What happened to the RTS genre?

[CaptJohnSheridan]

I grew up with RTS games in the 90s and 2000s. For the past several years this genre seems to have experienced a great decline. What happened? Who here misses this genre? I would love to see a big budget RTS with a great cinematic story preferably in any setting.

Do you think we will ever see a resurgence or even a revival in this genre? Why hasn't there been a successful RTS game with a good single player campaign and multiplayer for the past several years? Do you think the attitudes of the big publishers would have to change if we want a game like this?

 

[sXeth]

Well the last time I recall it being a big genre, you had your Age of Whatever (Microsoft), Command & Conquer (Westwood), and WhateverCraft (Blizzard).

Of these big three, Microsoft got all Xboxy, and anyone who played Red Alert on the Playstation 1 can tell you how well console controls go with RTSes (though the Wii U of all things, I argue would do pretty good). EA bought Westwood as an addition to libraries of publishers they've bought then mangled horribly. Blizzard decided to make WoW, then loitered in their soiled pants on their piles of money for the next ten years before deciding to make anything new.


There's RTSes out there of course. But they don't attract the big AAA teams out over games that can hit every platform. PC exclusives (which is the genre almost by default) won't get big mainstream marketing pushes, because you can't go into a store and even buy PC games anymore for the most part. The genre consequently has trouble getting new fans pulled in, as its reliant on gamers already inside the marketplace.

So you have a surge in popularity with the Xbox/PS2 era making the main game platforms of the time incompatible, arguably the dominant player in the genre withdrawing entirely for years, and the platform that does support the genre basically withdrew into a monopoly closed market damn near overnight. All around the same rough time.

The genre could potentially be primed for a comeback. Steam's stranglehold on PC games sales is starting to break, and mainstream stores (IE ones that sell stuff other then games that people such as parents might get impulse purchases at) are starting to pick up PC game sales, even if only in online formats like Amazon. Consoles are straight up supporting Keyboard/Mouse now anyways, along with touchscreens and motion controls allowing for some alternate methods. The real thing is that enough lower-tier games have to hit success to get someone with a big marketing push behind one to break it back into the public eye.

 

[hermes]

First consoles happened, and no one, not even Blizzard, managed to make them work there, despite being most of the market at some point. Then MOBA happened, and the genre became redundant.

Remember when Starcraft 2 was announced, and everyone thought it would take the world by storm? It would be the RTS big chance, the chance to get the genre revitalized like Street Fighter 4 did for fighting games... Then they make 2 other games and no one seemed to care. I don't have the numbers, but I am betting Starcraft 2 has a smaller player count than bloody Heartstone.

 

[Hawki]

"What happened?" Well, we got StarCraft II recently, smaller games (Grey Goo, Deserts of Kharak, Singularity, Company of Heroes, etc.), and future releases like Halo Wars 2 and Dawn of War III.

I keep hearing this claim that RTS games are dead, but you don't need to look that hard to find them. Also, cinematic RTS? That could apply to practically all of those examples, in as much that there's cinematics accompanying them that tell the story. You've got 'cinematic RTS' as far back as Tiberian Dawn/Sun or StarCraft, depending on where you draw the line.

 

[CaptJohnSheridan]

Once in a great while I get the hankering for an RTS. They can ultimately be great fun but the steeper than average learning curve requires memorizing dozens of hotkeys more than anything. This combined with the above comments have somewhat thwarted stability let alone growth of the genre.

It would be a massive feat to make a more immersive AAA RTS, which I think would help expand the fanbase. The current design alternates between either live action cut scenes or prerendered cinematics and a dramatically different (i.e. worse) looking gameplay stage. I think I remember one game trying to buck this trend a while back though, and this could change with a bigger budget and increased technical capabilities.

 

[Nazulu]

They dived under a bus and took a shit. Like many genre's, you have the one corrupt asshole that's made one, and the rest is average to crap, and they're just not that popular unfortunately. They are niche now, so until someone makes one that stands out more in an interesting way, they're going to stay there.

 

[chrissx2]

The HD verison of AoE2 sold 3.5mil copies. They released new exp this or last year. There's Anno, There's Halo Wars 2, Down of War, Total War, StarCraft 2, planetary annihilation, 8-bit wars, new homeworld game, Act of Aggression sequel etc, people who made the HD version of AoE are working on a secret project - maybe AoE4?

There's plenty of RTS games out there.

 

[Frankster]

MOBAs happened :/
*sees someone has already said that exact line* I did not look at others comments before typing that, but yeah that's pretty much the core of it.

You still got some RTSes here and there so not like it's defunct genre, thank the Emprah'.
Though fuck the upcoming DoW3 which has solid out on most of what made the series unique in favor of taking lessons from MOBAS and fuckin' Starcraft 2. How I prayed I'd never see the day such heresy would come to be ><

 

[CaitSeith]

Yeah, the genre is passing through the same phase that FPS passed a while ago: multiplayer took control. At least in this case they keep them in the separate genres RTS and MOBA, instead of making the multiplayer game with an inferior single-player campaign.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I would blame starcraft for shifting the RTS to a more micro/MP focus that really didn't appeal to the large numbers casual players.

 

[Bad Jim]

Why hasn't there been a successful RTS game with a good single player campaign and multiplayer for the past several years?

Starcraft 2 is successful, has a good single player experience, and Legacy of the Void is less than a year old. Though I do acknowledge the genre isn't what it was in 1997-98.

I think what happened is the same as what happened to brawlers like Street Fighter 2. They're fun as long as you can play someone around your level or worse. In the late 90s, most people didn't go online much and stuck to LAN games, so you would often play with your friends who mostly weren't much better than you. You might have that one guy who was unstoppable, but you could have fun with other friends. But online, you usually end up with hardcore players and anyone who isn't hardcore will just lose repeatedly, get frustrated and quit.

There are a variety of solutions to the problem:

One solution is leagues, which prevent you getting matched against some Korean pro unless you yourself are very good. This works to a degree, although even the bottom league can still end up dominated by strong players.

Another good solution is having LAN play options so it's easier to play with friends.

Some controversial options:

Randomness can help, I think. In Magic the Gathering, you usually have some chance of winning no matter what, which makes the game a lot more tolerable if you're playing against better/richer players.

A handicap system would also help, even if just for the bottom 1% of online players. Some might consider winning a handicap game to be a hollow victory, but it's a lot more fun than being repeatedly crushed for weeks until you can finally hold your own.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Cause its either a "casual" game and the muliplayer and streaming community won't pick it up. Or its a micro fest and us "casuals" don't care too much for it.

 

[Bobular]

There are still RTS being made, but only by indie devs and they don't have the budget to do the sort of campaigns you'd expect from Star Craft or C&C. As others have said the problem is that big devs don't want to do PC exclusive games (this is why I hope Microsoft's consoles die and they can start doing PC exclusive games, but then again Microsoft...) and RTS have 'evolved' into MOBAs just like FPSs have evolved into CoD and RPGs have evolved into Action-RPGs.

 

[Bombiz]

The HD verison of AoE2 sold 3.5mil copies. They released new exp this or last year. There's Anno, There's Halo Wars 2, Down of War, Total War, StarCraft 2, planetary annihilation, 8-bit wars, new homeworld game, Act of Aggression sequel etc, people who made the HD version of AoE are working on a secret project - maybe AoE4?

There's plenty of RTS games out there.

heads up Anno isn't that much of an RTS. at least not in the same way Command & Conquer or Warcraft are.
The new Dawn of War isn't looking too hot.
Last I heard Planetary annihilation wasn' tthat good.
New Home world is fun but leaves a lot to be desired.
8-bit wars looks promising but we'll have to see.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

The industry decided we didn't want them anymore, just like survival horror and mascot platformers.

Total War is still decent as an RTS series, don't let Rome 2 being shit fool you, Attila and Warhammer are still good.

 

[chrissx2]

The HD verison of AoE2 sold 3.5mil copies. They released new exp this or last year. There's Anno, There's Halo Wars 2, Down of War, Total War, StarCraft 2, planetary annihilation, 8-bit wars, new homeworld game, Act of Aggression sequel etc, people who made the HD version of AoE are working on a secret project - maybe AoE4?

There's plenty of RTS games out there.

heads up Anno isn't that much of an RTS. at least not in the same way Command & Conquer or Warcraft are.
The new Dawn of War isn't looking too hot.
Last I heard Planetary annihilation wasn' tthat good.
New Home world is fun but leaves a lot to be desired.
8-bit wars looks promising but we'll have to see.

That's true. Anno isn't much of an RTS. Not sure why I included it here
I see nothing wrong about new DoW ... i didn't see much of it tho.
PA is fine, and the expansion pack fixed most of the problems that people had with the game. Game also has some cool ideas that I've never seen in any other game.

 

[GaiusBaltar]

If anyone wants to know about an RTS in an MMO visit Heroes and Generals.

https://heroesandgenerals.com/news/

This game has WW2 based FPS and RTS where the FPS players play the units you have. The meta-game possibilities are endless.

 

[Paragon Fury]

They got killed by MOBAs, flat-out.

MOBAs were everything most people wanted in an RTS, but with cooler characters, less complex (so easier to learn and play), better PvP and much more interesting for the average gamer and person to watch.

Or, more specifically, League of Legends happened, followed up by DotA 2.