A History of Real-Time Strategy Games
Introduction
The Next Generation
Further Evolution
What Lies Ahead
The Future?
A History of Real-Time Strategy Part I

By: Bruce Geryk
Designed By: Collin Oguro

The year 1999 was a watershed year for real-time strategy. The previous year had seen the single most successful RTS game to date, Starcraft, but precious little else that was new and original appeared after that. In his review of Warzone 2100 in April 1999, GameSpot's Doug Radcliffe referred to the end of "the recession period" that had marked the previous months in the genre. Early 1999 was the calm before the storm. Two of the biggest names in real-time strategy--Command & Conquer and Total Annihilation--were going to get sequels, and several other big names were about to make a splash. Unlike any year before it, 1999 would see the release of multiple major new RTS games. The big guns were out.

Furthermore, real-time gaming was becoming ubiquitous in the strategy genre. In 1997, the third installment in the classic X-COM series, X-COM: Apocalypse, added a real-time combat option to a design that had come to stand for everything that was good and turn-based. In 1999, however, Interplay released a real-time strategy game of Star Trek combat based on one of the archetypal turn-based board games, Star Fleet Battles, and it was a surprising success. Another standard-bearer of turn-based strategy, the Jagged Alliance series, added real-time movement to the noncombat portions of Jagged Alliance 2. The tide was rising.

Several factors contributed to this state of affairs, including a broadening of the strategy gaming audience, but the single most significant reason for the upsurge was simply that hardware had made it possible. Finally, home computers could handle graphically attractive games in real time without choking the processor. While Total Annihilation had broken the 3D barrier in 1997, it had not started a trend, and 3D graphics would have to wait several years before they started to take hold in RTS gaming. Even now, 2D games haven't completely disappeared from the genre.

The second part of our history takes a look at the explosion in real-time strategy gaming since the release of Starcraft. Because there were far more games to choose from than in Part I, not every notable game could make the list. We tried to select not only the best games but also some high-profile disappointments, as well as those that made an important contribution to the genre although they have not sold well. Because the history of the genre is still being written today, we also take a look at what's in store further down the road.
 
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