Yet over the last year we have seen an uptick in the number of real time strategy games being released and put into development, but no longer really from from the large developers of the past. We have had re-releases of Age of Empires 2 HD, Age of Mythology: Extended Edition, and Rise of Nations: Extended Edition of course published by Microsoft but brought back from the dead by the likes of Hidden Path Entertainment and SkyBox Labs. While of course these releases are not the same as having original IPs created and released they have shown that maybe big publishers are willing to put their feelers out and test the waters of the strategy community by entrusting smaller companies to update old school games. Of course one of the most interesting aspects here is that SkyBox Labs worked with modders on a expansion that had been in the works prior to the creation of AoE 2 HD and for the first time since the year 2000 Age of Empires 2 had received new content in the form of The Forgotten expansion.
But we aren't just seeing retread of old franchises with a new coat of paint on them. Smaller development teams and companies are beginning to take to the genre for the first time in a significant way. Uber Entertainment began a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 for their game Planetary Annihilation, which has been described as a throwback to the Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation games, that was just officially released on the 5th of this month. It was amazing to see how much support the company received both financially and the number of people backing and buying the game.
There is the French company Eugen Systems who have been around for a time but seemed to just hit their stride over the last couple of years with the introduction of their Wargame series all the while they are currently developing an old fashioned resource gathering and base building RTS in the vein of the Command & Conquer Generals series called Act of Aggression. The Wargame series itself are more along the lines of Real-Time Tactics games but Act of Aggression is promising to go back to the roots of the RTS genre.
Another game that's caught my eye is the Science Fiction strategy game Etherium by French Developer Tindalos Interactive. I've actually been lucky enough to get into the beta for this game and while I can't really say much due to the NDA I can let their teaser for the game speak for itself.
The last game I will mention is Grey Goo by developer Petroglyph Games. Petroglyph do have some strategy pedigree (Star Wars Empire at War, Universe at War: Earth Assault) but aren't backed by a large publisher themselves. I have seen several video's of Dev vs. Dev games and it's looking excellent so far. Science Fiction games seem to be becoming more prevalent at the moment which doesn't really bother me as long as they are unique enough and can distinguish one from the other.
Of course there are others out there like Meridian: New World another Sci-Fi game most notable for being developed by a single man believe it or not, Ancient Space, and the Fantasy MMORTS Avalon Lords. It does make me curious why more of these smaller companies seem to throw their collective hats in the ring and all in such a small amount of time as well. My personal belief is that technology has finally developed to the point that you don't need to be this big company with lots of resources to create real time strategy games anymore, or that you can be a small company and use crowdsourcing to help get you the resources that may not have been available otherwise. Whatever the case may be I'm very happy that so many of these games are being made now and I hope this doesn't prove to be a coincidence and is more of a pattern.
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