My introduction to PC gaming was Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games such as Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Command & Conquer. It was a refreshing change coming from mainly playing Call of Duty on the Xbox 360. I fell in love (as did many others) with the fast-paced, tactical game genre, which I still play to this day. However, the genre has come to a grinding halt with mainly only old RTS series still releasing games, and many veering away from the genre’s core concepts.
The origins of RTS games have been disputed, given that the genre even today takes many forms. An article from Arstechnica cites the 1981 game Utopia as the beginning of the genre. RTS games are traditionally top-down view games where the player controls a fleet of units in real-time to battle one or multiple opponents. In many ways, the RTS genre is a faster-paced version of turn-based games, such as Civilisation or board-game Risk.
The rise of RTS games
In 1998, the most sold RTS game of all time was released: StarCraft. StarCraft fell into the base-building subgenre, where players would start with a headquarters, then building other structures to build more powerful units. Selling 11 million copies and being a competitive Player vs Player (PvP) game, a professional scene emerged. In a time before the term “esports” was even coined, StarCraft started to set the foundations of competitive gaming as we know it.
In Korea, the game was especially popular, with the StarCraft esports being aired on cable television through the dedicated esport channels Ongamenet (known today as OGN) and MBC Game (discontinued in 2012). One event in 2007 had 30,000 fans attend. In total, 4 million US dollars have been awarded for StarCraft events.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released in 2010, selling 6 million copies. Due to complications between the game’s publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, and Korean broadcasting networks and tournament organisers, the Korean esports scene did not immediately transition to the sequel. This is a possible reason for the game selling almost half of its predecessor. What is for certain, is that StarCraft had 11 years to sell, during a time in which RTS games were on the rise, whereas the sequel suffered from the last 5 years being a decline for the genre.
Another driving force behind the success of RTS games was the Warcraft series. With the first game’s release in 1994 and the second and third games in the franchise selling a combined 5 million copies, it had a large role to play in shaping the genre. Warcraft also had a massive impact on the gaming world outside of its genre. A mod was made for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos in 2003, called “Defense of the Ancients”. This marked the beginning of the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre, which includes two of the biggest PC games of all-time League of Legends and DotA 2.
The success of the Warcraft IP also spawned the most successful MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) of all time: World of Warcraft.
Outside the base-building subgenre, games such as the Total War thrived. The Total War franchise was a series of games in a historical setting, as opposed to StarCraft’s Sci-fi and Warcraft’s fantasy worlds. The game had no structures and focused on pure unit vs unit combat. Many adored the game’s historical accuracies and the unique spin it put on the genre.
Golden Age of RTS
Between the years 1990 and 2010, twenty-four RTS games sold over a million copies on PC. In comparison, since 2010, only two RTS games have sold over a million, those being the StarCraft II expansions: Legacy of the Void and Heart of the Swarm.
Many of the twenty-four games used the base-building system from StarCraft. This includes Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (and its expansions); the Warcraft series, and the Command & Conquer franchise. The base-building subgenre had the biggest competitive scene, as seen with StarCraft. Warcraft III also had a healthy esports scene, especially in China. Dawn of War was featured in the World Cyber Games 2005, boasting a 35,000 US dollar prize pool, and 43,000 US dollars the following year.
The rise of RTS games was not out of view of mainstream media either. Massive movie franchises like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars made many RTS games between them. Lord of the Rings released 4 RTS games between 2003 and 2006 including the popular “Battle for Middle-Earth” series. Star Wars released a total of 6 RTS games between 1998 and 2006. The most recent of which (Star Wars: Empire at War) was remastered and released on Steam in 2017. The 2006 game still has an active player base with the peak concurrent players on 14.03.21 being over 2,500.
The Fall
From 2010 RTS games started to fall out of favour, with MOBAs taking their place. The MOBA giants League of Legends (2010) and DotA 2 (2013) took over the PC gaming world, leaving RTS games (in many ways the MOBA genre’s father) behind. According to Google Trends, the term “RTS games” peaked in search popularity in June 2010, and since has been on a downward trend.
The trend can similarly be seen in the number of games released for the genre. Between 1998 and 2009 a total of 286 games were released under the RTS genre. Since 2010, there have been less than half of that number (119). Many of the successful RTS games released in the latter period were franchises that had been long established such as Total War, Dawn of War and StarCraft; or remasters attempting to capture the nostalgia of RTS games from the golden era.
Along with the brand-new genre of MOBAs, there was the issue of RTS games feeling stale by 2010. The base-building subgenre, and in many ways the RTS genre as a whole, felt like it had been stretched to its maximum, with no more room to grow or experiment while still being an RTS game. Games such as Dawn of War III attempted to experiment with a MOBA-esque RTS in 2017 but this was received poorly by fans of the franchise. Currently, the game has 10,401 reviews on Steam, with only 48% of them being positive.
In games such as Total War, players got frustrated with the non-sensical and clunky mechanics which led to non-realistic strategies being widely used, breaking player’s immersion with the historical world. This is a result of series such as Total War changing very little about the core mechanics of the game and new entries in the series essentially being the same as the last with different units or settings.
RTS games also fall victim to technological advancements. In the military-simulation and FPS game, Squad, each team has a commander who oversees the battle and can instruct “squad leaders” where to go and how to attack, very similar to an RTS. However, in this case, the commander is giving orders to real people, not units the player needs to micromanage. If a gamer wants to micromanage units, they would be more likely to play a MOBA, where mechanical skill is fundamental.
Conclusion
RTS games shone during a time when such fast-paced, mechanical gameplay was unheard of. The fall of the genre ultimately came down to it being oversaturated and the lack of experimentation to propel the genre into a modern era. In some ways, MOBAs are this generation’s version of RTS games, especially given the similarity in movement and ability commands.
While I would love to see the return of RTS at the forefront of gaming, the genre had a good run, and I will forever cherish memories like hearing the Chinese flamethrower tank say, “It’s getting hot in here” in Command & Conquer Generals, and watching the opening Dawn of War cinematic for the first time.