat died on PC but might be different outside PC space.
Or RTS crossplay where PC handles strategy/resources, and other players handle one hero unit each with a few AI minions like Mass Effect or Republic Commando.
Vincent Blauw Yessss I love Rise of Nations!!
You missed the most obviois reason: RTS Play aweful on consoles! Those designed for consoles are overly simplistic, while those on PC got more niche and complex. Once Halo figured out how to do controls right on a console FPS right, the genre was booming. This will never happen to RTS - unless consoles support/demand mouse controls (or touchscreen). We of the PC MR don't like to admit it, but consoles have a huge market share and therefore dictate to a degree how games are designed and played!
This is actually a really good point. Consoles are a huge market, and they're expected to continue outstripping the PC market, for a lot of reasons. It makes a lot of sense to develop a game that you can put on two or three major consoles and also port to PC rather than develop a game that will only fully work on PC, and even then only have niche appeal. Kudos to Paradox for figuring out how to make a city builder work quite well with a controller, but city builders don't require the same speed that an RTS does.
If so then how is moba winning despite most of them can't run on console?
Face it. Moba beat RTS in popularity.
I don't see why companies like blizzard couldn't just sell console compatible mice just like fighting stick's for fighting games
Im glad i found Company of Heroes 1 and 2 a couple of years ago, theyre pretty good btw, a shame about the old RTS', played a lot of C&C! :-)
CoH 2 is a sham of a game compared to CoH 1. One of my biggest let downs gaming-wise. CoH 1 is pure gold. Hands down one of the top-tier RTS games to this day.
ONE VISION, ONE PURPOSE!
CoH1 is top notch, was really delighted with the change of "gathering" gold/minerals for that resource system
CoH 2 might be an ok game mechanically, but is literal nazi propaganda narrative-wise. When you play the campaign in that it's basically Goebbels yelling in your ear. Made me so mad that I will NEVER give even one cent to Relic ever again.
Die hard RTS fan over here ^^
Still playing the older ones as I struggle to enjoy the new total war series.
aoe3 and rome total war are my all time best enjoyed games!
Men of War AS2, W40K DoWs, and some C&C games has got to be still some of the RTS games I still play out there.
Like = RTS Forever
Comment = Cheap and boring FPS nowadays
Everyone had different tastes, no genre is better or worse
No it's the Moba
Also:
DotA happened. Handling armies too hard for you? Handle one hero!
The amount of new games through the decade skyrocketed, while the time for playing each game for a person diminished. Same time, more games, less average time available for each game, and RTS have always been way too above the average time required.
Man, Starcraft will always be my best game ever. I spent 10.000 hours on it, and unfortunately life will never give me another 10.000 for any other game, so I have to stick with Crash Royale :(
Also: I can say with confidence Starcraft's music was (still is) P.E.R.F.E.C.T, no buts, 100% true to the word. 12 tracks in 10.000 hours and it never bored me, it fits perfectly in the universe, is not invasive, suits the art style, makes you feel completely immersed. I even thought Terran's themes were way beyond their time, until I learned about 80's instruments. Starcraft introduced me to the best music in the world, saving me from Reggaeton culture.
Finally: Censorship. I still believe one of the reasons Starcraft 2 didn't hit as hard a Starcraft was because the first game had darker narrative and it was free from mainstream shenanigans. Starcraft 2 on the other hand was developed to appeal a bigger, much bigger audience, so they couldn't be as creative as they wanted. No marines being disintegrated by hydralisks acid, no ugly teeth, no holy shit I'm being massacred by dragoons, and that affected directly with the story as well. They had to make a stale plot so the risk of the success of the game wasnt that high.
It worked, but it abandoned a lot of potential just to be safe. Not a bad decision, just a shame they were forced to go that way.
And of course a lot of other things, but I focused on that one for now.
You know what RTS I miss too? Commandos, Beyond Call of Duty.
I love RTS, never forget that.
In my opinion RTS is not dead. But it became smaller relative to the other genres by not growing so much as other games did.
A friend has often told me that the rts genre has always been too overwhelming for him because there were too many options and too many details to pay attention to. I think that alone explains why rts is failing, most people these days prefer simplicity over being actually challenged.
Loving the new videos, Tonald. Keep up the good work!
Remember when we were supposed to get C&C Generals 2?
EA: Oh people like this? Maybe we should make it f2p with lots of surprise mechanics
*Everyone disliked this*
EA: Fine then you don't get anything
*Everyone hated this*
EA, lawful evil to the bitter end.
Bros I love RTS games , if I am given a choice of having a great pc , I'd choose to play StarCraft 2 and Age of Empires 3 again rather than playing any other modern game
I love RTS games, check out the total war series and their games. See which one you like, they have decent ones.
No mention or even footage of Empire Earth or Cossacks? (sry if I just missed it) I think those should be mentioned as well. Empire Earth was very good game and it has 3 games. Cossacks also has multiple games and Cossacks 3 came out in 2016.
1. MOBA's didn't replace RTS's, they're a separate genre that was spawned out of RTS game map editors. I consider them closer to ARPG's than RTS's - they're basically team versions of POE or Diablo.
2. RTS games now have more ways than ever to monetize: DLC campaigns/factions/alternate modes and more, purchasable unit skins and announcer packs, etc. If sports games and FPS games can monetize in other ways, surely an RTS game can find a fair model to be profitable.
3. IMO, the big hurdles are innovating gameplay, getting studio execs to be unafraid of stepping into an RTS, and finding the right talent to build an RTS (a lack of games means a lack of experience).
Company of Heroes deserves an honorable mention for being a pretty solid RTS in my opinion.
Tylodud209 The best I’d say (without brits).
Why isn't Dawn Of War on here!?!?
My favorite rts was the original dow series. Four land raiders, terminator drop terror, plasma scout swarm, etc. It got funky with soulstorm and flyers. Still, I loved that game. I never played the later games. My pc couldn't handle it. I'll never not smile when thinking of orbital bombardment, and the surprise bloodthirster. 🍺💨
Walk softly and carry a big gun
This makes me happy😇
ABANDON REASON!!! KNOW ONLY WAR
Or COH
Praise be to Lord Tonald
🦏🥛
1 like = 1 wisdom of Dadald
🦏🥛
🦏🥛 🐺🥛
May the blessed Pipeman sing you songs of the Living Gay Donuts as you sleep.
Keep up the good work, Tonald.
Its not that the RTS genre is death or have fewer players than it use to, its more that the big Dev's focus more on game formats that gives more revenue, like moba's, mmo's and mobile games. The funny thing is, that the big company's they tell their customer's, that we know better what you want from/in a game than you do.
I think you nailed it when you looked at what RTS has to compete with. Sidescollers are particularly beloved by those who love them, but don't have mass appeal. Comparatively, the other gaming genres that exist today are far more exciting to look at for those who aren't into gaming, and have a much better chance of pulling new customers in.
I also want to address Total War specifically: I played that series from Medieval 2 to Rome 2, then jumped off the series. When I picked it up, I was particularly eager for a medieval setting RTS, and Med 2 really filled the boots. I had recently tried Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, as well as a LotR themed RTS that I don't even remember the name of, and neither held my Interest, but Med 2 reminded of how much I loved Lords of the Realm as a kid. I loved it, but it had some glaring flaws, which initially I could forgive, until later Total War titles kept these flaws going. On single player side, the AI was so bad that beating it up was boring. Increasing difficulty didn't help because it just gave the AI unfair buffs, but didn't make it smarter. I faced the same stupid AI that would do stupid things that I would properly counter, then lose anyways because stat buffs. As for the multiplayer side of the house, I found they didn't have enough community to have an entry level player pool, and matching against players who were experienced in the multiplayer field was so one sided as to not be fun. Combine this with the development team always pushing the graphics of a new Total War title to the edge of what computers of the day can handle, which both limits the player pool who can join the franchise, and means those same development resources weren't spent anywhere else, and I think that Total War was a victim of it's own developers.
i pretty much grew up with RTS games. Generals, AOE. Empire Earth, Company of Heroes and then Red Alert 3 were some of my favourite
And then there is Supreme Commander.
The God of Destruction.
I would blame it to koreans, they are so good playing it just makes you not try at all
I agree that this is at least a part of the reason. This is what I wrote on the topic elsewhere :
RTS got ruined by Koreans and hypercompetitive players. Most people played the old RTS like total noobs - turtle, build a death ball, attack move into the enemy base, and the same happened when playing multiplayer against other noobs they knew over LAN. But then Koreans started no-lifing Starcraft and showed everyone how it's done and RTS became about precise build orders and clicking 3000 times a minute.
Competitive people started adopting that playstyle, which ruined the fun for people who wanted to play RTS casually, which excluded a large part of the audience from MP in classic RTS.
However, companies want to rake in big bucks, so they started watering down the mechanics to also appeal to people who didn't want to make RTS their lives. Unfortunately, even watered down RTS are too hard for most people and they don't appeal to the hardcore audience, so now the entire genre is stuck in a limbo.
@@Wix92 Yep, I played 1 game on the Warcraft 3 ladder and 1 minute in I was base-rushed by the enemy player. After this I never queued ladder again. I went back to playing with bots cuz it was so much more fun playing a lvl 10 hero with a huge army and an expanded base than just losing the game 5 minutes in.
Hahahaha the comments here are actually funny. Well I have never mastered (played decent have a decent understanding) of both SC and WC3 even tho I tried to play them. They are kinda complex games but way more fun if u learn them. I think people today don't want to play "hard" games they want it to take it as easy as possible. StarCraft and Warcraft are my favourite games from the RTS genre but I never have learned how to play them. I moved to DotA because my friends were playing it and then I only played DotA, later Dota 2.
Tell that to Serral.
Personally I always viewed RTS MP as way too hardcore to play. I only turtled vs bots as a noob and I believe that was the most popular way to enjoy RTS. The active MP RTS players are just the ones who are vocal anymore in RTS, the SP noobs (majority) aren't active in the scene anymore it seems. Tho there's not much of a scene is there lol
MOBA kills RTS
And if you are talking about transformation, MOBA is the result of RTS transformation.
they are 2 commplet different changres
How old are you? MOBA is RTS, we may not like it but the moba is why RTS has died out, the base format is the same
No! Kids killed RTS. Devs área useless know.. what is the lastest good RTS? Coh2 de have 10 years with not a single good RTS
Why people keep saying moba kill RTS? Mobas are inferior games devs just want ez money thats coh2 and Sc are pretty alive
Pure RTS games are WAY better than MOBAs
Westwood breaking up pretty much signalled the end of strategy games.
Folks, if you buy and play Planetary Annihilation you won't be disappointed. It's a good game that only needs more players to become great. And the dev's haven't given up on it yet: they still support competitive play and make occasional updates!
Ashes of the singularity escalation is great as well
Dude... The other genres you mentioned haven't innovated any more than the RTS Genre. You cite the "same perspective, ui elements, and mechanics." What new mechanics did Uncharted add? It's still doing the same perspective and mechanics as Tomb Raider. The innovations to story games have only really been cinematic not mechanical and those same innovations have come to other genres as well.
Here's what happened to the RTS Genre: The games market used to be a niche and a lot of the people in that niche were willing to learn a new RTS game and have fun with it. Enough that to games companies at the time (largely run by engineers with minimal business experience) they seemed decently profitable. And without true ranking systems or ladders, players were blissfully unaware of how bad they were at RTS games compared to the top players. They'd find random matches online, sometimes stomp, sometimes get stomped, but very few paid attention to the "Hardcore" (what woudl be come esports) scene. And if playing against other players became too much there were always custom maps and Comp stomps and friends at LAN parties to play with/against.
This started to change with RA3 and C&C3 with the introduction of more competitive environments online. But it really hit home with Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 sold super well, invested heavily in esports, and it gave everybody a front row seat to how bad they are and how much work would be required to achieve even mid level competence. Meanwhile, the RTS genre itself fractured. While for years everyone had been repeating the same sort of "grand overlord RTS" style of game, DOTA -> Heroes of Newerth -> LoL -> Dota2 showed that there was an easier way. The MOBA is a subgenre of the RTS. And it's popularity killed the "traditional" RTS. It had wider appeal in the exploding games market (grown by games like WoW, casual games on facebook and iphones, etc.).
Now to succeed on the level of Starcraft 2 was not enough especially as games companies became more and more beholden to the desires of the business executives calling the shots. WoW was the first "super-mega" hit of the modern era of games and when that blood hit the water around the same time as the big stock market and real estate scandals of 2008, all the greedy douchebros who would have continued making money pillaging that market saw more reputable opportunity in games and in silicon valley.
MOBAs were perfect for this. LoL started selling heroes, talent upgrade packs, skins for the heroes, etc.. Dota2 takes it a step further with loot boxes (which Valve had already experimented with in TF2). During this Supcom and eventually Supcom 2 are released and fail to pick up steam. Supcom 1 was fairly popular but not on the same level as these MOBAs. Supcom 2 tried to address a lot of the barrier to entry issues to capture a larger market, but ended up alienating Supcom 1's fanbase and gaining nobody new.
Total War continues to try to innovate and improve during this time period but can't seem to have a successful launch. But while Total War has RTS battles, it is not a traditional RTS game. The competitive modes of it are more akin to a digital version of Warhammer than a traditional RTS (which explains why Total War Warhammer 1 and 2 are so perfect and fantastic. And don't tell me they or TW: Three kingdoms didn't innovate. They did).
In europe, Spellforce 2 does pretty well and is slated for a sequel.
But MOBAs still control the majority of the market that would be RTS players. And they adopt practices from the waning MMORPG industry: daily quests, timed events, etc.. They find ways to turn playing their game into an obligation you must do daily crowding out the opportunity to learn a different game.
This is still going on today. Most of the traditional RTS players have stuck with familiar ground rather than take risks on new games despite a lot of really good traditional RTS games coming out. Why this is is simple, it's very hard to learn a new RTS and get good at it especially if it innovates in any way. So rather than try, they just say "it sucks because it's not exactly like this RTS game I already know how to play." Examples of games enduring that BS:
Dawn of War 3: Hampered by poor PR and marketing decisions, the game never recovered from a backlash that started before it released. Despite great solid mechanics, innovation on the hero/faction selection. Really well designed asymmetric factions. And being setup for that monetization, it never could really catch on. Relic abandoned support for it after less than year.
Spellforce 3: It's initial release was rocky with an attempt at reinventing the resource and hero systems for the competitive mode causing more frustration and confusion than excitement. However it's standalone expansion has revamped the resource system, the factions, the heroes, and added two more factions for a total of 5. It is undoubtedly the best new RTS game in quite a while.
Grey Goo was good but the studio behind it really didn't think people would try to play it competitively so early imbalances caused headaches for players. And also apparently did not benchmark any of the game against average machines of the day causing even the menu to absolutely murder typical machines at the time.
Their next game: Forged Alliance was built on some fun innovations but they did not support the game after launch and instead moved onto their next project.
Anyway... I like your content. But you're asking so many questions in your video that have obvious answers if you've been paying attention. RTS will make a comeback eventually as players get sick of being coddled by MOBAs and hero shooters and BRs and want to actually challenge their minds. But it's going to take one helluva RTS to do it with some amazing marketing behind it. Oh also, RTS games aren't as fun to watch on Twitch or TH-cam as more simple games like MOBAs, etc.. And they are usually 1v1 so people can't blame their teammates when they lose.
ZombieApocalypse09 a lot of interesting and good takes here IMO.
All I’d really think to add would be that, the gaming market itself was more societally niche in the 90s and early 2000s. With a certain demographic and type of person. A mainstream hit PC game in the 90s is now a much smaller part of a bigger whole. The niche is still large but proportionality much smaller.
SC2’s failures I agree with in part. I don’t think the issue was a focus on 1v1 and competitive, although it’s part of it. It’s as much that they botched Bnet 2.0 on launch, and all the social stuff that came with it at the same time.
Warcraft 3 I could ignore the ladder entirely, have a clan, have a smoother messaging system, have a much better custom game creation and search ability. All sorts of stuff.
SC2 didn’t have these at launch, still doesn’t have some of them and it really hurt the game as a hub to just hang around and have fun in.
I still think focusing on 1v1 competitive was fine, it’s kept me coming back for years, we have a tournament scene to watch and be inspired by etc.
Being a distinct downgrade as a casual experience, never mind not improving on WC3 in that regard was a terrible blunder though.
Even small things made it annoying. The lack of unique usernames in Bnet 2.0 meant you couldn’t use the /w username command to message people, you had to click a button, find your friend, click there and then send your message.
Fine for many games, really not good for a game as fast paced as Starcraft 2. For a good typist you can play smoothly and hit a /w message really quickly. With the new system you had to choose between focusing on your 1v1 game or being social and chatting to your online buddies.
Sounds a minor thing but in WC3 I could just lounge all day and play and talk to people. In SC2 I just laddered, then conversed, then went back to laddering.
Another backwards step was the inability to name your custom lobbies. You just made a lobby of a particular game, and people would get filtered into your game if they wanted a game of that type.
In Warcraft 3, or SC1 you could browse lobbies and people would name their lobbies accordingly. So you could choose between a ‘DoTA - Noobs only’ or a ‘DotA PROS PLZ’ and pick a game according to your skill level.
This is the exact kind of vid I originally subbed your channel for, and it's just fantastic to see you returning to this form. Cheers
Supreme Commander franchise was my favorite. I'd definitely buy another one if it was released.
Me top. I own all three Supreme Commander games and I still play the last two supreme commander games from time to time.
Unless it's like supcom 2.
Have you tried Planetary Annihilation? It's a real spiritual successor, imo.
@@surface3122 all three of them were good. Forged alliance was the best of the three though.
@@AidanofVT I looked at that game and I don't think its any sort of successor to supreme commander.
Creative Assembly is still keeping RTS alive with Total Warhammer.
Suck that Relic didn't do that with DoW 3. >_>
They aren't considered traditional RTS where you can build economy and units in real time.
They are more like RTT, real time tactics.
Otherwise, should we include all the real time game that is remotely controlling units with mouse RTS?
Than moba is RTS. but most people don't considered moba as "pure" RTS or traditional RTS, or RTS at all.
So I will object your claim here.
No, Total war isn't a traditional RTS, it's success didn't save RTS like age of empire, starcraft and warcraft or red alert.
My favorite game genre. I still play one of my favorites, BFME 2 age of the ring is amazing and recently updated i totally recommend it. There are many rts to enjoy while we wait for that "return". Nice vid.
Homeworld and supreme commander was just the bestest best! Wish they still worked super well
You just casually glossed over Total Annihilation, when in the fan-rated polls back in the 90s it was always in the top 20 games of all time. Too many Blizzard fanboys loved only StarCraft, and the reviewers for some reason only liked Blizzard after a while. Supreme Commander tried to bring back the Total Annihilation crowd with amazing new graphics, but I feel like nobody cared anymore for anything that wasn't StarCraft 2 at that point. (and it did need a nice video card to run well at the time)
Admittedly, when Westwood disappeared that was pretty much the end of the genre for a lot of players. And the downfall of PC gaming in favor of console gaming over the last 20 years is a lot to blame too, as it's tough to sell a RTS on a console without a mouse.
In order to get casual players doing RTS again you need a campaign with stories and cutscenes. Nobody wants to spend hundreds of thousands making those cutscenes for the story anymore, like the good old Westwood Red Alert 1 and 2 movies.
If you think those cut scenes cost much more than a few actors hamming it up in costume in front of some props and a green screen then your nostalgia powers are too damn strong.
@@cattysplat In the 90s you could make a game by getting 4 people together for about 6 months. Once the engine was written it's all scripting, graphics, 3d models, and map making. Full motion video cut scenes were a huge expense when you don't already have a studio and you're making a game in a university computer lab or your basement. Having a 35mm camera (digital wasn't a thing back then) and film, hiring actual actors who fit the part who aren't random guys from a local university comp-sci department who work for free, buying uniforms, building a proper stage. You're looking at tens of thousands of dollars minimum, which was a huge addition to cost back in those days. Certain companies like Westwood and Origin went all out. Look up the film work for the Wing Commander series. They hired Mark Hamill and other professional actors. You think Luke Skywalker worked for a 24 pack of beer and some doritos? If so, you might want to run back to the kotaku and reddit forums to have more meaningless arguments about whether SNES/Genesis, or Xbox/PlayStation are better consoles. Take your gamer angst/hate and trolling elsewhere.
TA is the few RTS I respect in 90s. They are different than Blizzard's stuff.
Dungeon Siege is another game I respect in early 2000s.
Too bad they all got shadowed by Blizzard.
Blizzard create the casualization/fast pace of trend in gaming. Their downfall and taken over by more casual and fast pace games is almost comical to watch.
Honestly, MOBAs just replaced them. Just look at the list of qualities you enumerated for Warcraft 3's success. You can apply virtually every single one of them to the Warcraft 3 to League of Legends transition as well.
lots of people only bought warcraft 3 to play Defense Of the Ancients as well
Frankly mobas are more like ARPGs than RTS. You only have one hero to keep track of and its more about items and abilities than units economy or efficiency.
I'm a big red alert 2 and generals gamer
I'm sad seeing rts fading away
I think you nailed the main reason, lack of a profitable business model and inherent risk making one. SC2 had so much backing, had an initial boom in popularity, and nearly died (although seems to be slowly rising again). Besides the major technical challenges of creating one, I think the genre is mainly competitive and has a high barrier to entry similar to fighting games. It seems it will always be niche. Big reasons why we see mobas succeeding is that they address the business model and skill barrier to entry.
That's the real reason. It's hard to justify micro-transactions in an RTS so EA and Activision gave up on the genre. Hopefully SEGA continue to feel differently.
2:22
C&C and the Dune RTSs did that too. It started with C&C in 1995 and even Dune 2 in 1992. SC just made it flashier.
The reason why RTS games dissapeared was because the game companies stopped creating them.
Uhhh so smart. No more questions to be followed up by that analysis.. fuckwit
Still play red alert 2 and Yuris revenge expansion to this day C and C net is still alive and kicking.
Maybe mention one of these things:
1. Rise of MOBA
2. Rise of World of Warcraft
3. Rise of Console Gaming
4. Rise of Mobile Gaming
All of these things attracted the same audience that used to love RTS games. RTS is still a very big genre on the Mobile (Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, etc) and the yare constantly making new improvements and new games for the mobile devices. Only the PC RTS genre has died down.
Always loved RTS. My first RTS game was The Ancient Art of War.(MS-Dos) Still have good memories of it and it's follow up a few years later he Ancient Art of War at sea. Later Warcraft, StarCraft. C&C, Company of Heroes and Syndicate had the biggest impact on me.
Moved over to 4X games for a long while. Sword of the Stars is still an absolute favorite!
Pickings these days are slim. RTS gave way to turn based strategy like X-com and the like.
Funny thing is RTS games age very well. Oh the graphics fall behind sure but if an RTS has a solid core experience you can extract a ton of fun from all the tittles you missed.
RTS games are like chess. You can sit down to an old school black and white square and have a fun (or frustrating..) game with a basic set.
If your looking for an RTS fix go back and find some of the old ones. After a few hours the graphics hardly matter as much as the mechanics and a good plan.
The kind of RTS I think would do well is something that natural selection did (the half-life mod thing) where a commander place down certain builds and the players build it and where you place an item would differ tehe type of strategy you need to use.. the commander also gives a heads up on what to meet because he gets all the info from his team mates.... So a fusion of RTS and FPS would be the next step and I believe it's fully doable with today's tech.
loved natural selection 2 that game is dope
Star Wars empire at war, best RTS
Loved that game
We're forgetting halo wars, which proved rts games could work on a console. It was simple and approachable, yet still had some depth to it. It had an amazing story and most of the levels were well made.
I holding out hope that warcraft 3 reforged will reignite people's love for the rts genre
it didn't.
Dont know if ya'll have realized, but a LOT of RTS games are coming out to the ps4. I've been buying them all up.
Man, I had some good times with Warcraft 2 battle.net edition and Warcraft 3.... I do miss when RTS games were big because I always loved them! I keep hoping for Warcraft 4 as do many other Warcraft RTS fans but it just won't happen :(
Go Warcarft 3 Reforged. I hope some of the community gathers again
@@mist273 I pre-ordered it :)
Cool. Me too c:
We just grew up and busy working. RTS will make a strong come back when we retire in 30 years
I don’t know if I agree that sc2 is dead... I play regularly and watch tournaments. Still seems to be a lot of interest.
I honestly think the real issue with the RTS genre is that the industry as a whole has gotten more and more risk averse in the AAA market, while the middle market has all but disappeared. All you have left is small indie titles that can't really afford to get the marketing to get noticed (Tooth and Tail, They are Billions). The middle market is squarely where a LOT of genres belong, not popular enough to get the money to sustain a AAA budget, but with a loyal and frankly starving audience that would love to get their hands on *any* new content in their favorite genres. The climate in the industry right now just doesn't allow for anything else than what we're getting... but I'm hoping that as development tools improve and games get cheaper to make that the indie scene may yet be able to carry the slack.
RTS vet here. I started with AoE and moved from that to the likes of CnC and StarCraft. I don't think the player base has seen a good RTS since 2007s CnC 3.
Thankfully, I've found that many strategy titles have aged unbelievably well. I recently upgraded my graphics card so I could keep up with my friends computers, then realized that all of the games we were playing were at least ten years old lol (Dawn of War, Forged Alliance, Empire at War, even CnC 1). The modding community is an amazing thing.
RTS got corrupted by pay to win "speed" grind mechanics.
48lowes this. Due to fact that it is standard to lower skill/learning aspects of the game towards “this gizmo has better stats” in market of microtransactions jt is not surprising to see that rts are either too simplistic to play or to unprofitable to make.
I still have most of the games featured here in my PC. 😂😂... It is not dead. Just in Hibernation. (we need to be positive.)
I've been playing a lot of Command and conquer general zero hour with the contra mod recently, so good to go back
It was probably just like what happened with horror games. The industry decided it was a dead genre even though there might have been an audience, making it a self fulfilling prophecy. There really seemed to have been a huge hit to the genre when Westwood studios went belly up and it's never been the same since
AOE4 has been announced. Just sayin
Back in august of 2017, with no release date in sight...
@@Dreamabys come a month later, it got a trailer released and it's good
It never died, there are plenty of fantastic modern strategy games. I don't know why normies think a genre is dead just because it isn't getting 5+ AAA releases a year. Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition plus the two DLCs that have been released, Age of Empires IV just released, Iron Harvest just released, OG Command & Conquer and Red Alert just got a remaster, next year in 2022 we're getting another Homeworld game as well as Total War: Warhammer 3 which have consistently been the best Total War games to date, etc. A genre isn't dead just because one is too lazy to search for them.
Wow, you actually had some vid from Dune 2000. However, I have to say that Age of Empires is still HUGE
*sighs* companies dont understand that risk = money
Age of Empires 2 mods etc convinced Microsoft to go employ the modders.
While still being played, AoE isn't huge at all, even StarCraft II, the most popular RTS right now, isn't huge
Why is no one talking about Company of Heroes?
My favorite will always be Homeworld.
"Starcraft was the most fully featured RTS of its time..."
Age of Empires and Earth 2140 rolls over in their graves.
This video makes me sad. RTS is my favourite genre !
RTS are not dead, just look at AoE 4.
My personal theory:
Gamers nowadays don't like to think when they play. They would rather play something now that involves turning off your brain as much as possible, sort of like going home to watch TV or something remedial like that.
So many after thoughts.
Imo mobas fall under RTS. Like when starcraft 2 came, i was quite happy. However, i just played campain and left, cuz i had hon / lol by my side. They are pretty much the same, isnt it? You got heroes, you got strategy plus a lot of content. Am i wrong here? RTS-ses like u want, classicals, evolved per to say.
Second thought - Actually, if im gonna think about it, there is a great "classic" RTS games. Total wars, hoi series, EU series, warhammers, endless space. I might even say, that frostpunk or other similar building games shares a lot of rts traits.
tl;dr - I just think, that RTS has evolved to subgames, and we dont understand or see that.
Sidenote - sorry for english, not my mother language.
True, MOBA is a subgenre of RTS to the point MOBA being also called as "Action RTS/ARTS". However, it's really hard to call them the successor of RTS in general. MOBAs mostly lack base/unit building and only resource to manage and gather seems to be "gold" in most titles. MOBA titles are overwhelmingly focused on combat.
Because of that, I think MOBA is closer to Real-time Tactics genre rather than RTS.
ProfesyonelCaylak ultimately I don’t see why they’re even considered a sub-genre of RTS.
They lack the tenets as you say, not just resource gathering but also managing multiple things on multiple screens.
To me they’re just action RPGs with a defined team format. You level your character, you get gold and gear, you get new skills etc. Much more like a 5v5 Diablo or something than an RTS.
I think the only reason they’re even attached to RTS by such terms is solely because DoTA had its origins as a mod game in the RTS WC3.
Not that I’m critical of the genre itself, I just find that curious. RTTs are RTS games where you don’t have resource management, but still control multiple different units in real time. Then Grand Strategy are slower RTS on a more epic scale, often encompassing differing fields of conflict that you have to keep an eye on (ground level vs space level or whatever)
@@StewartMillarTheManCave I guess that's why ARTS as a name didn't stick as much as MOBA did. At the time I wrote my comment, only those came to my mind. Also, I'm glad that some more contribution to my comment is made.
It really kills me that there may never see a Warcrft 4, Warcrft 3 was probably the game that got me started on games, it is the reason I still play WoW today.
Total War Warhammer 2 is alive and well
I once had a dream where Metal Gear had a RTS games with many military factions and one faction can drop the Rex with six choppers dropping it by releasing the metal cables that held it.
Sorry for the long comment but rts games WAS my childhood and I still remember and love that period in my life.
I was in 1st grade when I first started to play computer games. The 1st rts game that I played was Red Alert. I played the shit out of it and I still remember that I used to pretend sick so that my teachers would send me home so I can play Red Alert HAHA. Our pc broke down and I'm forced to rent and go to pc cafes. I was then introduced to StarCraft and it blew my mind, it's futuristic, and amazing. Then the pc cafe that I usually go to closed and I was forced once again to find another place to play. I still remember that I specifically asked the owner if they have StarCraft, they said they don't have that but they instead opened Warcraft 3. And oh boi, I really got addicted. I was introduced to Dota, Bleach vs One Piece, Fight of the Characters and many more custom maps from Warcraft3. Our pc got repaired and the repairman installed Age of Empires 2, Battle Realms, and Command and Conquer Generals. I also played the shit out of those games. We bought a second pc and my little bro and I would constantly battle in those games. Wolf vs Lotus, General Granger vs Dr. Thrax, China vs Celts. The good old days 😔 I wish I was back. Now I'm 20 years old and my brother installed Command and Conquer Generals again but now with mods. We're battlong again like we used to HAHA. I was frustrated when Generals 2 was cancelled but I am really excited for Age of Empires 4. Make rts games great again.
Again sorry for the long comment, rts games just has a special place in my heart.
Check out the total war series, it might be what your looking for. Maybe take a look at Total War Warhammer 2 specifically?
Warcraft3 is just my childhood.It's like your good old friend
I'm so glad that the game is still quite populated and that people still make new content regularly.
I just want to add rts games are recommended by scholars and researchers for elderly that forget stuff a lot. Also, do a youtube search for 2019 or 2020 rts games see what you get.
Ground Control was one of my personal favourites. I think it was the first RTS game that had no resource management. It was purely about tactics. Its graphics look great even now!
Thats more like RTT though
Battle for Middle-Earth is the best game i ever played
Elias Bjerselius I don’t even ‘ ow how to get it anymore
Fabian Blache IV pirate it or find a used copy
Well in terms of "lack of innovation": Look up World in Conflict. This game made everything right, changed the way units are commanded and the camera operates. No base building at all, no resource gathering, high dynamic, action based gameplay still with lots of tactical depth. Graphics kicked ass for that time, environment was 100% destructible (way before the Battlefield 3+ times), dual monitor support, a campaign with cutscenes, ranked multiplayer. This game did everything right and what happened? Barely anyone knows about it, which really is a shame.
The issue is, tactical players are a minority. And if you really dare to try something new, your target playerbase gets even smaller. So while Call of Duty Part 69234 will be hyped and reviewed trough all media, real gems don't even have real chances to get resonance. Thats also why large companies are not willing to risk doing that, its cheaper to stick to the stuff that sells and/or milk successful online games (GTA Online being one of the worst examples imo).
The problem is simply, that gaming became a serious business by now and stuff that dosen't sell well has no real future. At least not at the AAA industry, where the most resources are.
Lose-Lose-Situation.
Compare WiC with Age of Empires 2, one of the most successful RTS games of all time, that still has around 1 million unique players per month.
AoE2 is classic to fault, having all RTS mechanics that WiC did not, having a shared Tech Tree across 31 civilizations, with cutouts and differing bonuses making up the uniqueness of each one.
RTS needs no innovation, people like the "same old, same old" as long as it is done right. The attempts at innovating have actually hurt RTS, and the only thing that actually sells right now is remasters, proving that RTS is not a modernizable genre.
This is why it died, and why it was replaced with MOBAs, which are now dying off as genre, because they too cannot innovate. However, just like RTS, the best games of that genre will live off well into the next several decades.
A totally cute and innocent guy it’s different, is it necessarily better?
It does look an interesting title and I’ve added it to my Steam wish list so thanks for turning me on to it.
For whatever reason, RTS games with these ‘classic’ mechanics like base building, resource gathering etc have historically been the ones that have stuck around and have followings even now. Be it both Starcrafts, WC3 (which kept that stuff but is more innovative than basically any other RTS via heroes/levelling/creeps/upkeep mechanics, or AoE which still has a pretty solid playerbase.
Games that deviate, for whatever reason don’t seem to last. My personal institution feels that non-RTS players aren’t drawn in by RTS games full stop, even ones that do things differently, and RTS veterans prefer to stick with games more similar mechanics to what they’ve played for years.
From a historical standpoint, RTS suffered from the "3D is the future" obsession of the late 90's. Converting RTS graphics to 3D did not fundamentally change the game play in any way, they played practically identical to 2D RTS, 3D RTS even with a good computer and graphics card to run would suffer slowdown and de-synchronised multiplayer was common. Game reviewers and publishers didn't like this, they wanted new exciting things done with 3D and the RTS being made by developers were not innovating unlike the mods and custom maps, so received reduced review scores and publishers considered them a dead end with a cornered market - why compete with C&C and AOE? When those big franchises died nobody wanted to touch RTS, I was very surprised when Blizzard made Starcraft 2 considering there really wasn't any demand for it and it turned out the game played very similarly to Brood War anyway, with the custom maps being blundered by blizzard's terrible social system in game. MOBA's took what made custom maps so popular and spun them into their own multiplayer phenomenon that was simplified and focused on team competition and the rest is history. RTS can return but it needs to innovate, building a massive army and attack moving into enemy forces gets old fast and there is still great potential in the genre for fun games and great ideas that are being shown in the indie scene.
Dw lads warcraft 3 remastered is coming soon
Blizzard is becoming interested in Warcraft 3 lately.They announced Reforged and released quite big patches. I honestly hate the new graphics,but I'm glad that they're paying attention to Warcraft 3 again and that you can still play with original graphics.
The total war series is still keeping the genre alive but their franchise is slowly dying...
There's a mobile RTS called Art of War 3 that got me super excited because it was so much like old school C&C games. The interface is a bit clunky because you don't use a mouse, but it was a blast to play... at first. You muddle your way through "earning" your first units and start making lots of rss. You spend your surplus of rss on some upgrades for those units while working on some basic campaign maps that make it easy and fun to play... at first. Then you start hitting bottlenecks in the campaign because your units are not upgraded enough. The upgrades start costing a ton of rss and days/weeks to complete (for a single unit/single upgrade). I started doing the math and it would takes years to freeplay your way to upgrading this stuff. Doesn't sound like fun. Even if you spend a bunch of money on the game, it won't be enough. You would need thousands of dollars to upgrade everything, which may get you a nice little bump in research, but the upgrades never end. You can spend money 2 ways, on rss to buy the upgrades, then on time towards the actual upgrade. So you can spend hundreds of dollars here and maybe only get 2 or 3 full upgrades completed. The level of greed becomes unpalatable at that point and you will want to stop playing, which is a shame. Kind of like in Dawn of Titans when they just decided to stop dancing around the issue and started outright selling titans for $100 each. Yah... gfys.
Also, the matchmaking in PvP sux. It uses an alternating, overpower/underpower cycle for MP. One match you will crush the other guy who seemingly has no strong units... then the next match you get steamrolled by a guy making faster rss than you and was somehow able to build a fleet of aircraft and wipe out your base before you even really get started. Fun! The game also has no skirmish mode... boo.
However, I can see how this model would be attractive to greedy companies like EA, but it's simply not sustainable. It used to be that they would make a game that people wanted to play so they would sell copies. Not anymore. Now they build a game based on how much money they can siphon with loot boxes etc. before everyone realizes the game sux because they skimped on dev costs. So not only are they forcing us to gamble, but they are gambling with their own reputations. I haven't bought an EA game since SW Battlefront back in 2015, which was so disappointing, I stopped playing after only a couple days. I have no future plans to buy any EA titles to date. Fight back with your wallet and, for the love of all that is good, stop pre-ordering games before release.
Really looking forward to Cyberpunk and Diablo 4 tho!!!
Despite the failing of failing from Relic and Sega CoH 2 is still TOP.
The fact that this video exists at all makes me powerfully sad. RTS was the first genre I played with vanilla Starcraft back in the 90s. Its my favorite genre to this day. Honestly, I don't think the audience for these games have gone anywhere. Developers just quit making them because its easier to cram a bunch of bullshit microtransactions into a battle royale or a MOBA.