Are strategy games just not evolving visually?

i think the visuals have kept up just as well as in any other genres, its a few things. partly the controller, very hard to get a good interface.

secondly, and this is just my conjecture, that "console only gamers" probably aren't interested in the genre.

The animations have certainly evolved to be more visually appealing.

To be honest I'm not really sure what you're asking.

In any case mostly the problems with RTS's is that they just kinda need a mouse. I mean you had the Command And Conquer games on current game consoles, and MS did the whole Halo Wars thing, as well as R.U.S.E., but they just kinda don't work. I mean it's defiantly enjoyable and certainly more than playable, but you need something like a mouse because controllers just feel clunky. I guess it's because RTS's involve a lot of multitasking (base management, economy management, most have a certain degree of micromanaging required on many fields etc.) which is usually easily covered on the PC by simply clicking on the mini map or though keyboard shortcuts.

Don't know really, also I guess the audience to a certain degree also doesn't really demand many RTS's on consoles.

Though something like Total War I'm pretty certain cannot be really handled by consoles too well, they are very CPU and RAM demanding, which are usually the weakest components in consoles. Though I suspect it would actually be a lot easier to port controls for Total War and similar RTT's than for RTS's like Command and Conquer or Starcraft.

It's difficult to really enchance the visuals of an RTS, there are a number of factors.

The first is that the camera is usually scrolled far out. This means the game has a lot of detail it has to render. While you can always adjust LoD and other details depending on distance from the camera (screen), it's a lot of work for the GPU to do and can result in a lot of unnecessary stuttering.

Another major issue is that with a lot of detail it can become difficult to see your units. RTSs require the player to manage a lot of things. Not being able to easily see your units because they've blended so well into the environment is not a good thing. This is why the scale in StarCraft is so weird. Everything needs to be proportioned just right so the player can easily identify units.

Even in the Total War games they the devs go out of their way to make the characters a bit brighter colored than they would. They use that and obtrusive elements of the hud to make sure the player can identify which units are theirs and what the units are doing. The requirements of an RTS make it more difficult to have very high fidelity graphics.

As for the consoles, RTSs still focus on managing lots of units and various levels of the game through menus. A controller is simply not sufficient for this. There is also a lack of processing power for all of the elements to work together. That's not a problem on the PS4/Xbox One, but it was a problem last gen.

Strategy games need to be approached differently on the consoles. A great example of a good console strategy game was Full Spectrum Warrior. It was a more focused strategy game that put you in direct control of two fire teams to work through a variety of scenarios. It didn't have the micromanagment or metagame of classic RTSs like Starcraft and Company of Heroes, but it had a far deeper level of tactic management that was more suiteable for a controller.

RTSs as we traditionally recognize them don't work well with a controller, but non-traditional real-time strategy games could work fine.

Well that's because of the poor hardware that PCs have...

i would rather see them put the system resources into bigger battles not pretty gfx.

you can't have everything and it seems pretty silly to make a game i am hovering 1000 feet above look pretty when the important part of the game is how massive it is and calculating the results of encounters.

By far the biggest problem with hitting the nail on the head for RTS games on consoles is the control scheme, analogue controllers just aren't up to it. Essentially leaving most who have tried the handful to grace the TV gaming machines with a sour taste for the entire genre. MMO's have a similar problem as well, could you imagine playing vanilla WoW with a controller? I remember having 48 abilities/functions mapped for my level 60 Shaman!

It's worse than trying to play Street Fighter with a mouse and keyboard.

Of course there is also the problem of tempting the majority of console gamers away from the 'quick fix' 5 to 10 hour single player campaigns and an hour here and there in online shooters that are an all too common sight. Total War tutorials can give over 5 hours of game play alone (thinking of the starting campaigns in Empire and Rome II).

video is abit bias don't you think?

Company of Heroes 1 was the first RTS that blew my mind in the visual aspect. Back then CoH graphics was in the level of FPS titles.

If we exclude Total War series, strategy genre didn't evolve much graphics-wise.

Should it?

RTS titles should. TBS games don't have to. I don't need Civilization with crazy graphics.

I think the visuals are getting better but the top down view ends up making them all look similar at a glance.

All i really want is Xcom 2 with UE4/Cryengine 3 with photo realistic art style.

@GarGx1: You know what's a problem? The fact that you need a keyboard and mouse to compute commands at a speed of up to 300 APM (which is child's play for pros).

RTS is dying for one reason, because at a game where it is fast paced enough, it requires such a demand on speed, precision and reflexes, as well as a knowledge of builds, hotkeys.

In RTS, the game is either slow paced enough to play, but hard to watch or fast enough to watch, but too slow to play.

Not exactly sure what you're getting at here. All I said was controllers are useless for RTS games, they are not accurate or intuitive enough for the genre, there is absolutely no denying that. The same can be said for FPS as well. Hand eye co-ordination is far higher when using a digital control and your entire hand rather than an analogue control with the tip of your thumb.

The RTS genre is not dying. Rome II is fastest selling of any Total War game and MOBA's (a sub genre of the RTS) such as LOL and DOTA 2 have the largest player bases of any games. Planetary Annihilation will likely see a full release this year and then we have Gearbox remastering Homeworld 1 and 2, truly epic and cinematic games. I doubt that Take Two would have snapped up the Homeworld IP if they didn't see any value in the genre. And many more RTS releases for 2014

Have a flick through some of the games in the link and you'll see a distinct evolution in graphics as well.

RTS games are also the basis of the largest, most lucrative esports world wide. Hardly the signs of something that is not entertaining to play or watch.

The fact is, largely due to the mismatch of control scheme and game requirements, console centric gamers are jaded against the RTS genre. The few that have released on console have been, mostly, uncontrollable rubbish.

I've yet to see a console game with good technical graphics, so idk what your talking about.

@ripsaw1994: Technical graphics are a red herring. Core mechanics are far more important in a RTS than how pretty it looks. Most pros play in low settings anyways.

Speaking for myself, I don't play strategy games for the visuals. As long as the visuals are functional and good enough to help with immersion that's good enough for me. Europa Universalis IV & Crusader Kings II by Paradox are both great strategy games and prime examples of games with superb AI and good, functional graphics that serve their purpose.