Current Events > Why did real-time strategy games kind of die off?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It seems like there are almost never any big-name RTSs coming out these days. It's just a strange phenomenon really that I've never really understood. Did they just start bombing or something?
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RTS games just evolved into MOBAs.

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There's been little innovation at all for the genre so I think it just hit a wall.
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It's gonna make a comeback with Warcraft 3 Reforged

I hope
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Blizzard spent a decade patching Starcraft 1 until it was basically as perfectly balanced as you could get. The genre kind of suffers from the same problem as MMOs, where a new game has to simultaneously innovate but at the same time be as feature-complete as something that had a decade of work, and it just can't happen. Not when compared to starcraft.

Even StarCraft II couldn't compete with it.
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Because getting them to work on consoles was a pain in the ass, back in the days of the Xbox, PS1, and N64.
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I think a lot of it is that competitive RTS has a massive barrier to entry compared to other competitive games. You might get a kill or a round on someone really good in an FPS or fighting game, but you will just get floor stomped in an RTS by someone above you. Starcraft 2 helped a lot with that by having leagues, but I think people would rather play something like a MOBA where it's easier to feel like you are able to reach a level of viability against better players. The team aspect also helps a lot with MOBAs. In an RTS if it's a 2v2 or even 3v3 and one guy sucks, your whole team is probably screwed. In a MOBA you can carry the dead weight a lot easier.

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I'm hoping Age of Empires 4 actually happens and is good
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Someone needs to combine RTS with Dating Sim to really refresh the genre
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ssjevot posted...

I think a lot of it is that competitive RTS has a massive barrier to entry compared to other competitive games.

This, 100%. There is no genre where a player will get stomped on harder by someone even marginally better than RTS, and everything is so quick moving that you can't really practice and get better. You can't *learn* because everything is twitch twitch move 400 APM. MOBAs fill the RTS niche for casual players, and hardcore players are all still playing the golden oldies of the genre that will likely never be stopped, like OG Starcraft and Age Of Empires 2.
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Age of Empires 4 is supposedly happening, all because someone on reddit begged Bill Gates during one of his AMAs.
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