4mo ago

What happened to the turn based RPG and RTS genres?

I remember fondly the days of playing Heroes of Might and Magic II, never played HOMM3 or anything after, but as I looked at the latest and most "recent" heroes games... they're all rated/reviewed SO harshly. Apparently, they never gained steam like the earlier titles. RTS seems to have the same issue, tapering off. Starcraft is basically dried up and dead, and we never got another Warcraft unfortunately. Even WC3 Reforged was a total flop/disaster, people were hoping one day to get Warcraft 4. Would've been nice, honestly.... But it never happened. as of today, I can't find a single RTS or RPG I actually enjoy that isn't some old 'classic'.

What happened to these genres?

46 comments

Turn based RPGs ain't doing that bad. I mean, BG3 was the hype in the last year or so....
- To be fair, BG3 is one of the most remarkable games I have ever played. Like ever. I have struggled to find other games like that which I really enjoy. Divinity original sin 2 I haven't tried yet but I'm tempted to. Just really struggling to find stuff that's decent and enjoyable I guess
  
  The graphics are much simpler than BG3, but Owlcat has done some fantastic work with their Pathfinder games.
  Wrath of the Righteous is much more polished and expanded than Kingmaker, but they're both great. They both have the option to play in turn-based like BG3, or real time with pause like the old BG games.
  
  I'm playing D:OS2 now, and it's most of the way to BG3. I'd also highly recommend the Wasteland games.
  
  Do yourself a favor and play planescape torment and then disco elysium

The unanimous game of the year last year is a turn-based RPG, and I can promise you Metaphor: ReFantazio this year will do well critically and commercially, just like Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth did earlier this year. There are plenty of turn-based RPGs to go around. If you meant turn-based tactics or strategy, same thing; plenty of those to go around as well.
RTS sort of peaked with StarCraft II, at least in terms of popularity, but you find some here and there. Battle Aces and Stormgate are both from ex-Blizzard devs chasing that high, and both are live service, so those two will soon be dead, but there are others out there that are less popular that come out from time to time.
- For C&C fans, Tempest Rising is C&C in all but name. The most recent playtest felt like a hybrid of Tiberian Sun and Tiberium Wars. It's not out yet, but I'm very excited about it.
- Battle Aces and Stormgate are both from ex-Blizzard devs chasing that high, and both are live service, so those two will soon be dead
  The curse 🥲

For RTS I can highly recommend Beyond All Reason (BAR). It's very similar to Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander and runs on a very performant custom engine. And the best thing: it's free and open source, even though its still in active development it already has quite a stable playerbase and is extremely polished with a ton of qol features.

Bg3 was turned based.

I guess you're just playing the wrong ones, really. The Age of Empires games (specifically 2 remake) have been celebrating a decent comeback and AoE4 was released to critical acclaim. Of course Blizzard won't release anything worth your time anymore, but not everyone is Blizzard. As for turn based RPGs: They're more popular than ever and I genuinely don't know what you're talking about. Turn based JRPGs are hugely popular and even CRPGs can be hugely popular if done right.

Baldurs Gate III?
Also I don't play RPG usually. But I really like this one. Arco have RPG and Turn Based Element. You should try it.

There's a turn-based RPG sale/event happening on Steam right now. I can't vouch for any of those games, but new ones do exist.
As for why they seem to have declined in popularity I can only guess - smartphones happened, removing the need for a home computer from many would-be RTS gamers.

While it definitely felt to me like turn-based RPGs were looked down on for a time, particularly when Final Fantasy abandoned its roots, I'd say the pendulum has been swinging back in the other direction for quite some time now.
Persona 5 was a smash hit, Fire Emblem is doing quite well, Dragon Quest is still going. Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler were solid mid-budget titles carrying on FF's roots where actual FF won't. Mario & Luigi is getting a revival. Over in the indie space, Sea of Stars and Chained Echoes have done well. And then you have tons and tons and tons of classics that have been getting remasters or even full remakes lately.
Oh yeah, and then there's a li'l game called Undertale that seems to have been fairly well received.
- I started replaying the original ffVii on my steam deck, now. Using several 7th Heaven mods that really make the game look and sound like it didn't come from the PS1 Era. It's a slow start, but so far it's still shaping up to be the great game I remember playing 25+ years ago.
  Plus, unlike the remake, it's all one game instead of 3+ take your money releases across two or three console generations.

I looked at the latest and most "recent" heroes games... they're all rated/reviewed SO harshly.
Many of the negative reviews are (and rightly so) because of Ubisoft forcing you to use their crappy launcher, adding DRM, and otherwise making the customer experience horrible, and not because there is anything wrong with the genre.
- As far as I have heard, 5th game is the last good one. Personally, I haven't really played it ever, I am mostly just playing HOMM3 and 4.

They're just not as popular as they used to be, and there are so many players on console nowadays. I can't imagine playing an RTS with a controller.
Age of Empires seems to be doing really well though. The first 3 games got great remasters, and AoE 4 is well received from what I understand.
- Many fans of RTS and Halo swear on Halo Wars when it comes to RTS on a console. Apparently, they really figured out how to do it right, but I haven't played it myself.
- I'm pretty sure there's a lot more gaming pcs now days, too. Consoles have been loosing out on the gaming market share since the 90's. PC overtook consoles in both popularity and profits a bit over a decade ago.
  Disheartening enough though, is that as far as profits are concerned, mobile games make $ more than pc and console combined.

There's a perceived unpopularity with these genres. However, some truly great games like Baldur's Gate 3 are living proof that you can make a niche genre very popular. It's just that almost no one tries, or doesn't like the risk involved. That's why you don't see a lot of these genres anymore. Well, you DO see them, if you look close enough and include indie and A/AA titles, but a massive AAA title with big budget and advertising for those genres is pretty much non-existant (I'm not familiar of any other exception like BG3). I think big studios are unlikely to risk such things. Look for smaller game studios, they're much more innovative and either keep "dead" genres alive or they try mixing genres in innovative ways.

AOE2DE is the 72 most played game on steam currently in reference to RTS, its much higher than several other games.

Sea of Stars is a turn based RPG that came out ~~this~~ last year. It is a modern homage to Chrono Trigger and it is great. Highly rec.
- That actually came out last year.
  
  Ahh, time is collapsing on me. My bad.

Alive and well in the indie scene. HoMM specifically has two spiritual successors I'm keeping an eye on in Hero's Hour (fun and absurd, but doesn't work on linux), and Songs of Conquest (haven't played it yet, looks very promising).

If you are looking for something similar to HOMM: https://store.steampowered.com/app/867210/Songs_of_Conquest/

Warcraft II!!
- An RTS yes, but not turn based. In fact I bet we don't fine any turn based real time strategies.
  
  How would you categorize one of my all time other favorites, KOTOR?

Turn-based RPGs I can understand, but "RTS" is "real-time strategy" -- it's intrinsically not turn-based.
You can get turn-based strategy games, but they aren't RTSes.
It depends on what you're looking for. There are more hard-warsim oriented games at Matrix Games, though a number of those are also available on Steam these days.
Steam has a "Turn-based Strategy" tag:
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Reviews_DESC&tags=1741&supportedlang=english&ndl=1

If you don't mind gacha games, I've been enjoying Honkai: Star Rail. The battles are turn based, some of the puzzles and events are a bit reaction time dependent, but not difficult generally.

HoMM is a turn-based strategy game, not RPG (with the notable exception of HoMM IV where you had real hero development). That said, there was a genre of RPG's, which used to be very popular in the 80s and 90s, and which all but disappeared. Those were party-based first-person RPG's with turn based (or close to it) combat. Popularized by Wizardry, and followed by Might and Magic, they inspired other series like the Ishar Trilogy. Other games employed real-time combat, but slow enough or pausable, to mimic turn-based. Popular series were Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, Dungeon Master, and others. Nowadays, I occasionally see one of these games from independent projects, but it seems that the golden age of this sub-genre has passed.

Disgaea games are always fun

If you like startcraft like RTS, StormGate its on beta right now. RPGs they are ton, just not AAA anymore. All the posterchilds of gaming are FPS, if is not one, you will not know of them if you dont search for yourself.

Check out some trailers for Falling Frontier, it looks like it has a lot of potential at least.
Also, Star Sector: https://fractalsoftworks.com

Isn't Steam literally having a turn-based sale right now?
Anyways, I think turn-based games are less fun and more tedious. Except Field Commander on PSP. That was a lot of fun.
- Yeah, a turn based RPG sale. I browsed through it, didn't find a single thing it felt like I'd actually enjoy since I already have BG3 and Wasteland 2

46 comments