- Monday, January 28, 2008
- Thoughts On The Future Of The RTS Genre
Gamasutra’s "The Future of the Real-Time Strategy Game" makes some interesting comments on the state of RTS games. He asserts (correctly in my opinion) that the games labeled as real-time strategy are actually more accurately described as real-time tactics games.
He makes the point that in the end the only real strategy available in such games is that of enacting a war of attrition (though I would disagree with him in saying that’s the only strategy one can pursue. However there is definitely a limited selection that one can choose to follow) and that games then devolve into who can get the right set of tactics in line.
Warcraft 3 is an excellent example of how Blizzard decided to add tactical choices instead of strategy ones. Many games have followed suit in this. He also notes how many of the new games coming out are leaving the realm of strategy altogether and are focusing primarily on tactics. One will completely loose the ability to build and select which units to build but will merely manage a set number of units predefined for him. Not that that sort of gaming is bad but it does warrant its own genre definition of its own.
Nathan Toronto, the author of the article, makes several suggestions to improve the strategy options in future games. Essentially these suggestions equate to more aptly mirroring real life politics. Bringing more internal issues that a player must also deal with while concurrently dealing his strife against a foreign power. I’d recommend reading his article for a more detailed explanation if you’re interested (page 3-4).
Unfortunately, as mentioned in the comments of the article, once you start reaching that level of correlation of virtual reality to actual reality you face a couple problems. One is that if you go to far, you’ll lose the attention and focus of the player. As an aside: this is one of the same issues with implementing more realistic and challenging AI. The second issue is that, in order to achieve such a diverse option board, you have to start leaving the realm of real-time to that of turn-based. Which there are already plenty of games that fit that genre.
But that’s just some initial thoughts on the matter. If ideas like this were carried forward past theory and concept into actual development stages, solutions can be made to address those issues. Such innovative changes would be the next step in the future of gaming.
