RTS should focus more on single-player campaigns, lore-heavy settings

[Volrath]

Anyone remember the name of that Czech(?) RTS where you got transported back in time?

Original War?

Yeah that's the one.

That shit was dope.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Is anyone interested in Tempest Rising at all? I've not been following it's development, so didn't know about it until about a week ago. What is the general feelings of the RTS community toward it? I heard they stopped development and started re-engineering something in response to fan feedback.

It's meant to be a faithful Command & Conquer "spiritual sequel", complete with a GDI type faction, a plant that looks like Tiberium, and the composer of the original game's soundtrack. In other words, it's being sold at the C&C game that EA will never make. Looks like they are replacing the FMVs with CGI cutscenes instead.

There is a supposed to be a small RTS revival underway.

Command & Conquer Remastered Collection

Age of Empires 4

Homeworld 3

Falling Frontier

In terms of mainstream releases: 'Command & Conquer 1' remaster, 'Command & Conquer: Red Alert 1' remaster, 'Age of Empires 1' remaster, 'Age of Empire 2' remaster (they keep releasing DLC for it), etc. 'Age of Empires 4' got made, as well as stuff like 'Conan Unconquered', or 'Dune: Spice Wars', and 'Homeworld 3' is on the way. They are remastering 'Age of Mythology'. In terms of new stuff: 'Tempest Rising', 'Industiral Annihilation' (a TA spiritual sequel), and 'Falling Frontier' of course interests space opera fans a lot (they are now adding a single-player campaign). Chris Taylor is doing something called 'Intergalactic Space Empire'. Who knows, maybe we will get something like 'Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4' sooner or later, (in which case I'm guessing they would probably follow DOW1 much closer).

Personally I've been enjoying Real Time Tactics games like 'Battlefleet Gothic: Armada' more these past ten years.

 

[El Presidente]

Multiplayer focused games were the first horseman of gaming decline.

And then making it much, much worse by catering to APM insectoids, the definitive tombstone of the RTS genre.

 

[REhorror]

Very much agree.

RTS can tell stories that no other genres can (aside from maybe TBS).

War stories = GOAT.

 

[REhorror]

Is anyone interested in Tempest Rising at all? I've not been following it's development, so didn't know about it until about a week ago. What is the general feelings of the RTS community toward it? I heard they stopped development and started re-engineering something in response to fan feedback.

It's meant to be a faithful Command & Conquer "spiritual sequel", complete with a GDI type faction, a plant that looks like Tiberium, and the composer of the original game's soundtrack. In other words, it's being sold at the C&C game that EA will never make. Looks like they are replacing the FMVs with CGI cutscenes instead.

There is a supposed to be a small RTS revival underway.

Command & Conquer Remastered Collection

Age of Empires 4

Homeworld 3

Falling Frontier

In terms of mainstream releases: 'Command & Conquer 1' remaster, 'Command & Conquer: Red Alert 1' remaster, 'Age of Empires 1' remaster, 'Age of Empire 2' remaster (they keep releasing DLC for it), etc. 'Age of Empires 4' got made, as well as stuff like 'Conan Unconquered', or 'Dune: Spice Wars', and 'Homeworld 3' is on the way. They are remastering 'Age of Mythology'. In terms of new stuff: 'Tempest Rising', 'Industiral Annihilation' (a TA spiritual sequel), and 'Falling Frontier' of course interests space opera fans a lot (they are now adding a single-player campaign). Chris Taylor is doing something called 'Intergalactic Space Empire'. Who knows, maybe we will get something like 'Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4' sooner or later, (in which case I'm guessing they would probably follow DOW1 much closer).

Personally I've been enjoying Real Time Tactics games like 'Battlefleet Gothic: Armada' more these past ten years.

I'm very much looking forward to Tempest Rising.
You should also check out Terminator Dark Fate - Defiance, it just releases yesterday.

Not interested in space RTS tho (didn't like Homeworld, but I love Nexus - the Jupiter Incident).

 

[Beastro]

I played the remaster of Command and Conquer last year, and enjoyed it a lot. The Brotherhood of Nod are just a really interesting concept; something like an archetypal messianic cult like Aum Shinrikyo or Jonestown, but with a global army and vision. I haven't played a C&C game for decades. The campaign was really interesting, imaginative, and contained a sense of creative freedom. I was looking at some info given out by someone, perhaps a Blizzard rep; they found that out of their RTS players, something like 80% enjoy the story, and never bother with multiplayer. Bliz or whoever wanted to convert more singleplayer-players into multiplayer-players. I don't really find PvP that interesting, I just liked things like C&C or Age of Empires mainly for these interesting sci-fi or historical settings. So, maybe an old take, but I think the focus on multiplayer in RTS was a mistake from a commercial point of view, as these interesting mission briefings and cutscenes were driving a lot of the fun. It also means everything must be balanced for MP, and you can't have assymetry.

As much as I love those, there are a good niche of RTS' that have the right amount of story and don't need to go further into detail with a campaign. They work well because of how they tap into your imagination to fill in the blanks.

I liked the short, simple brevity of the situation Sins of the Solar Empire laid out. Related is Dominions, though not an RTS, for it's detailed factions and the rough background of the setting that nonetheless does not tie you into playing a campaign and adds tons more flavor to factions than most games give.

 

[Tehdagah]

Singleplayer in RTS games is pointless.

 

[REhorror]

Singleplayer in RTS games is pointless.

You are pointless

 

[Average Manatee]

The suits haven't figured out how to monetize RTS games into the games-as-a-service model. Until that happens AAA RTS can't exist because that's the only thing that they care about.

A stat I recall hearing is that a $10 mount skin for WoW made more money than the entirety of SC2 WoL. RTS games literally aren't worth their time to even think about.

 

[thesheeep]

The suits haven't figured out how to monetize RTS games into the games-as-a-service model. Until that happens AAA RTS can't exist because that's the only thing that they care about.

Which is odd, isn't it?

I can easily imagine multiple things that would work well in such a scenario, most of which could be monetized and/or keep people coming back outside of PvP leagues:

• More factions
• More sub-factions (easier to do, still adds replayability)
• More missions (especially for conquest-style campaigns that have more of a sandbox/procedural generation structure)
• More story-campaigns
• Unlockables (similar to how games like WoT/WoWarships have you unlock tanks/ships/planes)
• Gameplay overhauls (think how games like EU4/Stellaris keep changing)
• Cosmetics
• Dailies

Age Of Empires Online tried some of that, but it did NOT do it well at all (so many design issues) and so it never managed to lure enough people.
SC2 also has some co-op/sp content that keeps at least some people interested, but it is obviously not their focus.

Honestly, most things that make the dreaded GAAS work for other genres I can see working for RTS as well.
One BIG difference would be that you'd definitely have to lower the entrance barrier. RTS are hard to play (which is why its diminutive cousin, Moba, became such a thing).
As it is, most RTS are not accessible to most casual gamers. As long as that doesn't change, I don't foresee any major RTS money machines.

I'm somewhat curious if Stormgate will manage to attract a lasting crowd. After all, it will be F2P to begin with. That's one barrier down for that kind of monetization.

 

[Hellraiser]

Campaign gimmicks I would like to see used more:

• Tiberian Sun's optional missions changing the obligatory missions (real shame RA2 never continued with this trend, obviously due to EA-related decline).
• SC2 WoL's persistent unit upgrades, mercenaries, exclusive choices and fairly open mission order structure. SC2 LotV's loadout swapping with both the 3 variants per unit type and the Spear of Adun's support powers. Also in general SC2 missions having bonus objectives that granted persistent bonuses/campaign resources was a good concept.
• Warzone 2100/Earth 2150 style permanent main base from which you launch missions.
• Emperor: Battle for Dune allying with factions, although implemented better.
• Open persistent and impossible to max out tech trees like in They Are Billions combined with a fairly open mission order structure (a bit similar to what SC2: WoL did as mentioned).

Also not RTS but HOMM3 allowing you to pick a starting bonus (IIRC) before a mission was another good gimmick that I would like to see implemented in a RTS campaign.

[*]More missions (especially for conquest-style campaigns that have more of a sandbox/procedural generation structure)
[*]More story-campaigns

Not sure how well this would work. SC2 tried it with the Nova mission campaign and IIRC they were initially aiming for having similar DLC mission packs for the zerg and protoss, but seems they dropped the plans. Could be that it performed poorly due to the episodic release in 3 parts or could be something else, either way Blizzard didn't bother milking it like that more in 8 years.

 

[thesheeep]

Not sure how well this would work. SC2 tried it with the Nova mission campaign and considering IIRC they were initially aiming for having similar DLC mission packs for the zerg and protoss, but seems they dropped the plans.

Tbh I didn't even know that was a thing, first time I hear of it.
But looking it up, that was what, 6 years after release, 2 years after the final part of the campaign had been released?

At that point I had long played through the story campaigns and had given up on ever getting more out of SC2 or coming back to it.

I think something like that could definitely work, but it would have to be part of the package from the get go and not many years later when most people have already tuned out.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I'm excited for Falling Frontier, Manor Lords and to a lesser extent (after the demo) Homeworld 3.

That's not too bad a year for rts games.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I'm very much looking forward to Tempest Rising.
You should also check out Terminator Dark Fate - Defiance, it just releases yesterday.

Ah yeah, I forgot all about them, but both Terminator and Starship Troopers just got RTS games out of the blue:

Starship Troopers: Terran Command

Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance

Also there was Halo Wars 2, etc. I can't say whether they are good or not, but companies seem to be playing attention to the RTS genre again, out of the blue, for some reason. I guess the last serious attempt at a new land-based franchise was Supreme Commander, before all this. I've been out of the loop a long time.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Is anyone interested in Tempest Rising at all?

Does anyone know how Tempest Rising has been affected by the bad situation at 3d Realms? I mean other developers had to cut on staff because of their publisher.

 

[REhorror]

I'm very much looking forward to Tempest Rising.
You should also check out Terminator Dark Fate - Defiance, it just releases yesterday.

Ah yeah, I forgot all about them, but both Terminator and Starship Troopers just got RTS games out of the blue:

Starship Troopers: Terran Command

Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance

Also there was Halo Wars 2, etc. I can't say whether they are good or not, but companies seem to be playing attention to the RTS genre again, out of the blue, for some reason. I guess the last serious attempt at a new land-based franchise was Supreme Commander, before all this. I've been out of the loop a long time.

Starship Troopers Terran Command is decent but my god, you have to play Terminator DF - Defiance rite now!!!!

 

[Alienman]

Sarcasm?

 

[Cyberarmy]

Falling Frontier looks interesting but it seems like combat is not the main focus.

Sarcasm?

Don't think so, Dark Fate's developers made Syrian Warfare which was decent and hell as hard. DF seems like on that track also.

 

[REhorror]

Sarcasm?

Go play it right now, it's early GOTY.

First game in a while where I say it's difficult and I have to reload a lot.

 

[ArchAngel]

RTS genre is dead and you expect something out of new releases, I have some bad news for you.

It is certainly not. I watched a video recently, for example Sc2 in 2021 has almost 2 million concurrent users (due to its Coop commanders). AoE2HD has like 17 000 playing MP in recent times (or maybe it was AoE4).
Also under RTS a lot more types of games can go which have big sales like some of the popular real time defense games (not MOBA).

Devs just need to start focusing into delivering good SP campaigns with fun mechanics and fun CO-OP modes which revived SC2 (apparently Sc2 got more money through CO-OP commander sales then through full game and expansion sales).

 

[Harthwain]

Falling Frontier looks interesting but it seems like combat is not the main focus.

Yeah, the focus is more on the logistics of war.

 

[ArchAngel]

The suits haven't figured out how to monetize RTS games into the games-as-a-service model. Until that happens AAA RTS can't exist because that's the only thing that they care about.

Which is odd, isn't it?

I can easily imagine multiple things that would work well in such a scenario, most of which could be monetized and/or keep people coming back outside of PvP leagues:

• More factions
• More sub-factions (easier to do, still adds replayability)
• More missions (especially for conquest-style campaigns that have more of a sandbox/procedural generation structure)
• More story-campaigns
• Unlockables (similar to how games like WoT/WoWarships have you unlock tanks/ships/planes)
• Gameplay overhauls (think how games like EU4/Stellaris keep changing)
• Cosmetics
• Dailies

Age Of Empires Online tried some of that, but it did NOT do it well at all (so many design issues) and so it never managed to lure enough people.
SC2 also has some co-op/sp content that keeps at least some people interested, but it is obviously not their focus.

Honestly, most things that make the dreaded GAAS work for other genres I can see working for RTS as well.
One BIG difference would be that you'd definitely have to lower the entrance barrier. RTS are hard to play (which is why its diminutive cousin, Moba, became such a thing).
As it is, most RTS are not accessible to most casual gamers. As long as that doesn't change, I don't foresee any major RTS money machines.

I'm somewhat curious if Stormgate will manage to attract a lasting crowd. After all, it will be F2P to begin with. That's one barrier down for that kind of monetization.

Sc2 Co-op earned a lot of money, especially compared to small team and small resources invested into that (I've played a fair bit of Sc2 Co-op and it is the most fun part of SC2).
That team left Blizzard and it is working on Stormgate now that also plans to have that. Lets see how that one does, I will also admit that CO-OP mode for Stormgate is what I am mostly interested in, I am hoping they can take what Sc2 has and take it to next level.

 

[abija]

The suits haven't figured out how to monetize RTS games into the games-as-a-service model. Until that happens AAA RTS can't exist because that's the only thing that they care about.

A stat I recall hearing is that a $10 mount skin for WoW made more money than the entirety of SC2 WoL. RTS games literally aren't worth their time to even think about.

With that logic you would get less than 10 games per year, regardless of genre.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

To address the topic, I agree that RTS would benefit from that but definitely has a lot of growing to do on that front. RTS stories, like most video game stories, are generally terrible and at best serviceable. But the genre has so much potential that goes unrealized. I definitely think the RTS format lends itself better than all other genres to showcasing the scales of such topics as military, economics, politics, etc.

My favorite would definitely have to be Command & Conquer. While goofy and undercooked, at the best of times it tries to tell interesting stories about the clash of ideologies. The worlds of C&C are large enough to support a variety of stories, even multimedia ones. I liked the Dune games too. I think Emperor does a really good job of writing the characters as representatives of their houses, exemplifying their values and showing why their armies even fight for them in the first place, even with the limited space it has to do so.

On the other end of the spectrum, the RTS stories I most despise are the Blizzard RTS Starcraft and Warcraft. Warcraft 1 and 2 were okay, albeit their stories were almost nonexistent. Starting in SC1 and continuing through WC3 and SC2, the stories shifted to capeshit soap opera melodramas where the actual races, civilizations and cultures were treated as trivial accessories to the main characters and the worlds were reduced to shallow themeparks. None of the sides involved have coherent ideologies or reasons for fighting each other beyond their leaders being jealous exes who want revenge for being dumped that one time. Why does anyone even fight for these unlikeable morons? It's so fucking stupid.

So I don't look forward to Stormgate or Zerospace because they don't give me any indication they aren't going to continue down that capeshit routine. Stormgate has outright hired Chris Metzen as a consultant, blegh. Zerospace is just copying Mass Effect, an RPG! jfc, it's like nobody involved actually plays RTS or invests in the genre beyond shallow aesthetics. I don't understand why they can't just make literal RPGs about their mary sue heroes and stop polluting the RTS genre with capeshit. I hate it.

I do look forward to games like Tempest Rising or Immortal: Gates of Pyre because they give me the impression their settings aren't just shallow themeparks for capeshit. TR is so heavily propagandized that you can't tell which side is good or bad, assuming there even is a distinction, which I find to be a refreshing and timely take on RTS politics. IGP in particular is apparently going to have a multiverse as its setting, exploring different outcomes of conflicts in a way that allows every side to shine in a way that wouldn't be possible with only a single canonical order of events. Neat.

That's my two cents.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

The suits haven't figured out how to monetize RTS games into the games-as-a-service model. Until that happens AAA RTS can't exist because that's the only thing that they care about.

A stat I recall hearing is that a $10 mount skin for WoW made more money than the entirety of SC2 WoL. RTS games literally aren't worth their time to even think about.

Coof... COH2 coof...

In other news, we need rts games with more custom options units wise, similar to what u could do on Original Wars where you made your own vehicle units.