Perhaps controversial but I'm increasingly thinking Stormgate and ZeroSpace are taking the wrong approach and don't represent the future of the genre. What do you think the future RTS games will look like in a healthy scene?
there's a youtube channel that features 40 upcoming rts games, this didn't even happen until 2020ish, so on the contrary, it's on the rise, and therefore this video is stupid.
I Think Tempest Rising Will be the biggest upcoming one, but Age of empires 4, Will keep improving and grow, I don’t expect Any new rts games to be bigger than Aoe 4
Did RUclips or OP deleted my comment? This video is dumb since there are RUclips channels out there that listed 40+ upcoming rts, it's not dying on the contrary it has been resurrected.
I doubt it'll be dead, but it will stay niche. There are many promising upcoming entries by small teams and even solo developers. D.O.R.F., Tempest Rising, Dust Front, RTS tactical warfare, The Touhou Empires, Global Conflagration... RTS will unlikely ever be mainstream again like in the 90ies but it's here to stay.
Yeah. The genre is not dead. It's just been stagnant since the late 2000s. There are 20+ full releases in the genre since then. It's not like the heyday of the late 1990s to mid 2000s with 30 to 60 annual titles. I would just stay away from those multiplayer focused titles and focus on those with good content and singleplayer campaigns. Note that the Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance game has been getting continuous updates. So, there is so much to do in that game and other similar examples. But yeah, the big budgets have fairly drifted away from the genre. I think we should try to keep supporting Microsoft's efforts in this space since they have so much money.
I hope to see an rts invilving less micro and more long-term planning. I want to be a commander sending orders and watching them be carried out, not a god that can control every muscle twitch of my infantry.
I agree and disagree at the same time. I don't think Stormgate or Zerospace are taking the wrong approach really, they're trying to knock starcraft 2 down and take it's player base, which is the only way they can survive by migrating those players who are tired with a stale game or one that updates slow infrequent with something new and fresh. That's not wrong, the problem is if players don't budge due to them thinkings its inferior to the one they're trying to replace or they feel things are done in bad faith then it won't get the players and it will die which is kind of what we're seeing. The graphics in stormgate is already night and day better than i t was and surpasses starcraft 2, it can only get better. I'm excited to see how Zerospace does in the next test but I don't think it will do much better. Where you are right is that the future probably lies in combining genres because RTS as we know it is on it's way out. We saw this with the Shmup genre, or shoot em up, they went through their transformation with bullet hell games such as dodonpachi and mushihimesama and the genre died. But it ended up being combined with other genres such as enter the gungeon and undertale and while the traditional ones still exist like blue revolver, the genre is pretty much dead. I think that's where we are, people don't actually care, there isn't enough new players playing the genre so it's slowly bleeding out and new RTS combined with other things is probably where it does need to head.
I like the concept of combining ideas, but I think the biggest problem is it will be the quantity to quality ratio, and how time consuming and complex it could all become with so much potentially needing to be managed. It's not impossible, but with so much it'll be interesting to see how they balance everything without it feeling bogged down. RTS are great for the building aspect and fun if you're strategically minded and love the satisfaction of seeing plans work out, with time dedication being varied. Where as FPS are very instant gratification, and easy to jump into and out without much time dedication. the problem is how do you balance those experiences? I love C&C because it's easy and fast to jump into, then you have like say Stellaris and other 4X that takes real dedication to play through a whole game. I like FPS, because I can get right into the action clearing out enemies. so I guess what i'm getting at is how much and what RTS elements compared to FPS, and how will that transition work? especially with multiplayer Star Wars Battlefront 2's Galactic Conquest {the good one) had the ships then 3rd person, minus the base building and unit command. It'll probably take time and experimenting to get a great propper RTS/FPS hybrid that satisfy both experiences.
eh FPS's going into survival and BRs feel like a regression and yeah you are more or less right about adventurer games they more or less got lost or folded into a number of other games like JRPGs and VNs
It's taking advantage of modern technology though in terms of hosting big multiplayer servers etc. Back in the dark ages we had to club together and pay to rent a server to play Quake and CS on
Worse than that - it's walking sims. Oh no, they're so stale. Many devs are lazy and cop out by taking the walkers route. These are not true (or graphic) adventures. According to someone in a blog post years ago, he said there are only 5-20 pure adventure releases per year. And not 200 if other sub genres are added up.
@@ObiKKa I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole lately playing these (mainly) Japanese walking sim games. Horror, anomaly spotting etc. I can see how they're the easiest to make in Unreal Engine 5 etc. As long as they're cheap, indie and well reviewed on Steam I'm always tempted to try them...
I think it definitety fills that micro intensive role but it lets you be more connected with a single character, which can then be monetised with skins etc. To an extent, yes. But there's a lot of room between RTS and MOBA if RTS games were to innovate with gameplay imo
Innovate no it need Big budget games like Aoe 4, and not Dawn of War 3 or c&c 4 who tried innovation, now we Will see Battle Aces, who tried to innovate by removing core rts elements, I don’t expect that game to succed, as Aoe 4 have done.
@@ArksideGames rts is having a minor revival. It’s not as dead anymore as in 2010s. All rts games does focus more than u Think on having an great campaign and pve content
Games that combine RTS / FPS in the same way Natural Selection 1 & 2 did are vulnerable to bad actors trashing a match since a lot of responsibility lies with the commander being good. It's a genre that if it got big like Mobas etc. would have some big problems to overcome with toxicity & flaming of who ever plays commander in a match. That said I loved those games and if they made a natural selection 3 in unreal engine 5 I'd have my next 10k hour game.
@@Ianbus123 1 commander and if you jump in and don't start dropping down resource towers and giving commands etc. your team is usually irrecoverably behind right away if its even skilled teams. Imagine one team just doesn't build workers in SC2 type scenario.
Just because a game looks like Starcraft doesn't mean it's intended to be a Starcraft replacement. Looking like Starcraft is simply making good design choices. It means stylized graphics for readability. It means a tighter band on the scale of the largest unit vs the smallest. It means quick turn rates and visible HP bars conveying more than just %HP. It means a clean, modular interface It means diverse factions in a dark sci-fi setting that's isn't actually literally dark because readability matters. You put good design choices into a sci-fi setting and you'll get something that looks like Starcraft. The gameplay can still be very different and innovative.
I agree, but I think both ZeroSpace and Stormgate have made comments along the lines of wanting to be the future competitive RTS (replacing StarCraft). They got a lot of hype and crowdfunding off the back of that (and having former SC/SC2 devs on their team).
@@Ianbus123 No, that was Stormgate. ZeroSpace wasn't marketed as the next Starcraft. Just happens to have SC2 GMs and pros as the designers. Neither was Tempest Rising. It's literally just Stormgate trying to be the next Starcraft and we don't even know if that was a good move or not because they released an unfinished pile of doo doo.
Innovating can be a good point in certain cases (battle aces could be an example), but i would also say that there are a lot of people (like me) that love old RTS mechanics, the real problem is that new RTS simply aren't done well and companies don't deliver what communities ask for (i could mention DOW3 for example, or Stormgate, even if the latter is still in development and need time to be completed/polished). Anyway actually there are a lot of titles currently in development, so saying "next dead genre" isn't exactly appropriate in my opinion.
Well it's a bit more catchy than "declining" but I am still exploring what is appropriate in terms of packaging YT videos and in the context of who the typical viewer is. Hopefully the content was more agreeable?
I think the problem with RTS is its rigid audience, a new generation of RTS needs to: 1. Enable 'bad' habits to reach high ranks, no planning, F2-A-move. 2. Enable 'dumb' focus, players want to all-in missile ships vs. PD ships that is okay! 3. Players want to 'win' 80% of PvP games. This is not impossible, it requires innovation. A dedicated bronze level missile-addict will learn to multi-prong if PD ships have restrictive firing arcs. You can redefine what 'winning' is, mainly by letting go of 'destroy all enemy structures'. Maybe have 8 players on a map, like RISK, where each has a different objective. 1 gold medal available, 2 silver, 3 bronze. Leave the game when you are happy with your medal, allmost everybody wins.
I guess some FPS games like Hell Let Loose are heading in this direction but the difficulty is pooling big enough groups of people in public servers where sufficient numbers of players are PTFO
Interesting video. I mostly play Company of Heroes 2. I actually bought CoH3 when it came out, but I've barely even played it. I'm happy with 2, even if it's deeply flawed.
@Ianbus123 I think the lack of innovation has a lot to do with it, as you say. I can't be arsed having to learn what is ostensibly the same game but with different units and mechanics. I also think the graphics are really nothing to write home about at all.
We really need some online RTS games that fit into a limited and predictable 25 to 45 minute time limit. CnC and Starcraft derived gameplay is stale. Total Annihilation style games drag on too long for modern lifestyles. Maybe have outcomes be scored rather than dependent on a defined win/loss condition. This would encourage people to attack throughout not sit around building passively. The time limit would prevent the bloat that tends to define the more simulation style RTS games.
@@ShapeyFiend Cool :) I'm also in the closed beta and planning to post a video about it soon! Their main issue is monetisation at the moment but they just gave every1 access to all the units after people complained it would take 1000s of hours to unlock otherwise
Aaah those d2 images RTS games need a lot of grinding and don't have that same level of adrenaline compared to FPS, which I think are their main rival. They may reinvent with a more hybrid genre?
1. It's a question - to then explore in the video. 2. There can still be games coming out but if they're not critically or comerically succesful, or the volume of releases is down massively on say, the peak of the RTS genre when you had 40+ big studio releases a year, then it can be in decline/dying.
Perhaps controversial but I'm increasingly thinking Stormgate and ZeroSpace are taking the wrong approach and don't represent the future of the genre. What do you think the future RTS games will look like in a healthy scene?
there's a youtube channel that features 40 upcoming rts games, this didn't even happen until 2020ish, so on the contrary, it's on the rise, and therefore this video is stupid.
i have a very similar feeling
I Think Tempest Rising Will be the biggest upcoming one, but Age of empires 4, Will keep improving and grow, I don’t expect Any new rts games to be bigger than Aoe 4
Did RUclips or OP deleted my comment? This video is dumb since there are RUclips channels out there that listed 40+ upcoming rts, it's not dying on the contrary it has been resurrected.
@@Napoleonic_S Nope but it might have been held for moderation if it was sweary
I get your points, but it can be argued that the total war series fills that AAA gap.
I doubt it'll be dead, but it will stay niche. There are many promising upcoming entries by small teams and even solo developers. D.O.R.F., Tempest Rising, Dust Front, RTS tactical warfare, The Touhou Empires, Global Conflagration... RTS will unlikely ever be mainstream again like in the 90ies but it's here to stay.
Yeah. The genre is not dead. It's just been stagnant since the late 2000s.
There are 20+ full releases in the genre since then. It's not like the heyday of the late 1990s to mid 2000s with 30 to 60 annual titles.
I would just stay away from those multiplayer focused titles and focus on those with good content and singleplayer campaigns.
Note that the Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance game has been getting continuous updates. So, there is so much to do in that game and other similar examples.
But yeah, the big budgets have fairly drifted away from the genre. I think we should try to keep supporting Microsoft's efforts in this space since they have so much money.
I hope to see an rts invilving less micro and more long-term planning. I want to be a commander sending orders and watching them be carried out, not a god that can control every muscle twitch of my infantry.
I think then it starts to bleed into sub genres like 4X
I agree and disagree at the same time. I don't think Stormgate or Zerospace are taking the wrong approach really, they're trying to knock starcraft 2 down and take it's player base, which is the only way they can survive by migrating those players who are tired with a stale game or one that updates slow infrequent with something new and fresh. That's not wrong, the problem is if players don't budge due to them thinkings its inferior to the one they're trying to replace or they feel things are done in bad faith then it won't get the players and it will die which is kind of what we're seeing. The graphics in stormgate is already night and day better than i t was and surpasses starcraft 2, it can only get better. I'm excited to see how Zerospace does in the next test but I don't think it will do much better. Where you are right is that the future probably lies in combining genres because RTS as we know it is on it's way out.
We saw this with the Shmup genre, or shoot em up, they went through their transformation with bullet hell games such as dodonpachi and mushihimesama and the genre died. But it ended up being combined with other genres such as enter the gungeon and undertale and while the traditional ones still exist like blue revolver, the genre is pretty much dead. I think that's where we are, people don't actually care, there isn't enough new players playing the genre so it's slowly bleeding out and new RTS combined with other things is probably where it does need to head.
Nice read - thanks for sharing
And yes, I planned to post this yesterday on spooky Halloween but alas, work.
I like the concept of combining ideas, but I think the biggest problem is it will be the quantity to quality ratio, and how time consuming and complex it could all become with so much potentially needing to be managed.
It's not impossible, but with so much it'll be interesting to see how they balance everything without it feeling bogged down.
RTS are great for the building aspect and fun if you're strategically minded and love the satisfaction of seeing plans work out, with time dedication being varied.
Where as FPS are very instant gratification, and easy to jump into and out without much time dedication.
the problem is how do you balance those experiences?
I love C&C because it's easy and fast to jump into, then you have like say Stellaris and other 4X that takes real dedication to play through a whole game.
I like FPS, because I can get right into the action clearing out enemies.
so I guess what i'm getting at is how much and what RTS elements compared to FPS, and how will that transition work? especially with multiplayer
Star Wars Battlefront 2's Galactic Conquest {the good one) had the ships then 3rd person, minus the base building and unit command.
It'll probably take time and experimenting to get a great propper RTS/FPS hybrid that satisfy both experiences.
Yeah the current Silica feedback for example is "just play the FPS mode" because the RTS part needs a LOT of work apparently.
eh FPS's going into survival and BRs feel like a regression and yeah you are more or less right about adventurer games they more or less got lost or folded into a number of other games like JRPGs and VNs
It's taking advantage of modern technology though in terms of hosting big multiplayer servers etc. Back in the dark ages we had to club together and pay to rent a server to play Quake and CS on
Worse than that - it's walking sims. Oh no, they're so stale.
Many devs are lazy and cop out by taking the walkers route. These are not true (or graphic) adventures.
According to someone in a blog post years ago, he said there are only 5-20 pure adventure releases per year. And not 200 if other sub genres are added up.
@@ObiKKa I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole lately playing these (mainly) Japanese walking sim games. Horror, anomaly spotting etc. I can see how they're the easiest to make in Unreal Engine 5 etc. As long as they're cheap, indie and well reviewed on Steam I'm always tempted to try them...
Only Warcraft 4 can save us
do you agree with other people claiming that DotA/MOBA killed RTS ?
I think it definitety fills that micro intensive role but it lets you be more connected with a single character, which can then be monetised with skins etc.
To an extent, yes. But there's a lot of room between RTS and MOBA if RTS games were to innovate with gameplay imo
Innovate no it need Big budget games like Aoe 4, and not Dawn of War 3 or c&c 4 who tried innovation, now we Will see Battle Aces, who tried to innovate by removing core rts elements, I don’t expect that game to succed, as Aoe 4 have done.
HELL nah, what killed RTS was a refusal to make campaign or good PVE content and heavily milking the PVP aspects only.
@@ArksideGames rts is having a minor revival. It’s not as dead anymore as in 2010s. All rts games does focus more than u Think on having an great campaign and pve content
Games that combine RTS / FPS in the same way Natural Selection 1 & 2 did are vulnerable to bad actors trashing a match since a lot of responsibility lies with the commander being good. It's a genre that if it got big like Mobas etc. would have some big problems to overcome with toxicity & flaming of who ever plays commander in a match. That said I loved those games and if they made a natural selection 3 in unreal engine 5 I'd have my next 10k hour game.
Is it like Battlefield games where every1 wants to snipe/control a vehicle but there's a finite number on each team?
@@Ianbus123 1 commander and if you jump in and don't start dropping down resource towers and giving commands etc. your team is usually irrecoverably behind right away if its even skilled teams. Imagine one team just doesn't build workers in SC2 type scenario.
Just because a game looks like Starcraft doesn't mean it's intended to be a Starcraft replacement. Looking like Starcraft is simply making good design choices. It means stylized graphics for readability. It means a tighter band on the scale of the largest unit vs the smallest. It means quick turn rates and visible HP bars conveying more than just %HP. It means a clean, modular interface It means diverse factions in a dark sci-fi setting that's isn't actually literally dark because readability matters. You put good design choices into a sci-fi setting and you'll get something that looks like Starcraft. The gameplay can still be very different and innovative.
I agree, but I think both ZeroSpace and Stormgate have made comments along the lines of wanting to be the future competitive RTS (replacing StarCraft). They got a lot of hype and crowdfunding off the back of that (and having former SC/SC2 devs on their team).
@@Ianbus123 No, that was Stormgate. ZeroSpace wasn't marketed as the next Starcraft. Just happens to have SC2 GMs and pros as the designers. Neither was Tempest Rising. It's literally just Stormgate trying to be the next Starcraft and we don't even know if that was a good move or not because they released an unfinished pile of doo doo.
Innovating can be a good point in certain cases (battle aces could be an example), but i would also say that there are a lot of people (like me) that love old RTS mechanics, the real problem is that new RTS simply aren't done well and companies don't deliver what communities ask for (i could mention DOW3 for example, or Stormgate, even if the latter is still in development and need time to be completed/polished).
Anyway actually there are a lot of titles currently in development, so saying "next dead genre" isn't exactly appropriate in my opinion.
Well it's a bit more catchy than "declining" but I am still exploring what is appropriate in terms of packaging YT videos and in the context of who the typical viewer is. Hopefully the content was more agreeable?
Outstanding video, really enjoyed this one!
I think the problem with RTS is its rigid audience, a new generation of RTS needs to:
1. Enable 'bad' habits to reach high ranks, no planning, F2-A-move.
2. Enable 'dumb' focus, players want to all-in missile ships vs. PD ships that is okay!
3. Players want to 'win' 80% of PvP games.
This is not impossible, it requires innovation. A dedicated bronze level missile-addict will learn to multi-prong if PD ships have restrictive firing arcs. You can redefine what 'winning' is, mainly by letting go of 'destroy all enemy structures'. Maybe have 8 players on a map, like RISK, where each has a different objective. 1 gold medal available, 2 silver, 3 bronze. Leave the game when you are happy with your medal, allmost everybody wins.
I guess some FPS games like Hell Let Loose are heading in this direction but the difficulty is pooling big enough groups of people in public servers where sufficient numbers of players are PTFO
Interesting video. I mostly play Company of Heroes 2. I actually bought CoH3 when it came out, but I've barely even played it. I'm happy with 2, even if it's deeply flawed.
Thank you!
It's a shame coh 3 couldn't live up to the earlier entries in the series :( Homeworld 3 was another big disappointment in that sense.
@Ianbus123 I think the lack of innovation has a lot to do with it, as you say. I can't be arsed having to learn what is ostensibly the same game but with different units and mechanics. I also think the graphics are really nothing to write home about at all.
We really need some online RTS games that fit into a limited and predictable 25 to 45 minute time limit. CnC and Starcraft derived gameplay is stale. Total Annihilation style games drag on too long for modern lifestyles. Maybe have outcomes be scored rather than dependent on a defined win/loss condition. This would encourage people to attack throughout not sit around building passively. The time limit would prevent the bloat that tends to define the more simulation style RTS games.
Battle Aces is sticking with 10 mins
@@Ianbus123 just had a look at Day9TV play it. Bingo this is what I'm talking about taken to it's logical conclusion.
@@ShapeyFiend Cool :)
I'm also in the closed beta and planning to post a video about it soon! Their main issue is monetisation at the moment but they just gave every1 access to all the units after people complained it would take 1000s of hours to unlock otherwise
Nice vid!
Hey - thank you
Aaah those d2 images
RTS games need a lot of grinding and don't have that same level of adrenaline compared to FPS, which I think are their main rival. They may reinvent with a more hybrid genre?
my thoughts exactly. And how do you combine those 2 polar opposite dichotomies and expected experiences into a properly balanced games.
@@kwisatzhaderach9591 Command & Conquer Renegade was on a surprisingly good track.
You never played competitive rts, they have more adrealine than fps games!
I just want a good WC3 remaster and then it can die.
champion 👍🏼👍🏼
How is it dead when new RTS games come out every year?
1. It's a question - to then explore in the video.
2. There can still be games coming out but if they're not critically or comerically succesful, or the volume of releases is down massively on say, the peak of the RTS genre when you had 40+ big studio releases a year, then it can be in decline/dying.
People have been saying this for like 12 years now....
Which bit?
What’s the trench rts game?
Ratten Reich. It came out this year to mixed reviews