Summary
Real-timestrategy gameshave been a staple in the gaming world for decades, with fast-paced gameplay demanding quick thinking, tactical expertise, and good reflexes. These games allow players to build empires, command armies, manage resources, and defeat their enemies on pre-made battle maps.
While some focus on macro-management andresource gathering, others place heavy emphasis on intense, frantic combat. The best RTS games are known for their fast-paced action, that challenges a player to keep up with events that are emerging on the battle map, whilst still controlling their own units effectively. Mixing defensive gameplay and base building with offensive gameplay and unit control.
An RTS With A Twist
Tooth and Tail
Lead the revolution with an army of flamethrowing Boars, mustard gas-lobbing Skunks, and paratrooper-puking Owls.Tooth and Tailis a Real-Time-Strategy game featuring Single Player, Online Competitive Play, Split Screen, Replays, and more.Build a base, lead your army, eat your enemies!The War for Meat: The Longcoats, the Commonfolk, the KSR, and the Civilized are in the midst of a Civil War over who gets to eat, and who has to be the meat. A darkly humorous tale of riots and revolution is told through an extensive Single Player campaign.Endless Replayability: With procedurally generated maps and customizable factions, no two conflicts will be the same, forcing players to strategize rather than memorize.Pick-up-and-Play: With matches lasting from 5-12 minutes, controls designed specifically for the gamepad, and split-screen couch play, Tooth and Tail is a popcorn RTS for veterans and newcomers alike.
Tooth And Tailis something a little different as far as RTS games go. Rather than following the general trope of humanoid or alien armies battling it out for dominance, Tooth And Tail is set in a world full of animals, waging a devastatingcivil war.
As the commander of various animal units, the player has to try and win each battle. The gameplay is fast and frantic, with matches being over very quickly. This means the player has to think fast, and be ready to adapt to emerging gameplay on the relatively small battle map. Overall,Tooth And Tailis worthy of a place on this list, due to its frenetic gameplay and fresh setting.
6Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
Stepping Back In Time
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharakis a prequel to the rest of the games in theHomeworldfranchise. It steps back in time to cover the expedition to claim the crushed mothership that later becomes the technology base for developing the mothership in the later games.
Set on the ground, in abarren desert, gameplay is intensely tactical.Homeworld: Deserts of Kharakdoes things a little differently. This is not the kind of RTS where players build a defensible base, and then go on the attack. Instead, the player needs to control certain areas of the map, and be constantly on the move to gather resources. The pace of combat is often overwhelming, as the enemy AI has a habit of pulling flanking maneuvers and attacking lightly defended positions.
So Many Explosions
Ashes of the Singularity
The human race has expanded into the galaxy thanks to the wonders of the technological singularity. You have become so powerful that you can manage vast armies across an entire world that provide you with an ever greater galactic empire.Now, humanity is under assault by a new enemy. Calling themselves the Substrate, they seek to annihilate the human race from existence. You, as an up and coming member of the Post-Human Coalition, must deal with both this new menace as well as renegade humans trying to lay claim to their own worlds.Play as the Post Human Coalition or their eternal foes the Substrate and battle for control of the galaxy. Experience maps of unprecedented size and detail with the unparalleled power of the world’s first native 64-bit RTS engine, Nitrous.Enjoy the game online with friends in ranked or unranked multiplayer mode or play it by yourself against a powerful non-cheating AI in skirmish or campaign mode. No matter what mode you play, strategy is the key: deciding what technologies to research, where to send your armies, how to manage your economy, and what units to construct are crucial to victory.Experience a massive-scale real time strategy game where you wage war across worlds with thousands of units. The conflict has escalated, and it’s time to choose a side.
Fans of the old real-time strategy gameTotal Anhiliationwill instantly feel at home playingAshes of the Singularity: Escalation, as it is something of a spiritual successor. The game is set in the future, with the player choosing one of two opposing factions to play as.
Battles can be huge, with hundreds of units. Controlling this number of units can be difficult at best, and completely overwhelming in many cases. There are so many bullets, missiles, lasers, and explosions in large battles, that the main window looks more like a trippy screensaver than an actual game.
StarCraftis a seminal strategy game. However, even though it is still worth playing this iconic game, it does look a little dated. Blizzard made a smart move in 2017 andremastered the game, adding HD textures, to make it more attractive to modern RTS fans.
The remastered version ofStarCrafthas the same crazy, chaotic gameplay as the original. Few games have managed to match the sheer panic that a player feels when facing a Zerg rush in StarCraft. Those terribly stressful few minutes waiting to find out if base defenses are up to the task of fighting off a massive surge of Zerglings. There is a reason why StarCraft was the backbone of competitive esports gaming for so long, as it takes real skill to keep on top of the frantic pace of the game.
As RTS games go, few offer such expansive battle maps asSupreme Commander. In many ways, it is something unique, a real-time tactical game. Players need to be aware of what is happening in every part of the map, as the enemy AI is very capable, and has a habit of doing unexpected things. There is a special UI feature that allows the player to view a zoomed-out overview of the whole map to help with this.
Gameplay starts off quite slow, but as more and more units are spawned on the battle map the pace of combat ramps up. Eventually, there will be hundreds of units taking part in huge battles. The player has to react quickly to enemy movements, and make sure they never stop producing their own units, and gathering resources.
Company Of Heroes 2is a frantically pacedRTS gamethat is based loosely on World War II. The game has some pretty unique features for an RTS, and this includes a destructible environment and a combat system that enables the player to move units into cover.
The battle maps are quite large, and the enemy AI is dynamic, and able to exploit weaknesses in the player’s defenses quite ruthlessly. Therefore, this is not a simple RTS, with the player simply overwhelming the opponent with greater firepower. Instead, they need to make strategic decisions, and ensure that they defend as well as they attack.
Starcraft 2and its subsequent DLC, offer some of the best real-time strategy gaming available. Blizzard did an exceptional job of taking one of the most influential RTS games of all time, and updating it in a way that made it more relevant to modern gamers, and improving the gameplay as well.
Even the campaign mode inStarCraft 2is fast-paced. But it is the multiplayer skirmish matches that are the most chaotic. Professional StarCraft 2 players time their mouse clicks per second, and practice issuing commands as quickly and efficiently as they can. To keep up with the pace of a skirmish map takes a lot of practice. No other game could have taken the top spot on this list.
