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Age of Empires designer believes RTS games need to finally evolve after decades of stagnation (www.videogamer.com)

submitted 4 days ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] absquatulate@lemmy.world 35 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

There's plenty of "evolved" RTSs in the indie scene:

Against the storm is trying a roguelike approach
Kingdoms and Castles is a banished-like survival with RTS elements
Endzone is also a sort of survival-crafter with some strategy mixed in, albeit with some issues.
Beyond All Reason is an open source RTS that's expanding the Total Anihilation formula.
Manor Lords is a fantastic medieval strategy
8/9 bit armies are colourful, fast paced strategies.

The genre is far from dead, but the problem might be audience. When they demand "evolution" that means it should pander to recent trends like survival crafting and roguelikes and whatnot. Problem is some of these formulas don't usually pan out well for RTS games. Then there's multiplayer and, like other commenters mentioned, ranked multiplayer usually devolves into a bunch of strangers playing the same few maps over and over, but gamers still demand multiplayer.

Alas, I see the genre as not dead but in a "doomed if you do, doomed if you don't" spot. Meanwhile I'm sitting here waiting for a regular old historic RTS like Empire Earth or Rise of Nations.

[-] Ashtear@lemm.ee 14 points 4 days ago

I'd add They are Billions as another evolutionary branch that's doing something different. Starting to see some clones of this formula.

That said, I don't think Against the Storm or Manor Lords are the kind of games Pottinger is talking about. Against the Storm doesn't even have combat. Those are more in the city builder realm.

[-] absquatulate@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

True, they're a bit off the mark, but they were the ones off the top of my head. Also, in my defense, I don't think Pottinger knows what he's talking about either. The man glorifies Age3 like crazy, saying they had to scale back some features, fearing they'd prove too revolutionary. I love Age3, but the game was hardly world-shaking. Take its contemporary Rise of Legends, now that was a title that went balls out.

Still, I'm curious what they're cooking up in that new studio.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago

They are Billions is a very interesting game, but stupidly stressful. It takes ONE fucking zombie getting past your defenses to completely fuck your base