yep ,and that involves 'workshop' mechanics like earth 2150-2160 ...or ever heard of 'thandor' ? a gem i only ever got to play the demo of for it came out when funds where low as they say and once i hade funds.. sighs ...days of hardware copies ,no one sold it for 'low sales'.. dream rts be something on the scale of supcom 1+faf ...with the addition of 'workshops' mechanics like earth 2150 and that logical aspect of landscaping like '' better put power plants & factory complexes underground means they survive at least one nuke hit before destroyed'' or ..''dam river/maountain in the way here adding 40 min for units to reach x spot.. BRIDGE/TUNNEL TIME!'' not to decide what your arsenal be.. both in global 'standard' designs and local 'niche' ones... and if that could be worked out for a full planet sphere style map ,or at least interconnected 'tactical' borders of maps to form such a thing with a dash of 'tell AI commanders what to do/factorio quality of life GRAND strategy style to keep building crap you 'plan out' in a zone or after their own ability at your 'priority list' ..while still shipping fresh war material to what ever areas is front lines or you dictate etc... that i honestly think might be impossible to top if it could be made.. suppose only involving 'drop in drop out first person assume direct control' in urban assault style be possible to add to improve on such a dream product
@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash OH GOD THANDOR!!! I only had the demo too! and sadly its pretty much impossible to get nowadays because it was never really got that much attention q.q I checked couple times if i could find it somewhere, but to no avail.
@@continuumsanctum869 Oh god yes. The last one that I know of that had that was Imperium Galactica 2, I loved that game. The combat in both modes was a little crude but it was still great fun.
If you mention World in Conflict, don't forget Ground Control 1+2 😁 More Games: - Dune 200, Emperor Battle for Dune. - Earth 2140, 2150 and 2160. - KKND.
Ground Control was an abolute classic, I loved the story of it. GC2 was simply one of the best RTS games I've ever played, especially in multiplayer mode.
Emperor Battle for Dune was my JAM growing up, and is frankly the only Dune media ive been able to enjoy. None of the other games, none of the movies, and not even the book have been as enjoyable as that was.
I can't thank you enough for covering Battlezone, I'm always surprised few people have heard of it or the concept hasn't been resisted in the last couple of decades. It has a special place in my heart growing up!
i honestly think its one of the best candidates for a new rework. You could totally do a 5v5 online or 3v3 version against other teams. would make a great game
So many memories, mainly of the one mission where you had to escape through a ravine but I was terrible and could never make it with my initial ship/tank so I eventually just ejected and walked the whole way on the upper rim and sniped a pilot from a tank at the end and used that to finish the objective. Just the tank portion of the game would be a lot of game back then but they allowed you to build and order others around, then when your tank gets destroyed you can either take a friendly one or snipe the pilot out of an enemy one and take theirs.
aye i misse dfthe first one (first time around) but i lost weeks to battlezone 2 even within it's jank it was on hell of an experience. Between it, hostile waters, BF1942/2142 and planetside my hopes and expectations for the future of gaming were established in greatness. alas 20 years later and the closest we have ton those dreams is angels fall first and guns of icarus, 2 games that are pop-dead with almost no hope of "mainstream" audience because the average gamer has no patience, no co-ordination and community servers are all but a relic of the past so playing with a regular community has likewise become a lost ritual. damn, now i'm sad again.
One I can SERIOUSLY recommend and I am surprised is not covered yet on the channel is Warzone 2100. It has some really unique ideas going for it, still has a dedicated community, and a fascinating history of becoming abandonware before being revived by its fans after the company that owned it released the source code
Love that game to death. I played it on ps1 the first time round on a demo. I was overjoyed when I found out it was available on pc. To this day I haven't finished the campaign yet.
@@8eewee last mission is a bitch , if you ever get there forget about castling up is all i will say . best game I`ve ever played from an artillery perspective
The new HD crispness and modern quality-of-life improvements are one of the best points, people who have played the old version should give it another go, it's worth.
wasn't that the one where you build your own vehicles with modules you research like in the Earth Moon Project? Atleast that's whats comes to mind when hearing that game name.
spellforce sure was thing, never got over that road block map, where you early on unlock the orc´s and you have long map with demon gate and dragon on the end of map. could just not get that one to work.
@igorthelight only in spell force 1 you could zoom in all the way into the 1st person perspective though. 2 and 3 didn't let you do that and the rpg aspect suffered a bit from it imo.
I was wondering if it's in the list when I clicked the video!! Loved the games, especially Forged Alliance. If you like SupCom try checking out Beyond All Reason! It's like a unofficial successor to the series and it's FREE! Yes - free - because it's developed by the community.
You need to get the dlc and then download the faf client. My friends have been playing it for months now with new ai and mods it adds so much to this brilliant game.
I was born in 01 and my dad did the same with me and man that game still holds a special place in my heart. I still fire it up on steam from time to time
CnC Tiberian Sun is my favorite, but CnC 3's Expansion "Kanes Wrath" is probably the best combination of "old school RTS" combined with modern RTS play-style (like SC2 would be). Supreme Commander (also FA) is probably the best and most in-depth RTS to ever exist, huge time investment to learn, but huge payout once you get it, an absolutely incredible experience (Team UEF baby!). I'm also glad you mentioned BattleZone, my first intro to this was on the N64 lol, horrible controls you can imagine.
Battlezone is one of the best games I've ever played in my life - fun on so many different levels (Strategy, Sniping, Deathmatch...). So glad to see it on this list!
'Age of Empires' may be the classic title, but I would recommend 'Age of Mythology' over it any day! Each of the five factions has a distinct look, distinct set of units and even distinct mechanics. And an extended edition that will work on modern machines is available on Steam! I also remember having a lot of fun with 'Universe at War: Earth Assault' but I haven't been able to play it for years so take that one with a pinch of salt.
Kinda crazy that you overlooked games like Warcraft 1,2 and 3 as well as Warlords Battlecry 1, 2 and 3. Those games also deserve to be on the list since they are also pretty cool classic rts games. And on Warcraft topic, there is even a mod for Medieval 2 Total War called Warcraft Total War which people should also check out!!
@@dukkencuvva1 Which Warcraft are you on about?? Warcraft 3 Reforged or Warcraft 3 Classic?? Cause Reforged indeed sucked but Warcraft 3 Classic never sucked. What planet are you on?? XD
Orignal War had so much stuff rarely seen in RTS. Including choices and consequences (new missions and story branches) and details like vehicles leaving tracks on the grass so you can track them.
i don't know if you've ever heard of ARMY MEN RTS, very simple but has some good nostalgia value to whoever has played ages ago but i think some would still like it today
Starcraft broodwar. That was my introduction to rts and the use map settings feature that let you build your own maps was the first version of modifying a game I had ever seen. The ums maps made things like 'defenders of the ancients' possible later, which would grow and turn Into a whole genre of popular games
Yeaa, I loved tank defence v4 back in the day, along with all the other defence maps. I also made pac-man in the map editor just for fun. Starcraft is my #1 pick just for the atmosphere of the game playing through the campaign, as well as an amazing pro scene to watch. Afreeca Starleague Season 16 just concluded, can't wait to watch the finals but there were a lot of amazing matches this season.
Then what about Warcraft 2? Later campaign missions are a lot of fun and quite hard, especially in the expansion. Maybe lack of balance is an issue for multiplayer (Ogre Mages being OP for someone with good micro), but gameplay is great! And this is probably last Blizzard RTS with marine combat in mind.
Loved Rise of nations, Total Annihilation, and Empire Earth. Some honorable mentions, Rise of Legends, Warfront turning point, and of course Warcraft 3
Submarine titans! A nostalgic early 2000’s title that’s hardly ever talked about. You play 1 of 3 races in an underwater dystopian future. Managing oxygen, ammo and a few other resources to build up a tech tree of submarines. Very fun and doesn’t get the love it deserves
Yes! This game was my favorite overall RTS of its kind in the late 90s. Had a lot of little user friendly touches like just pressing R to have a unit automatically head to the nearest repair bay that were missing in its contemporaries like Red Alert or StarCraft. Also really enjoyed the game balance, the defensive buildings were MUCH stronger than in most games (railguns so fun) so turtling at least worked a little bit as a trade-off (still lost access to resources due to lack of map control, but wasn't also just pointless and weak like most base defenses seem to be).
Dark Reign was my favourite C&C style RTS game. It had so many quality of life features that were ahead of it's time. You could build units from the structures like in TA so it made sense to create multiple factories or barracks. The units were asynchronous and suited the kind of faction they were with the Freedom Guard's stuff being mobile, stealthy or hard to detect like the phase units or repurposed civilian vehicles like the Skirmish tank being a tractor with missile launchers strapped the top and the Imperium had proper, heavy armour like the Tachyon tanks being the incontestable kind of heavy armour. I remember the AI being ridiculously good too, using probing attacks before sending in a concentrated forces, responding to your units and what you were fielding. You had the unit behaviours as well, so they'd return if they were lightly or heavily damaged to repair or heal. How they'd react to being shot at by either fleeing, shooting while in range or going into search and destroy without a care for their survivability. The map editor was also really damned good and very easy to use.
aye GC1 was a game changer, one fo the few times it felt like you were in charge of soldiers and not just utterly mindless drones (which is weird because the player units were utterly lobotomised to obey your orders exactly.
Shame Warzone 2100 wasn't included, a excellent RTS where you not only designed units yourself, but campaigns used the same map and you base carried over and you could control units in 3rd person, the spotter, artillery, counter battery system was great for cross map artillery duels and a fun storyline to go with it. Also missing Star Trek Armada series on this list.
Absolutely... 2100 was a really generic name for a very old *"Classic"* that felt more like it had been sent back in time to us. Nothing flew under the radar harder than it did which is ironic because it was one of the only RTS's ever made that was very focused on Intel and _solving the map_ like it was a puzzle
As far as I remember the Steam version is not the latest version or not the planned version. At least someone went solo putting it there. Better use the official page of wz2100@@OodldoodlNoodlesocks
I loved Metal Fatigue, RTS on 3 map layers,: Ground Underground and Orbit. With mechs that you can bould out of 2 Arms, Torso and Legs with lot of options. Also sometimes the Mechs lose parts after in combat wich you can collect and reuse.
Battlezone 2 Combat Commander, Top tier in First person RTS, and one of us best fan made mods would be "The Forgotten Enemies" mod that added an entire new enemy faction and custom campaign for them.
I am surprised you mentioned battlezone one and not battlezone 2. Battlezone 2 was amazing and was my first introduction into the gaming world, still love it to this day.
Warzone 2100 already mentioned in comments from my favorites. Worth mentioning: mechanized assault and exploration (M.A.X. in short), seven kinghdoms 2, majesty + northen exansion.
SACRIFICE by Shiny! Great RTS with an over-the-shoulder (sometimes way over the shoulder) viewpoint. It also has some of the most epic spells I've seen in video games. Picking different missions to run rewards you with different critters to use through the rest of the game, making for huge replayability.
You get a subscribe from me just for using Farscape clips because it's great! XD Oh and the RTS overviews were good too, great choices overall. I think Battle For Middle Earth and the other games made on the refined SAGE engine (Generals, Battle for Middle Earth I, II, and Command and Conquer 3) really excelled graphically and especially sound-wise; they've aged so well. It's actually nuts how good BFME II and C&C 3 sound with environmental flourishes mixed in with the weapon noises and unit callouts. Also the modding scene for the SAGE engine still sees tons of love.
Emperor: Battle for Dune is another of my favorites…. Not only did Dune essentially birth the RTS as we know it, but the latest entry found new ways to expand upon the RTS mould when it came out. Unique alliances with side factions allowed you to customize the types of armies you’d have available. Each side has their own homeworld mission and a homeworld invasion mission (depending on which of the other two you plan to kick off Arrakis). Each side had unique music as well, with my favorite being the metal Harkonnen tracks. Definitely a favorite of mine that is virtually impossible to find and play.
World in Conflict is one of the best of all time RTS games. Story line is captivating, gameplay is great. I grew up in the north west and live there again after the Army. It hits different when your defending your own states against the commi onslaught.
I'll recommend Spellforce. It's an RTS/RPG hybrid, so it flies under a LOT of radars ! Spellforce 2 and 3 lean more heavily on the RPG with some base/army building on the side, but Spellforce 1 absolutely NAILS the balance of the two !!! In 2 and 3, you can very much wipe the map clean with your heroes alone, given a little bit of planning, but try to ignore basebuilding in 1 and even your OP combat hero will absolutely get overrun with no hope of recovering !!! The races complement one another nicely while still holding on their own, the map objectives often vary as it still is an RPG and, yes, seeing your hero fend off small attack wave after attack wave until your army is ready to march out never gets old ;7 Although the game is so old, you could probably rip the code wide open with a simple copy/paste...
I don't remember ever actually ordering ships vertically. Though I do remember them flying "around" targets in a 3d space. To be fair while I did play Nexus on release back in the day it wasn't a title I ever went back to. I wonder how well it holds up these days.
@@CaptainShack Yeah, you can't order them around like you can in Homeworld. The game also looks a lot like Homeworld 1 graphically despite coming out in 2004, and it did 3d space combat far worse than the games that likely inspired it. Hell I'd venture to say that the next game to do 3d space combat as good as the original Homeworld games was 2014s Homeworld Remastered Collection. The game does have something of a modding community and it has steam workshop support, likely added by Nordic when they acquired the IP in 2015. There's a Battlestar mod for it, a Stargate mod for it, a Freespace mod for it, etc. Those 3 are on the most subscribed anyway.
Can`t believe i`ve had to scroll this far to find mention of this game , personally my favourite level of control in space combat in any spacefaring game which made it truly feel like space since there is no linear plane to shuffle around , no up or down . been trying to find a game of it`s caliber ever since
The one RTS game that is both quite unknown and fuelled my childhood is Z. It's an RTS game about robots waging war on each other (Red v Blue) by building units and capturing zones. It was very difficult back when I played it as a kid and the memories still warm my heart whenever they come up.
It's not old enough to be a classic RTS but I really enjoyed Halo Wars when I was younger. Bare minimum it deserves credit for being a good RTS despite being made for console.
I’ve never got over my love for Emperor: Battle For Dune. Westwood having an early foray into 3D with Dune as the IP was so much fun. Shame it’s so hard to find now or I’d be all over it!
The Dungeon Keeper and Majesty series. Majesty in particular are so underrated it's criminal. Sure both of these are not technically classic RTS since you don't directly control your units, I guess it depends on your definition of "classic".
@@Bodwaizer no, that's a spiritual successor. Completely different developers, Dungeon Keeper is Dungeon Keeper, WFTOW is WFTOW. There's no renaming lol.
@@Bodwaizer You literally said (well, wrote) that DK "is now called". That is like renaming. You could've said it in dozens of other ways which wouldn't introduce confusion. Like "A modern day DK like is WftO".
To me, one of THE best RTS games ever is Earth 2150 incl all exp. being able to design your own tanks, mechs and hovertanks was just absolutely awesome. and it played really nicely. Ground Control 1 was also a great new take on the RTS genre back in the days. really miss that game.
I actually had Lord of the Rings BFME2 on my Xbox 360, I really wish it was compatible with the One or Series and its so unfortunate that it isnt on Steam because it is such a fun game and I hope it gets more attention and support
you can actually get it for free (because its abandonware) even now from the third age forum. and you can even play multiplayer with it. not to mention the modding scene which is gigantic for it
Played and loved every game on this list at some point in the last 20 years, even still have my BFME2 disks in a box somewhere. Here's some other suggestions: Conquest - Frontier Wars: Proto SoaSE from around 2001, has a lot of the same broad strokes up to and including real time 4x and fleet commanders. Myth TFL and Soulblighter: Mando did videos on these recently, absolutely fantastic RTT games. Act of War: Early Eugen game (Wargame, RUSE, Steel Division) can also try Act of Aggression which is extremely similar when ran in the alt mode. MechCommander 1 and 2: BIG STOMPY! Do BPL proud! Earth 2150: Early 3d RTS that supports massive armies and tech tree research, a truly overlooked gem from the early 00s (be warned the econ isn't great and pathfinding is terribad). Nexus - The Jupiter Incident: If you haven't played this I'd highly recommend it as a fully 3d space based RTT, decent story and absolutely lovely design language. At least one of the ships served as inspiration for some of the ships in Sojourn I'm pretty sure. Maybe consider Empires - Dawn of the Modern World: Basically what would happen if you took EE and compressed it to ages 7-12, then made it far less janky.
Thank you for bringing up Conquest: Frontier Wars! I'd actually forgotten about it until seeing it here. I had hours and hours of fun comp stomp cooping with a friend on a ring map. Great game with an interesting mechanic in the multi-system wormhole thing and building in rings around planets.
Men of War Assault Squad 2 is a good strategy game in the WW2 genre, with a healthy modding comunity. It has the perfect blender between a game, and realistic gameplay, without having to sink your teeth in a 200 page manual like other similar games (example the Combat Mission games) If you like games like Stronghold, there is also an old game called Knighs and Merchants. Nowayaday exists an un-official Remake called Knights and Merchants: Remake with a lot of modern QOL improvements like zooming, more missions and a functional multiplayer lobby
I loved Battlezone as a kid, but my version was Battlezone: Rise of the Blackdogs for the N64. Best game for that console. Don't give me Legend of Zelda or Super Smash Bros., Battlezone was the only thing I loved.
Dark Reign is 1 of the greatest. With it's advanced unit intelligence options and interesting story mode. It's final mission is still imo the most hard core/ impossible levels in any game
so glad to see Rise of Nations on this list. It's a key game from my childhood that doesn't get the recognition it deserves. I would also recommend Age of Mythology as well. Also on Steam with a new remaster on the way.
Currently on sales on GOG are: Warlords Battlecry 2, Impossible Creatures, Imperium Galactica 1-2, and Cossacks. All worth checking out if you like old school RTS, with Impossible Creatures maybe being the most innovative. It was first RTS where you could make your custom units, basically you go around the map with your hero grabbing different animals, then you combine the DNA of two different animals and this is how you create your own units which you can then employ on battlefield. It was super innovative for it's time, because there was ton of different combination you could try out. Campaign was also really fun.
i love the fact that Total anilation was mentioned that wasx my first RTS along side a DND PC game called dark stone i still have Total Aniltion and it's expansion, hell the opening still gives me chills, "Once began a conflict over the transfer of conshushnes from flesh to machine escilated into a war that has desamated a million worlds" chills man and that music maybe bar red alerts hell's march i havn't found a opening theme as good
first needed to be mentioned when battlezone is mentioned , a forgotten gem ...Urban assault.. ever played a classic rts like red alert 1 and raged at how if you been inside that mammoth tank you sure could have held out long enough for your facotry to spit out another one , or thought ''hey this fps is neat dam wish i could command the AI so my npc team mates not was wasted'' .....cheek out urban assault then , no idea if it can be gotten anywhere these days but if speaking rts and fps hybrids.. thats a must honour mention for it merges both without losing anything from either genre. as for classics yessssssss! ..C&C redalert 1 & tiberian but also important to note about some of the 'clunky' old stuff.. while there may be some clunky aspects its important to remember many of those are in part due to the limits of hardware it was expected to run on at the time ,much like the AI's.. and old gods YES! SUPCOM1 + faf ...nukes being actual missile entities in game , counters to burn resources at for nearly everything as the tech suggested make one expect yet all deliciously balanced in a 'organic' way aka , hostiles got nukes.. do your tactical counter fire silo cover all your mines , do you have enough of em to shoot down several at a time while still pumping out mechs etc! but DONT TOUCH SUPREME COMMANDER 2!!! your better of buying age of empire 3 or such.. much like get stronghold 1 or stronghold crusader 1.. but DONT TOUCH ANY LATER NUMBERS! :/ same crap there.. increasingly dumbed down , shrunk down in sizes.. reduced in player freedom etc but for the old stuff there are also often many overlooked quality of life things , like for example in the often forgotten 'empire battle for dune' ...the way the build tabs in that are sorted , even today some that tryess it whines about yet its one of the first instances of it being 'quality of life' improved from the 'mega list' in ra1 or tiberian C&C ...ontop of also having ''building upgrades'' part of its UI with little space taken and 'tideious but strategy critical asset' stuff like walls being tweaked so the player still have detail control yet.. well , try and see ^^ etc.. compare stuff like that with most big corp developed rts after say pff... hmm , year 2005-10 ? or after the first 'rts is dead' deceleration. many of them intentionally limit that kind of UI , leaning more towards 'janitor bussy work clash of clans mobile tosh'' in design rather then ..depth.. or player control just like with empire earth , play the original compare the player control you have over how to both set up your civs 'large scale' advantages ..and how to develop each era assets vs.. the later games ,each one butchered the size of maps and reduced the customisation freedom more and more.. sure some boosted other things ,but what is an extra cherry when you shrink the cake size as a whole each time :/
Great vid. Alot of my faves are mentioned here. I'd add mech commander gold edition to the list, one of a kind mech rts in the battletech universe. I also remember playing plenty of three kingdoms fate of the dragon, but I doubt it's very compatible with modern systems lol
This is a great list, and showed me some games I'd never even heard of before, or knew very little about! I assume Empire at War will be on the part 2, then. I know you'd never forget it.
Ever tried Impossible Creatures? It's super weird. I was never really able to get into it enough to actually play it long term, but it's got a really interesting premise with building a roster of mutant creatures before a battle to fight against your enemies
you covered all of my favourites, but one you should look at is Uprising 2, Lead and Destroy, another fpsrts like battlezone, it might not hold up to battlezone, but it might be worth a look at
Love the far scape stuff sprinkled through the video. Need to finish rewatching that actually. Fir me 2 of my favorites are Age of Mythology and it course star wars empire at war. Especially FoC
you have good taste in games, I would add Dungeon keeper, and warzone 2100 unholy war was also very good, but more 50/50 battle arena and tactical movement more than base building
No one's left...Everything's gone...Kharak is burning.. That being said, Battlezeone 98 holds a special place in my heart, being my first video game! The gameplay still holds up today. I quickly discovered Urban Assault in the first person RTS genre, and had a lot of fun in that too.
May I recommend starsector? It a really good game with almost monthly (big) updates and it has a large modding community. Unfortunately it not on steam, but it does have it own website. (There is a TH-camr called rarr that does videos of playthroghs on it.
Majesty: the Fantasy kingdom sim. I played and enjoyed the first one and it's expansion and enjoyed it. Apparently number two was not worth playing though.
Battle For Middle Earth 2 is EASILY one of the best 5 RTS games ever released for real. You can't imagine how much joy it brings me to know that there are people working on a new version of that game 😍😍. I've been wishing hard for that for 20 years:)
More back in time: *Imperium Galactum* (SSI 1984 on C64/128 😅), Master of Magic, *Master of Orion* (1 &) *2* 🥰🤩... Today, I still play *Sins of a Solar Empire* & *WH40K: Dawn of War* (Especially Crucible Mod & Unification Mod)
@@igorthelight High Polygon ✅ Anti Aliasing 🤔 I'm getting rid of the fog when zooming out & extend the memory to >2GB ... Plus in the mods better pathing and 20+ new factions... Really like the Inquisition & Grey Knights 😅 Oh yeah, almost forgot... the extended campaign with a new planet & moons + playing that with new factions is awesome fun, too 🤩🥳😊
If no one else has I highly recommend Hostile Waters: Anteus Rising. Worth it just for how your pilots chat, bicker and compliment each other. Also Tom Baker on opening narration duties doesn't hurt....
Homeworld is my favourite but that entire list is great. Let me add a title people might not know about: Machines (1999) by Acclaim Entertainment. Like Battlezone, it's a mix of FPS/RTS.
For a WW2 game, I'd probably say the Men of War series, although the original went by different name. War Inc. deserves a mention due to the research & development part that was great. And we can't forget MechCommander Gold & 2. Didn't Starsiege: Tribes also had some kind of RTS mode for the commander?
Did you ever play Ground Control II? I feel like that is what it was called - not the recent one. It was an RTS where you could only call in units to specific locations. Very sci fi, had fun mechanics like snipers that could knock out vehicle crew and steal the vehicle, etc. Also Earth 2160 - highly customizable units.
i prefer 1 over 2, mainly for better feeling of squad based game ( you can recruit additional troops in second one, but if you lost whole unit in first one... GONE !), but i like the inclusion of heroes and story aint that bad either.
Ever heard of the Blitzkrieg series? I can unquivocally recommend the first two, three on the other hand... well it came out in 2017, so it wouldn't qualify as classic anyway.
Another great first person strategy game is Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. Has such a good story and the voices cut scenes are amazing would love it to be remastered or get a sequel
talking about world in conflict without mentioning Ground control 2 could almost be considered heresy :D But seriously Ground Control 2 is great can recommend
If you are into hybrid FPS/RTS titles and you're as much of a fan of obscure classics as the Battlezone series, I highly recommend you take a look at Executive Assault 2 as it's a passion project being developed by a single man that is very close to its release update. It has more of a split between the RTS and FPS aspects than Battlezone in that one player acts as an RTS Commander with limited FPS capabilities while anyone else on his team plays in a fully FPS role with some ability to command units, but the game is a diamond in the rough that is well worth the look for anyone who is a fan of the genre.
Conquest : Frontier Wars. One of my ALL TIME favourites. can still find it on GOG, so highly recommended. Edit: I will FREAK OUT if you EVER make a gameplay video of it. XD
For me Empire Earth gets a special mention as I remember an epic battle 3v1 against a friend of mine (who was just better at it than the rest of us) which went back and forth for hours, we lost one player, but eventually called it when we realised the stalemate was such that the solo player was going to lose by eventually mining out his resources, a virtually impossible feat. I think that fight lasted 8 hours at a LAN cafe before we gave up.
I would have loved to see you guys cover the Earth 21__ series. Design your own units, dig trenches, dig tunnels, limited ammunition and resupply, all the way back in 2000, and in full 3d? 2140 wasn't great, 2150 and 2160 ended up as really fun, if mostly forgotten titles.
As RTS guy since childhood, you´re surely missing out on: WC3 (not especially the Reforged Version) SC1 + SC2 (it´s already 10 yaers old) DOW2 (nobody shall ever talk about DOW3) !
Excellent list, many classics and some I'd like to try out one day. One possible edition: mount and blade warband. Excellent mods, and fights are a mix of personal combat and real time strategy. Certainly a classic, if not entirely just an rts.
There needs to be more rts/strategy games that combine ground and space combat like empire at war
We need a 4X game with real time
tactical space & ground combat 🤗
yep ,and that involves 'workshop' mechanics like earth 2150-2160 ...or ever heard of 'thandor' ? a gem i only ever got to play the demo of for it came out when funds where low as they say and once i hade funds.. sighs ...days of hardware copies ,no one sold it for 'low sales'..
dream rts be something on the scale of supcom 1+faf ...with the addition of 'workshops' mechanics like earth 2150 and that logical aspect of landscaping like '' better put power plants & factory complexes underground means they survive at least one nuke hit before destroyed'' or ..''dam river/maountain in the way here adding 40 min for units to reach x spot.. BRIDGE/TUNNEL TIME!''
not to decide what your arsenal be.. both in global 'standard' designs and local 'niche' ones...
and if that could be worked out for a full planet sphere style map ,or at least interconnected 'tactical' borders of maps to form such a thing with a dash of 'tell AI commanders what to do/factorio quality of life GRAND strategy style to keep building crap you 'plan out' in a zone or after their own ability at your 'priority list' ..while still shipping fresh war material to what ever areas is front lines or you dictate etc... that i honestly think might be impossible to top if it could be made..
suppose only involving 'drop in drop out first person assume direct control' in urban assault style be possible to add to improve on such a dream product
@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash OH GOD THANDOR!!!
I only had the demo too! and sadly its pretty much impossible to get nowadays because it was never really got that much attention q.q
I checked couple times if i could find it somewhere, but to no avail.
Dust Front RTS is coming soon.
Looks really good
@@continuumsanctum869 Oh god yes. The last one that I know of that had that was Imperium Galactica 2, I loved that game. The combat in both modes was a little crude but it was still great fun.
If you mention World in Conflict, don't forget Ground Control 1+2 😁
More Games:
- Dune 200, Emperor Battle for Dune.
- Earth 2140, 2150 and 2160.
- KKND.
Ground Control was an abolute classic, I loved the story of it. GC2 was simply one of the best RTS games I've ever played, especially in multiplayer mode.
Emperor Battle for Dune was my JAM growing up, and is frankly the only Dune media ive been able to enjoy. None of the other games, none of the movies, and not even the book have been as enjoyable as that was.
I loved the Dune Rts's. Drove my ex-gf crazy.. UNIT READY UNIT READY UNIT READY...
I agree with Ground Control and I'm bummed out it isn't mentioned in the video.
cossacks
I can't thank you enough for covering Battlezone, I'm always surprised few people have heard of it or the concept hasn't been resisted in the last couple of decades. It has a special place in my heart growing up!
i honestly think its one of the best candidates for a new rework. You could totally do a 5v5 online or 3v3 version against other teams. would make a great game
So many memories, mainly of the one mission where you had to escape through a ravine but I was terrible and could never make it with my initial ship/tank so I eventually just ejected and walked the whole way on the upper rim and sniped a pilot from a tank at the end and used that to finish the objective.
Just the tank portion of the game would be a lot of game back then but they allowed you to build and order others around, then when your tank gets destroyed you can either take a friendly one or snipe the pilot out of an enemy one and take theirs.
aye i misse dfthe first one (first time around) but i lost weeks to battlezone 2 even within it's jank it was on hell of an experience.
Between it, hostile waters, BF1942/2142 and planetside my hopes and expectations for the future of gaming were established in greatness.
alas 20 years later and the closest we have ton those dreams is angels fall first and guns of icarus, 2 games that are pop-dead with almost no hope of "mainstream" audience because the average gamer has no patience, no co-ordination and community servers are all but a relic of the past so playing with a regular community has likewise become a lost ritual.
damn, now i'm sad again.
Omg, right! I was so surprised to see that on his list.
This game was awesome when I was a kid
One I can SERIOUSLY recommend and I am surprised is not covered yet on the channel is Warzone 2100. It has some really unique ideas going for it, still has a dedicated community, and a fascinating history of becoming abandonware before being revived by its fans after the company that owned it released the source code
Love that game to death. I played it on ps1 the first time round on a demo. I was overjoyed when I found out it was available on pc.
To this day I haven't finished the campaign yet.
@@8eewee last mission is a bitch , if you ever get there forget about castling up is all i will say . best game I`ve ever played from an artillery perspective
The new HD crispness and modern quality-of-life improvements are one of the best points, people who have played the old version should give it another go, it's worth.
wasn't that the one where you build your own vehicles with modules you research like in the Earth Moon Project? Atleast that's whats comes to mind when hearing that game name.
@@TheAzureGhost yup yup! You research all the different guns, treads, and bodies and then design units to build
Spellforce 1+the expansion and 2 were sooo good!
RTS meets RPG done right.
On a technical level. third is even better! ;-)
spellforce sure was thing, never got over that road block map, where you early on unlock the orc´s and you have long map with demon gate and dragon on the end of map. could just not get that one to work.
@@jacovanderschaaf3044 watch a video online to get past it... the campaign only gets better from there. Its fantastic
@igorthelight only in spell force 1 you could zoom in all the way into the 1st person perspective though. 2 and 3 didn't let you do that and the rpg aspect suffered a bit from it imo.
The mention of SupCom put a smile on my face. I was born in 2004 and my father raised me on the series.
Planetary Annihilation got me into the RTS genre.
I was wondering if it's in the list when I clicked the video!! Loved the games, especially Forged Alliance. If you like SupCom try checking out Beyond All Reason! It's like a unofficial successor to the series and it's FREE! Yes - free - because it's developed by the community.
You need to get the dlc and then download the faf client. My friends have been playing it for months now with new ai and mods it adds so much to this brilliant game.
I was born in 01 and my dad did the same with me and man that game still holds a special place in my heart. I still fire it up on steam from time to time
CnC Tiberian Sun is my favorite, but CnC 3's Expansion "Kanes Wrath" is probably the best combination of "old school RTS" combined with modern RTS play-style (like SC2 would be). Supreme Commander (also FA) is probably the best and most in-depth RTS to ever exist, huge time investment to learn, but huge payout once you get it, an absolutely incredible experience (Team UEF baby!). I'm also glad you mentioned BattleZone, my first intro to this was on the N64 lol, horrible controls you can imagine.
Battlezone is one of the best games I've ever played in my life - fun on so many different levels (Strategy, Sniping, Deathmatch...). So glad to see it on this list!
Remember Bullfrog games like Black & White, Populous the beginning and Dungeon Keeper? Some of my favorites titles there
'Age of Empires' may be the classic title, but I would recommend 'Age of Mythology' over it any day! Each of the five factions has a distinct look, distinct set of units and even distinct mechanics. And an extended edition that will work on modern machines is available on Steam!
I also remember having a lot of fun with 'Universe at War: Earth Assault' but I haven't been able to play it for years so take that one with a pinch of salt.
Kinda crazy that you overlooked games like Warcraft 1,2 and 3 as well as Warlords Battlecry 1, 2 and 3. Those games also deserve to be on the list since they are also pretty cool classic rts games. And on Warcraft topic, there is even a mod for Medieval 2 Total War called Warcraft Total War which people should also check out!!
I was so hyped for Warcraft back in the day when they announced........but it sucked.......sorry
@@dukkencuvva1 Which Warcraft are you on about?? Warcraft 3 Reforged or Warcraft 3 Classic?? Cause Reforged indeed sucked but Warcraft 3 Classic never sucked. What planet are you on?? XD
wc3 was goated
Orignal War had so much stuff rarely seen in RTS.
Including choices and consequences (new missions and story branches) and details like vehicles leaving tracks on the grass so you can track them.
Was thinking the same thing
i don't know if you've ever heard of ARMY MEN RTS, very simple but has some good nostalgia value to whoever has played ages ago but i think some would still like it today
YES!! I loved that game back in the day!
I played a ton of army men toys in space. I can still hear the screaming of melting plastic men.
Starcraft broodwar. That was my introduction to rts and the use map settings feature that let you build your own maps was the first version of modifying a game I had ever seen. The ums maps made things like 'defenders of the ancients' possible later, which would grow and turn Into a whole genre of popular games
Yeaa, I loved tank defence v4 back in the day, along with all the other defence maps. I also made pac-man in the map editor just for fun.
Starcraft is my #1 pick just for the atmosphere of the game playing through the campaign, as well as an amazing pro scene to watch. Afreeca Starleague Season 16 just concluded, can't wait to watch the finals but there were a lot of amazing matches this season.
Oh my GOD YES how did we miss Starcraft 1!
I still play it today and have a few maps I made, remastered is only 20 bucks and the non remaster is now free to play the full game
@@JuniperFinch538 its free now! :D
Then what about Warcraft 2? Later campaign missions are a lot of fun and quite hard, especially in the expansion. Maybe lack of balance is an issue for multiplayer (Ogre Mages being OP for someone with good micro), but gameplay is great! And this is probably last Blizzard RTS with marine combat in mind.
Loved Rise of nations, Total Annihilation, and Empire Earth. Some honorable mentions, Rise of Legends, Warfront turning point, and of course Warcraft 3
Submarine titans! A nostalgic early 2000’s title that’s hardly ever talked about. You play 1 of 3 races in an underwater dystopian future. Managing oxygen, ammo and a few other resources to build up a tech tree of submarines. Very fun and doesn’t get the love it deserves
Dark Reign was one of my favorite RTS games growing up outside of Red Alert & Star Craft.
Yes! This game was my favorite overall RTS of its kind in the late 90s. Had a lot of little user friendly touches like just pressing R to have a unit automatically head to the nearest repair bay that were missing in its contemporaries like Red Alert or StarCraft. Also really enjoyed the game balance, the defensive buildings were MUCH stronger than in most games (railguns so fun) so turtling at least worked a little bit as a trade-off (still lost access to resources due to lack of map control, but wasn't also just pointless and weak like most base defenses seem to be).
Dark Reign was my favourite C&C style RTS game. It had so many quality of life features that were ahead of it's time. You could build units from the structures like in TA so it made sense to create multiple factories or barracks. The units were asynchronous and suited the kind of faction they were with the Freedom Guard's stuff being mobile, stealthy or hard to detect like the phase units or repurposed civilian vehicles like the Skirmish tank being a tractor with missile launchers strapped the top and the Imperium had proper, heavy armour like the Tachyon tanks being the incontestable kind of heavy armour. I remember the AI being ridiculously good too, using probing attacks before sending in a concentrated forces, responding to your units and what you were fielding. You had the unit behaviours as well, so they'd return if they were lightly or heavily damaged to repair or heal. How they'd react to being shot at by either fleeing, shooting while in range or going into search and destroy without a care for their survivability. The map editor was also really damned good and very easy to use.
This was my first ever that my father introduced me to
Good times, good times!
Dude, you need to check out Ground Control 1 and the expansion. It's awesome!
Definitely need a lets play on at least GC1 and 2, though Chimera is pretty brutal.
aye GC1 was a game changer, one fo the few times it felt like you were in charge of soldiers and not just utterly mindless drones (which is weird because the player units were utterly lobotomised to obey your orders exactly.
Shame Warzone 2100 wasn't included, a excellent RTS where you not only designed units yourself, but campaigns used the same map and you base carried over and you could control units in 3rd person, the spotter, artillery, counter battery system was great for cross map artillery duels and a fun storyline to go with it.
Also missing Star Trek Armada series on this list.
Also free on steam right now.
Absolutely... 2100 was a really generic name for a very old *"Classic"* that felt more like it had been sent back in time to us. Nothing flew under the radar harder than it did which is ironic because it was one of the only RTS's ever made that was very focused on Intel and _solving the map_ like it was a puzzle
@@OodldoodlNoodlesocksIt's Open Source, you can get it for free at any time.
As far as I remember the Steam version is not the latest version or not the planned version. At least someone went solo putting it there. Better use the official page of wz2100@@OodldoodlNoodlesocks
I loved Metal Fatigue, RTS on 3 map layers,: Ground Underground and Orbit. With mechs that you can bould out of 2 Arms, Torso and Legs with lot of options. Also sometimes the Mechs lose parts after in combat wich you can collect and reuse.
Yes!.. im glad some one other than me mentioned this.
This game was amazing, surprised no one has tried to do what it did again.
@@z3r0f14m3 right
Go RimTech, blue teams all the way. :D
@@CuldcepterI liked to mix and match by taking parts of other mechs
Battlezone 2 Combat Commander, Top tier in First person RTS, and one of us best fan made mods would be "The Forgotten Enemies" mod that added an entire new enemy faction and custom campaign for them.
I am surprised you mentioned battlezone one and not battlezone 2.
Battlezone 2 was amazing and was my first introduction into the gaming world, still love it to this day.
I always preferred 2, still loved 1 though
It's called "Battlezone: Combat Commander" on Steam now.
It's a Battlezone II but remastered!
Warzone 2100 already mentioned in comments from my favorites. Worth mentioning: mechanized assault and exploration (M.A.X. in short), seven kinghdoms 2, majesty + northen exansion.
SACRIFICE by Shiny! Great RTS with an over-the-shoulder (sometimes way over the shoulder) viewpoint. It also has some of the most epic spells I've seen in video games. Picking different missions to run rewards you with different critters to use through the rest of the game, making for huge replayability.
Dude says Thrawn's Revenge is mod for Sins of a Solar Empire, when anyone who knows Star Wars would know it's a mod for Empire at War.
You get a subscribe from me just for using Farscape clips because it's great! XD
Oh and the RTS overviews were good too, great choices overall. I think Battle For Middle Earth and the other games made on the refined SAGE engine (Generals, Battle for Middle Earth I, II, and Command and Conquer 3) really excelled graphically and especially sound-wise; they've aged so well. It's actually nuts how good BFME II and C&C 3 sound with environmental flourishes mixed in with the weapon noises and unit callouts. Also the modding scene for the SAGE engine still sees tons of love.
Emperor: Battle for Dune is another of my favorites…. Not only did Dune essentially birth the RTS as we know it, but the latest entry found new ways to expand upon the RTS mould when it came out. Unique alliances with side factions allowed you to customize the types of armies you’d have available. Each side has their own homeworld mission and a homeworld invasion mission (depending on which of the other two you plan to kick off Arrakis). Each side had unique music as well, with my favorite being the metal Harkonnen tracks. Definitely a favorite of mine that is virtually impossible to find and play.
Dune 2000 was the first RTS I ever played and Emperor Battle For Dune was an amazing update to the game....10/10 for the time it came out
Battle Realms is another good old game that is totally under the radar. They are still improving it, slowly but surely, which is awesome
World in Conflict is one of the best of all time RTS games. Story line is captivating, gameplay is great. I grew up in the north west and live there again after the Army. It hits different when your defending your own states against the commi onslaught.
I'll recommend Spellforce. It's an RTS/RPG hybrid, so it flies under a LOT of radars !
Spellforce 2 and 3 lean more heavily on the RPG with some base/army building on the side, but Spellforce 1 absolutely NAILS the balance of the two !!!
In 2 and 3, you can very much wipe the map clean with your heroes alone, given a little bit of planning, but try to ignore basebuilding in 1 and even your OP combat hero will absolutely get overrun with no hope of recovering !!! The races complement one another nicely while still holding on their own, the map objectives often vary as it still is an RPG and, yes, seeing your hero fend off small attack wave after attack wave until your army is ready to march out never gets old ;7
Although the game is so old, you could probably rip the code wide open with a simple copy/paste...
Nexus Jupiter Incident also features fully 3d combat like Homeworld.
I don't remember ever actually ordering ships vertically. Though I do remember them flying "around" targets in a 3d space.
To be fair while I did play Nexus on release back in the day it wasn't a title I ever went back to. I wonder how well it holds up these days.
@@CaptainShack Yeah, you can't order them around like you can in Homeworld. The game also looks a lot like Homeworld 1 graphically despite coming out in 2004, and it did 3d space combat far worse than the games that likely inspired it.
Hell I'd venture to say that the next game to do 3d space combat as good as the original Homeworld games was 2014s Homeworld Remastered Collection.
The game does have something of a modding community and it has steam workshop support, likely added by Nordic when they acquired the IP in 2015.
There's a Battlestar mod for it, a Stargate mod for it, a Freespace mod for it, etc. Those 3 are on the most subscribed anyway.
Can`t believe i`ve had to scroll this far to find mention of this game , personally my favourite level of control in space combat in any spacefaring game which made it truly feel like space since there is no linear plane to shuffle around , no up or down . been trying to find a game of it`s caliber ever since
@@CaptainShack I definitely could be misremembering it! I haven't played it in a lonnnnnng time.
@@CaptainShack There were a few mods made for it with varying levels of polish that were interesting.
Empire at War and Age of Empires 3 deserve to be on a list like this
You don’t think he would put empire at war on the second video?
Dude has played like 10k hours of it on this channel lik
@@CunnilingusVolcano must’ve missed the part where he said he was making a part 2
@@CunnilingusVolcano And where did you hear that? Because I never heard it and I watched thru the whole thing lol
@@Vandicoup he said he had more on his list, have you ever watched xpgamer channel before?
He plays empire at war mods all the time
@@CunnilingusVolcano Imagine that people discover this channel trough a vid like this. I know it is like magic 🪄
Another great one is Earth 2150, highly highly recommend it. Great campaigns. The only hard part is getting it to run.
Yes!
The one RTS game that is both quite unknown and fuelled my childhood is Z. It's an RTS game about robots waging war on each other (Red v Blue) by building units and capturing zones. It was very difficult back when I played it as a kid and the memories still warm my heart whenever they come up.
I played Z, I always loved The Bitmap Brothers games, since playing the original Xenon and Speedball 1 on my Amiga.
It's not old enough to be a classic RTS but I really enjoyed Halo Wars when I was younger. Bare minimum it deserves credit for being a good RTS despite being made for console.
I’ve never got over my love for Emperor: Battle For Dune. Westwood having an early foray into 3D with Dune as the IP was so much fun. Shame it’s so hard to find now or I’d be all over it!
2 of my old favourites that had FPS RTS elements were Soldiers:Heroes of WW2 and Rise and Fall:Civilisations at war, 2 very cool and unique games
Rise and fall is amazing!! Unfortunately it's also abandonware, on the upside makes it easy to get hold of😅
The Dungeon Keeper and Majesty series. Majesty in particular are so underrated it's criminal. Sure both of these are not technically classic RTS since you don't directly control your units, I guess it depends on your definition of "classic".
Dungeon Keeper is now called "War For The Overworld", but it kinda lacks the charm of original
@@Bodwaizer no, that's a spiritual successor. Completely different developers, Dungeon Keeper is Dungeon Keeper, WFTOW is WFTOW. There's no renaming lol.
@@Qyngali why would you take that so bluntly, I never wrote about renaming, but it's a same game, just played it btw
@@Bodwaizer You literally said (well, wrote) that DK "is now called". That is like renaming. You could've said it in dozens of other ways which wouldn't introduce confusion. Like "A modern day DK like is WftO".
@@Winnetou17 true, that's not my language though and this is YT comments, buddy
I came here to express my love for Battlezone. It's always heartening to see someone remember it. Eternally underrated.
I love Battlezone. Redux is great.
To me, one of THE best RTS games ever is Earth 2150 incl all exp.
being able to design your own tanks, mechs and hovertanks was just absolutely awesome. and it played really nicely.
Ground Control 1 was also a great new take on the RTS genre back in the days. really miss that game.
The moon project was so sick.
Finally someone mentioning Earth 2150!!! Moon Project was one of the pillars of my gamer youth
@@babylonastronaut I also remember some of the missions being insanely difficult. Well worth butting heads with that game though.
warzone 2100 offered that years befor ;) . love 2150/2160 though.
Yeah, Warzone 2100 was my game of choice, but Earth 2150 was good too. @@ApocGuy
One of my favorite rts games before I found Sins was Conquest: Frontier Wars.
Empire at War is bestest game
With the drunkest pathfinding! 😂
@@LincolnVincent I’ve lost so many nebulon b’s to this 😂
Lotr battle for middle earth 2 was the first rts game i ever played when i was a kid, still have it for xbox replayed it recently, memories 😌
I actually had Lord of the Rings BFME2 on my Xbox 360, I really wish it was compatible with the One or Series and its so unfortunate that it isnt on Steam because it is such a fun game and I hope it gets more attention and support
Just pirate it!
It's abandonware now.
you can actually get it for free (because its abandonware) even now from the third age forum. and you can even play multiplayer with it. not to mention the modding scene which is gigantic for it
Farscape!! One of my favorites for sure. So underrated
Played and loved every game on this list at some point in the last 20 years, even still have my BFME2 disks in a box somewhere.
Here's some other suggestions:
Conquest - Frontier Wars: Proto SoaSE from around 2001, has a lot of the same broad strokes up to and including real time 4x and fleet commanders.
Myth TFL and Soulblighter: Mando did videos on these recently, absolutely fantastic RTT games.
Act of War: Early Eugen game (Wargame, RUSE, Steel Division) can also try Act of Aggression which is extremely similar when ran in the alt mode.
MechCommander 1 and 2: BIG STOMPY! Do BPL proud!
Earth 2150: Early 3d RTS that supports massive armies and tech tree research, a truly overlooked gem from the early 00s (be warned the econ isn't great and pathfinding is terribad).
Nexus - The Jupiter Incident: If you haven't played this I'd highly recommend it as a fully 3d space based RTT, decent story and absolutely lovely design language. At least one of the ships served as inspiration for some of the ships in Sojourn I'm pretty sure.
Maybe consider Empires - Dawn of the Modern World: Basically what would happen if you took EE and compressed it to ages 7-12, then made it far less janky.
Thank you for bringing up Conquest: Frontier Wars! I'd actually forgotten about it until seeing it here. I had hours and hours of fun comp stomp cooping with a friend on a ring map. Great game with an interesting mechanic in the multi-system wormhole thing and building in rings around planets.
Men of War Assault Squad 2 is a good strategy game in the WW2 genre, with a healthy modding comunity. It has the perfect blender between a game, and realistic gameplay, without having to sink your teeth in a 200 page manual like other similar games (example the Combat Mission games)
If you like games like Stronghold, there is also an old game called Knighs and Merchants. Nowayaday exists an un-official Remake called Knights and Merchants: Remake with a lot of modern QOL improvements like zooming, more missions and a functional multiplayer lobby
When you reference Farscape, I truly know you appreciate classics.
Ground Conteol 2! I had so much fun visiting my friend and playing that game!
Hope Ground Control shows up on this list. It's one of the few games that had directional Armor early on that I know of.
I loved Battlezone as a kid, but my version was Battlezone: Rise of the Blackdogs for the N64. Best game for that console. Don't give me Legend of Zelda or Super Smash Bros., Battlezone was the only thing I loved.
I'm honored to know that I've played all of these games.
Dark Reign is 1 of the greatest. With it's advanced unit intelligence options and interesting story mode. It's final mission is still imo the most hard core/ impossible levels in any game
Ohhhh this is perfect, thanks Shack!!!
"He who controls the past, commands the future. He who commands the future, conquers the past."
I also would add Earth 2150 in this list.
so glad to see Rise of Nations on this list. It's a key game from my childhood that doesn't get the recognition it deserves. I would also recommend Age of Mythology as well. Also on Steam with a new remaster on the way.
Currently on sales on GOG are: Warlords Battlecry 2, Impossible Creatures, Imperium Galactica 1-2, and Cossacks. All worth checking out if you like old school RTS, with Impossible Creatures maybe being the most innovative. It was first RTS where you could make your custom units, basically you go around the map with your hero grabbing different animals, then you combine the DNA of two different animals and this is how you create your own units which you can then employ on battlefield. It was super innovative for it's time, because there was ton of different combination you could try out. Campaign was also really fun.
i love the fact that Total anilation was mentioned that wasx my first RTS along side a DND PC game called dark stone i still have Total Aniltion and it's expansion, hell the opening still gives me chills, "Once began a conflict over the transfer of conshushnes from flesh to machine escilated into a war that has desamated a million worlds" chills man and that music maybe bar red alerts hell's march i havn't found a opening theme as good
first needed to be mentioned when battlezone is mentioned , a forgotten gem ...Urban assault.. ever played a classic rts like red alert 1 and raged at how if you been inside that mammoth tank you sure could have held out long enough for your facotry to spit out another one , or thought ''hey this fps is neat dam wish i could command the AI so my npc team mates not was wasted'' .....cheek out urban assault then , no idea if it can be gotten anywhere these days but if speaking rts and fps hybrids.. thats a must honour mention for it merges both without losing anything from either genre.
as for classics yessssssss! ..C&C redalert 1 & tiberian but also important to note about some of the 'clunky' old stuff.. while there may be some clunky aspects its important to remember many of those are in part due to the limits of hardware it was expected to run on at the time ,much like the AI's.. and old gods YES! SUPCOM1 + faf ...nukes being actual missile entities in game , counters to burn resources at for nearly everything as the tech suggested make one expect yet all deliciously balanced in a 'organic' way aka , hostiles got nukes.. do your tactical counter fire silo cover all your mines , do you have enough of em to shoot down several at a time while still pumping out mechs etc! but DONT TOUCH SUPREME COMMANDER 2!!! your better of buying age of empire 3 or such.. much like get stronghold 1 or stronghold crusader 1.. but DONT TOUCH ANY LATER NUMBERS! :/ same crap there.. increasingly dumbed down , shrunk down in sizes.. reduced in player freedom etc
but for the old stuff there are also often many overlooked quality of life things , like for example in the often forgotten 'empire battle for dune' ...the way the build tabs in that are sorted , even today some that tryess it whines about yet its one of the first instances of it being 'quality of life' improved from the 'mega list' in ra1 or tiberian C&C ...ontop of also having ''building upgrades'' part of its UI with little space taken and 'tideious but strategy critical asset' stuff like walls being tweaked so the player still have detail control yet.. well , try and see ^^ etc..
compare stuff like that with most big corp developed rts after say pff... hmm , year 2005-10 ? or after the first 'rts is dead' deceleration.
many of them intentionally limit that kind of UI , leaning more towards 'janitor bussy work clash of clans mobile tosh'' in design rather then ..depth.. or player control
just like with empire earth , play the original compare the player control you have over how to both set up your civs 'large scale' advantages ..and how to develop each era assets vs.. the later games ,each one butchered the size of maps and reduced the customisation freedom more and more.. sure some boosted other things ,but what is an extra cherry when you shrink the cake size as a whole each time :/
Great vid.
Alot of my faves are mentioned here.
I'd add mech commander gold edition to the list, one of a kind mech rts in the battletech universe.
I also remember playing plenty of three kingdoms fate of the dragon, but I doubt it's very compatible with modern systems lol
man battlezone is a blast from the past, battlezone 2 was also verry fun
This is a great list, and showed me some games I'd never even heard of before, or knew very little about! I assume Empire at War will be on the part 2, then. I know you'd never forget it.
Ever tried Impossible Creatures? It's super weird. I was never really able to get into it enough to actually play it long term, but it's got a really interesting premise with building a roster of mutant creatures before a battle to fight against your enemies
game is so so, but concept is cool as heck :D
you covered all of my favourites, but one you should look at is Uprising 2, Lead and Destroy, another fpsrts like battlezone, it might not hold up to battlezone, but it might be worth a look at
Myth: The Fallen Lords and the sequel Soulblighter. Great old fantasy RTS from Bungie back before Halo.
Very good mention! Replayed many times!!
Always love a Battlezone shout out
Love the far scape stuff sprinkled through the video. Need to finish rewatching that actually.
Fir me 2 of my favorites are Age of Mythology and it course star wars empire at war. Especially FoC
you have good taste in games,
I would add Dungeon keeper, and
warzone 2100
unholy war was also very good, but more 50/50 battle arena and tactical movement more than base building
Games that might not make anyone's list, but I have fond memories of.
Kohan 1 and 2.
Warlords Battlecry 2 and 3
KKND
War Winds
No one's left...Everything's gone...Kharak is burning..
That being said, Battlezeone 98 holds a special place in my heart, being my first video game! The gameplay still holds up today. I quickly discovered Urban Assault in the first person RTS genre, and had a lot of fun in that too.
May I recommend starsector? It a really good game with almost monthly (big) updates and it has a large modding community. Unfortunately it not on steam, but it does have it own website. (There is a TH-camr called rarr that does videos of playthroghs on it.
Majesty: the Fantasy kingdom sim. I played and enjoyed the first one and it's expansion and enjoyed it. Apparently number two was not worth playing though.
Battle For Middle Earth 2 is EASILY one of the best 5 RTS games ever released for real. You can't imagine how much joy it brings me to know that there are people working on a new version of that game 😍😍. I've been wishing hard for that for 20 years:)
Kinda shocked you did not mention Starcraft 1 Broodwar
If you like Rise of Nations, there is its Steampunk vs. Magic spin off Rise of Legends, which does not get nearly as much love as it should
More back in time:
*Imperium Galactum* (SSI 1984 on C64/128 😅), Master of Magic, *Master of Orion* (1 &) *2* 🥰🤩...
Today, I still play *Sins of a Solar Empire* & *WH40K: Dawn of War* (Especially Crucible Mod & Unification Mod)
Don't forget to tweak your game with DoW Mod Manager ;-)
@@igorthelight
First thing I (almost) do daily 😅
...if I'm not playing SoaSE 🤗
@@continuumsanctum869 Nice!
Did you find ability to add Anti Aliasing and force high polygon models in Mod Manager? ;-)
@@igorthelight
High Polygon ✅
Anti Aliasing 🤔
I'm getting rid of the fog when zooming out & extend the memory to >2GB ...
Plus in the mods better pathing and 20+ new factions...
Really like the Inquisition & Grey Knights 😅
Oh yeah, almost forgot... the extended campaign with a new planet & moons + playing that with new factions is awesome fun, too 🤩🥳😊
@@continuumsanctum869 About anti aliasing - click on SETTINGS and look what's there ;-)
If no one else has I highly recommend Hostile Waters: Anteus Rising. Worth it just for how your pilots chat, bicker and compliment each other.
Also Tom Baker on opening narration duties doesn't hurt....
This is a great list. So much nostalgia. I've played 90% of this list and loved it all
two good RTS are Empire earth 1 and 2, these two games really marked my childhood
+1 for the farscape clips dude. LOVE that show. This is a great list!, So many sea change classics.
Homeworld is my favourite but that entire list is great.
Let me add a title people might not know about: Machines (1999) by Acclaim Entertainment. Like Battlezone, it's a mix of FPS/RTS.
Starcraft 1 and 2, Halo Wars, Battlestations Midway/pacific, are some of my personal favorites.
Rise of Nations was my absolute GOAT
For a WW2 game, I'd probably say the Men of War series, although the original went by different name. War Inc. deserves a mention due to the research & development part that was great. And we can't forget MechCommander Gold & 2.
Didn't Starsiege: Tribes also had some kind of RTS mode for the commander?
Did you ever play Ground Control II? I feel like that is what it was called - not the recent one. It was an RTS where you could only call in units to specific locations. Very sci fi, had fun mechanics like snipers that could knock out vehicle crew and steal the vehicle, etc.
Also Earth 2160 - highly customizable units.
I did! Almost added it to the list but decided on massives other title World in Conflict instead. :D
Second the vote for Earth 2160 - would happily spend half a match just building all sorts of different combinations for units.
I prefer 2150. 2160 is too cartoony for my taste.
i prefer 1 over 2, mainly for better feeling of squad based game ( you can recruit additional troops in second one, but if you lost whole unit in first one... GONE !), but i like the inclusion of heroes and story aint that bad either.
Shak makin Farscape references and I'm here for it all day.
Ever heard of the Blitzkrieg series? I can unquivocally recommend the first two, three on the other hand... well it came out in 2017, so it wouldn't qualify as classic anyway.
Another great first person strategy game is Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. Has such a good story and the voices cut scenes are amazing would love it to be remastered or get a sequel
Stronghold: Definitive Edition drops Nov, 7/23 on Steam and it looks pretty sweet.
Only one: Total Annihilation! And yes, Farscape is amazing!
Frell yeah!
talking about world in conflict without mentioning Ground control 2 could almost be considered heresy :D But seriously Ground Control 2 is great can recommend
If you are into hybrid FPS/RTS titles and you're as much of a fan of obscure classics as the Battlezone series, I highly recommend you take a look at Executive Assault 2 as it's a passion project being developed by a single man that is very close to its release update.
It has more of a split between the RTS and FPS aspects than Battlezone in that one player acts as an RTS Commander with limited FPS capabilities while anyone else on his team plays in a fully FPS role with some ability to command units, but the game is a diamond in the rough that is well worth the look for anyone who is a fan of the genre.
Conquest : Frontier Wars. One of my ALL TIME favourites. can still find it on GOG, so highly recommended.
Edit: I will FREAK OUT if you EVER make a gameplay video of it. XD
For me Empire Earth gets a special mention as I remember an epic battle 3v1 against a friend of mine (who was just better at it than the rest of us) which went back and forth for hours, we lost one player, but eventually called it when we realised the stalemate was such that the solo player was going to lose by eventually mining out his resources, a virtually impossible feat. I think that fight lasted 8 hours at a LAN cafe before we gave up.
Another "Hard to find": Rise of Legends, the Sci-fi Rise of Nations spin-off
Sidenote: Farscape (and especially the "I've strapped a live nuke to my hip don't fuck with me" episodes) are fantastic!
I would have loved to see you guys cover the Earth 21__ series. Design your own units, dig trenches, dig tunnels, limited ammunition and resupply, all the way back in 2000, and in full 3d? 2140 wasn't great, 2150 and 2160 ended up as really fun, if mostly forgotten titles.
I liked the Moon Project one the most (don't remember the number) Luna Corp ftw.
As RTS guy since childhood, you´re surely missing out on: WC3 (not especially the Reforged Version) SC1 + SC2 (it´s already 10 yaers old) DOW2 (nobody shall ever talk about DOW3) !
My favorites from around 20 years ago not mentioned here:
Soldiers: Heroes of World War II
Earth 2150
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
Excellent list, many classics and some I'd like to try out one day.
One possible edition: mount and blade warband. Excellent mods, and fights are a mix of personal combat and real time strategy. Certainly a classic, if not entirely just an rts.