Which are the best real-time strategy games of all time? Ask that in the right circle and you’ll trigger an explosive debate that can go on for days. The RTS genre may be a small niche in the overall gaming ecosystem today, but there aren’t many communities that are more passionate. It’s also more fragmented than the anti-Roman resistance groups in The Life of Brian – and that’s saying something. The big split manifests itself primarily in two questions. Firstly, should micromanagement or macromanagement be emphasized? Secondly, how mechanically deep can the game be?
For some players, the RTS genre is at its best when you can spend an hour calmly building an army in an AI skirmish and then have it wipe out the enemy with a single attack move. For others, however, this is mind-numbingly boring and fast-paced battles against human opponents, where speed and precision are as important as tactical understanding, are their RTS essence. It is often difficult to reconcile these ideas. An important aspect of a truly great RTS game is finding a place for both groups.
This line-up will take that into account, as well as the cultural influence of the games and the general consensus in the community. There is one rule: each series will be represented only once, to give a broader representation of the diversity of this genre. Alright then: collect your maps, tap into the mineral reserves and get ready for the ten best real-time strategy games of all time.
12
Northgard
The still-ongoing wave of Viking popularity in today’s pop culture has spawned many games – including a modern representative of the RTS genre. Northgard feels like a mix of real-time strategy game and 4X title, and its pace is definitely slower than the golden genre representatives from the 2000s – it’s more The Settlers than Age of Empires and implements this principle excellently. You’ll slowly spread out on a strange island, face unknown dangers and challenges, and have to make sure that your population survives the harsh winters of this region.
It’s more about resource management than fast fingers: You have to keep production chains intact, satisfy needs, and build up reserves for hard times. The game is not lacking in battles, but they are not the primary competitive element. Just like in a board game, there are different victory conditions that you and your competitors can strive towards – and most of you have surely already experienced how heated a game night can get. That’s exactly what Northgard is: an exceedingly successful real-time strategy board game with lovable cartoon Vikings in the main role.
11
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is another mix of RTS and 4X that puts you in the star war between three different species. You explore, fight and build in real time, but the enormous scale of the locations in Sins of a Solar Empire makes it feel a bit like Stellaris: in every multiplayer battle and campaign mission, an entire solar system is your playground – asteroids provide resources, shipyards, laboratories and battle stations line the orbits of planets, and in between, trade ships and gigantic war fleets fly back and forth. The sheer scale of the title is impressive and makes for many moments when you just want to sit back and enjoy the spectacle.
Whether it’s fleet battles with lasers, missiles and squadrons of fighters flying around, or the nuclear bombardment of planets from orbit, the scale and spectacle are simply right in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. Mechanically, the title is also strong: The macromanagement across several planets is fun, and the creation of orbital fortifications and the construction of monumental battle stations is pure enjoyment for every sci-fi fan. Micromanagement isn’t neglected, though: Your battleships gain experience over time, which unlocks additional abilities and allows you to specialize them in certain roles, and they even gain a sort of personality thanks to a naming feature. A sequel is now on the way, but the developers’ support and the game’s high mod compatibility – be sure to try the brilliant total conversion mods for Star Trek and Star Wars – have ensured that it’s still some good time-consuming space fun.
10
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
The Command & Conquer series has deservedly earned a place in the RTS Olympus, and Red Alert has contributed a lot to that. The campaign’s story is typically wild for the series: Albert Einstein used time travel to prevent the rise of Hitler and thus World War II, but this had an unintended side effect – a strong Soviet Union, never weakened by war, reached for power in Europe instead. Players are allowed to choose either side – at launch, one disc was supplied for each campaign.
The over-the-top story matches the aesthetics of the title and its units: Tesla coils fire lightning bolts and giant red tanks flatten the battlefield. A remaster recently brought the series back into the spotlight, and more recent spin-offs like Red Alert 2 are still very much playable, though some entries into the series have aged better than others. Command & Conquer has also inspired numerous clones, so the series’ aesthetic has influenced an entire generation of RTS players.
9
The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth 2
For those who want to recreate the battles from the epic films, Battle for Middle-earth 2 is the perfect tool. From the design of the units to the music, the game fits seamlessly into the Lord of the Rings mythos and feels like an interactive extension of the movies – whether in the campaign or in the multiplayer battles. Besides that, Battle for Middle-earth 2 is simply a very competent RTS game that even managed to find space to innovate.
For example, it took inspiration from WarCraft 3 and brought heroes with abilities and magic into the game, which players could even customize individually. Troop formations were of very high importance and cavalry charges knocked foot troops off their feet with an impact that no RTS game has been able to imitate to this day. Unfortunately, copies are a rarity these days and the game is not available for purchase digitally because the license is no longer held by Electronic Arts (EA).
8
Homeworld
The space saga tells a story in the style of Battlestar Galactica – your home world has been invaded and destroyed; the only remnant of your civilization is a fleet of spaceships. It is up to you to guard these ships and ensure their survival until a new home is found. This background ensures that the loss of each ship actually hurts, and in return, the growth of the fleet from mission to mission is extremely gratifying.
Apart from being a fantastic space odyssey, Homeworld was an innovative work: it was the first RTS game ever to open up the third dimension of space to players – ships can occupy different orbits and strategic points take a completely different shape than on a two-dimensional playing surface. Homeworld is playable today as a competent remastered version and has received a strong sequel with Dune vibes in Deserts of Kharak.
7
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2
Dawn of War 2 and its brother Company of Heroes from Relic Entertainment follow a different philosophy than most titles on this list: Base building and active resource mining are practically dispensed with. Instead, the focus is on controlling smaller groups of troops and hero characters that can be upgraded with gadgets and special units. The game’s extensive cover system, along with these upgrades, provides tactical depth.
The story and design are recognizable as Warhammer 40,000 through and through, with Space Marines, Orks and other Xenos slaughtering each other in brutal and pointless battles. Dawn of War 2 had a competitive esports scene for quite some time and was even a discipline at the World Cyber Games, with the multiplayer battles being as merciless as the grim darkness of the 41st millennium. The game also had an innovative Horde mode to offer, in which players could team up with their hero characters to fight off waves of enemies.
6
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
No RTS game is better at immersing users in the role of supreme commander than Supreme Commander. This is mainly due to perspective: in most RTS games, you can let the camera take up some distance from the action, but in Supreme Commander, you can zoom out completely until the game’s gigantic maps are entirely visible at one glance. The title even offered the option to move the mini-map to a second screen – that’s when your own desk was turned into a strategic planning center like in no other game.
Supreme Commander embodies the macro extreme of the RTS genre: individual units practically don’t need to be controlled. It’s all about optimizing one’s strategy and production and winning the material battle by throwing wave after wave at the front – or three fronts at once, if that presents itself. In team games, hundreds of units could go into battle at once. Unfortunately, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance has not aged well. Performance on modern systems is bumpy and resembles a slideshow more than a smoothly executed battle plan. With this style of RTS having largely fallen out of favor, fans may have to hope for someone putting on a remastered version at some point.
5
Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos
As the successor to the immensely popular Warcraft 2, Reign of Chaos had huge shoes to fill – and mastered this task with flying colors. The game’s campaign around Arthas, Thrall and Tyrande was revolutionary and the integrated RPG elements such as hero characters, level ups and equipment changed the genre forever. The included editor could not only spit out exciting multiplayer maps, but create fun and complex minigames. The entire MOBA genre as well as many classic tower defense games have been refined in Warcraft 3 before standing on their own feet.
The title also has a long and successful tradition as an esports discipline that continues to this day. Warcraft 3 stands out for its focus on micromanagement, with battles being able to last minutes before even one unit falls, and a minimized economic component – yet the classic construction of bases and workers gathering resources is still present here. The release of the Reforged version was unfortunately a disaster, but even in its original form, Warcraft 3 is still a very fun title with an active community today.
4
Total Annihilation
The release of Total Annihilation was a technical quantum leap for the RTS genre: for the first time, 3D models moved across a 3D map and verticality mattered. Not only did projectiles have to be fired over structures or hills, their ballistics had to be taken into account so that they actually hit their targets. Units could be controlled individually or in groups, and there were different commands, such as attack and patrol. Chief developer Chris Taylor was later in charge of Supreme Commander, where he further developed the perspective ideas of Total Annihilation.
With Supreme Commander and the more recent Planetary Annihilation it has received spiritual successors, but Total Annihilation did not become a cornerstone of a popular series despite its huge importance. Today, Wargaming owns the rights to the brand – so far, nothing has come of it. However, the classic is still available today as a digital download, so it’s faring better than some of its competition.
3
Company of Heroes
Like Dawn of War 2, Company of Heroes, set in World War II, goes without an active economic component and the construction of complex bases. Instead, small groups of units and vehicles must be controlled to capture and hold nodes on the map, which in turn generate income. These troops earn veterancy levels over time, which give them additional abilities or stats. This makes it a very high priority to keep them alive as long as possible, and when in doubt, to retreat to preserve each troop’s experience level. It’s a different type of resource management and one that makes you care about each of your soldiers.
Company of Heroes as well as its sequel have solid campaigns, although the depiction of the Soviet Union in Company of Heroes 2, in particular, has been rightly criticized as almost cartoonish, so it’s best to take it with a grain of salt from a historical standpoint. The newly announced Company of Heroes 3 will subject the series’ campaigns to a change and make a separation between a turn-based strategy map and the typical real-time battles, using the Total War series as a model.
2
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
With Age of Empires IV, a modern entry in the long-standing series was released in 2021, but Age of Empires II in its Definitive Edition is still considered the king of this series for the time being. The game, which seems gigantic after countless expansions, offers a multitude of campaigns and still boasts an active multiplayer and esports community, which has experienced a late heyday, especially in the past year.
Getting started is difficult, but with the Art of War missions, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition offers by far the best multiplayer tutorial of the entire genre. Players are not shown basics like camera controls, but real build orders and principles from the multiplayer ladder. If that’s still too hectic and you just want to beat up the AI, you can still do that – in fact, you can even activate classic cheats like the blue and white Cobra car that shreds the armies of the medieval setting with a machine gun.
1
StarCraft: Brood War
It’s hard to express the impact StarCraft has had on today’s gaming and esports world: The MOBA genre traces its origins to a custom game in the space saga that was then refined in WarCraft 3. Everyone and their mother has heard of the term Zerg Rush, and various Twitch representatives such as co-founder Justin Kan have emphasized over the years that StarCraft 2 is the reason why then-JustinTV created a gaming category in the first place. If you think of StarCraft, you probably have images in your mind of spectator-filled arenas, beaches, or airplane hangars in South Korea hosting televised esports competitions. If you regularly watch esports broadcasts today, pour one out for StarCraft, the father of modern esports.
The campaign of StarCraft: Brood War is still considered one of the best RTS stories – the characters around Kerrigan, Raynor, Mengsk and DuGalle are complex, and the twists and turns of the story are highly exciting. In terms of multiplayer balance between the three factions of Terran, Zerg and Protoss, no RTS game can hold a candle to Brood War – pros have been playing virtually the same version of the game for over a decade and are still discovering new strategies.
It is the combination of strategic and mechanical requirements that makes StarCraft the most competitive of competitive games in many eyes – the real-time component in the genre’s name, the limited attention of players, becomes the most important resource in StarCraft. Of course, this can make the multiplayer matches very frustrating, because you have to fight against yourself as much as against your opponent. For more casual experiences, the innovative campaigns and the co-op mode of successor StarCraft 2 can easily be recommended – the latter can even be played for free nowadays, too. Brood War’s remastered version also makes the classic a bit more accessible to a modern audience.
Written by Marco Wutz on behalf of GLHF.
