I played StarCraft 2 for nearly a decade after it came out. It was always a solid experience. It is surprising that in all that time, there hasn't been a serious competitor to SC2 in the traditional RTS format. This article does a great job of breaking down why that might be. I mean, the mobile revolution did take some steam and excitement out of PC gaming for a while there. As the author points out, game devs tend to chase the trends and in some cases, they have to. I agree with the author's conclusion that the industry is missing out on a big opportunity. They remain to this day my most satisfying gaming experiences. And if they're done right and well balanced, people will play the same RTS for decades, so they have a lot of staying power.
I remember when the iPad came out I was incredibly excited. This was surely perfect for RTS games!
There was Command & Conquer: Red Alert Mobile, then....
The only other one I remember was an actually really good StarCraft clone by Gameloft (I forget the name).
I always thought mobile would be great for RTS and then it just wasn't. Though when I think about it, the keyboard is pretty important and that kind of fast control is really difficult on a touchscreen, so maybe that explains the lack of 'classic' RTS games on touch devices.
You wrote exactly my thoughts! I was so excited for a new generation of touch-optimized RTS games when the iPad was released and I’ve been disappointed with the options.
Do you (or anyone) know of any iPad games that fit the bill these days? I played Vainglory for a while but that’s not a RTS - it’s a MOBA (and was fun and worked super well on touch).
