Real Time Strategy games, usually shortened to RTS games, are an old genre. One of the oldest, tracing its roots back to 1981 or 1982. Various sources debate on whether the first RTS game was Cytron Masters or Utopia, and while both introduces some of the first RTS elements, the game that established RTS in the form it has today is Dune II. From there on it knew rapid growth, especially as Blizzard Entertainment released famous games such as Warcraft and Starcraft. Other famous titles in the genre include Total Annihilation, Command & Conqueror, Age of Empires and Total War, all of which released in the period from 1994 to 2000. This period is commonly known as the golden age of RTS games, when they were “the popular thing”, especially on PC, while first person shooters dominated consoles. Between roughly 2007 and 2016, they fell off for the most part, with the notable exception of Starcraft II in 2010. But even as studios closed and few new RTS games were made, the fans of the genre kept it alive and well, bringing us to the current time, where community-led efforts, indies, and old greats remastered well lead the front in a resurgence for RTS games.
So “Are these games for me?” might be a question that may have popped into your mind as you saw me play Age of Mythology: Retold on stream (almost) every Wednesday. If not, I just put it into your head by having you read it. It’s not a question I’m going to answer for you, though, and I’m not going to offer various reasons in favour of RTS games either. In my opinion, the single best way to see whether you like a game is to try it. In this article, I’ll highlight a few good ways to do so, focusing on RTS games that I think are decent representatives of the genre, but also that are free, so that you can try them out with the lowest possible barrier of entry.
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (2020, originally 2005)
The first on my list for that, staying close to the Age of Empires/Mythology franchise, is Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition.
Set in the historical time period starting at the end of the middle ages and running until the Napoleonic Wars, Age of Empires 3 was, originally, the least successful entry in the franchise, even resulting in the closure of Ensembles Studios. Yet it’s also always been one I greatly enjoy. It tried to innovate on what an RTS game can be, adding new elements such as deck building in 2005 before every other game started adding deck building into everything, theming it into the renaissance setting by justifying it as “selecting your reinforcements from your home land”. And it still has the classic RTS elements, such as building your base, exploring the map, gathering resources, and of course, building an army to stop your enemy from doing the same.
What makes this game a good game to try out RTS games is that it has a free to play mode. Similar to some MOBAs, every week, a new selection of three civilisations is playable for free, allowing you to test out a wide range of playstyles over time at the low cost of 0 dollars, and unlock the full game later, if you like it. Aside from that, a lot of the gameplay elements are more streamlined in this game, making it easier for new players to get started. Units train in batches as opposed to single, villagers don’t need drop off buildings, and every ship can be a transport ship, to name a few. This greatly simplifies ideal basebuilding and economy management.
If you like Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition, the rest of the Age of Empires franchise could be for you.
Beyond All Reason (2019)
My second entry on this list is Beyond All Reason, which recently celebrated reaching the milestone of 40000 Discord members.
As you can see immediately from the picture, Beyond All Reason is a completely different beast. Not a historical RTS game, it’s instead a science fiction RTS with robots, tanks, planes and modern ships. Based on the 1997 classic RTS Total Annihilation, it is essentially a modern community-led, indie version of the old game, bringing modern physics, graphics, designs and balance to the old game while sticking to the principles that made it great. Compared of the Age of Empires games, BAR operates at a much larger scale, having you build and produce up to thousands of units at a time and often letting them fight with minimal oversight, only giving major strategic orders. Economy is streamlined to just two resources instead of four, but managing them is ever so important to keep your factories producing and to keep the enemy from overwhelming you.
While BAR is not on Steam yet, it is downloadable for free from their site, linked above the image. The game, just like its predecessor, has two major factions with a third being in active development. Also planned is a full co-op campaign mode. It has a thriving multiplayer community playing both against each other and against the high quality AI.
I wish I could recommend other games based on the old Total Annihilation game if you like BAR, but at the moment, there’s few successors to this branch of RTS. That being said, the older Supreme Commander game holds up decently well and has a very enjoyable campaign, especially paired with the Forged Alliance Forever community platform for multiplayer and modding. I did say that the RTS community is quite diligent in keeping its games alive.
Steam’s Refund Policy
My third and final entry is not a real game. Rather, it’s an open invitation to try any other RTS game that you might find on Steam. Steam offers a full refund, no questions asked, on games with less than two hours of playtime, purchased less than two weeks ago. This means you can try out almost any game on the platform, and if you don’t like it, get your money back, as long as you’re careful with the two hour timer. I recommend setting an alarm for 1 hour and 45 minutes on your phone or PC, just to be safe.
This way, you can try out most of the famous RTS catalogue mentioned above, as most are on Steam nowadays. Notable shoutouts for this are Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, which currently is the biggest, most thriving RTS game, Age of Mythology: Retold, Age of Empires 4, the Command & Conqueror franchise, the Total War franchise, as well as countless smaller and indie titles. If you want a full overview of all RTS games on Steam, I got your back with this link.
Final word
So is RTS a game for you? I’m not telling you. But hopefully with the tips outlined above, you can answer that question for yourself.