Best modern rts games

Recreate frenzied battlefield assaults through consistently nail-biting moments. Involving only limited base-building and concentrating on few, powerful units, Company of Heroes 2 plays as a tactical game of territory control. Its simple but robust cover system has you manoeuvring infantry through hollowed-out buildings and cratered rural fields, tweaking unit positions to evade enemy machine gun nests and mortar fire, while pressing forwards in heroic assaults.

All of this makes for intense squad management on the smallest level. Balance your forces with heaps of unit variety, and pay heed to their crucial abilities and vulnerabilities — no fear is like the fear of seeing your vulnerable riflemen walk directly into the range of a heavy machine gun nest. It simply had to be given a place on this list.

Construct a variety of units to rock-paper-scissors your way to victory, and make good use of civilisation-specific units — from samurai, to elephant archers, to mamelukes — to bring the pain. Mixed with naval warfare, siege tactics, defensive fortifications, and continuous base-building, skirmishes quickly develop into an onslaught of furious micro-management.

Cardboard conflict: These are the best war board games. The definitive edition of the game is exactly as it sounds. Impressive for a game that launched over 20 years ago. Rather than commanding huge swathes of infantry and gradually building a force to overwhelm the enemy, you start with nought but a central squad of valiant Space Marines to gun, slash, and melt your way through hordes of alien adversaries. And those few Space Marines are all you need. Weapons, armour, abilities, and more can be discovered, upgraded and specialised across a non-linear campaign that explores the depths of slimy wastelands and the decaying core of industrial cities, and formidable squad customisation mechanics allows you to consistently switch up your methods of play.

Make strong use of cover and bottlenecks to rain hellfire upon the hordes of Orks and Eldar beelining your units, and plan defensive positions, while drawing upon potent special abilities to lay waste on the field.

Above all, Dawn of War 2 is perhaps the best digital recreation of the Warhammer 40K tabletop game. Its emphasis on unit customisation and squad management better simulates the tabletop mechanics than any base-building would, and relentless violence and gore adequately recreate the exaggerated, exultant action of the Warhammer universe. Charting a hypothetical Soviet invasion of the US, Red Alert 2 hands you control of both nations to defend the superpowers with cartoonish ideological fervour and missile-armed zeppelins.

Every nation, every character, and every unit presented across the campaign is an obtuse caricature of its real-life counterpart. What starts as a slightly drab, sincere take on heated Cold War tensions, quickly develops into a silly pastiche of overzealous superpower struggles. All of these theatrics are made even better by FMV cutscenes pre-recorded videos of real-life, non-CGI, full-flesh actors played between missions. The crazed Soviet scientist Yuri and the hot-headed American commando Tanya are loving imitations of the best and worst 80s B-movie characters.

And the gameplay is a joy to behold. Skirmishing across carefully-constructed maps to fulfil varied objectives, regularly unlocking new units, and facing additional enemy threats at a consistent pace keeps things fresh. In a refreshing shake-up, Shadow Tactics brings real-time strategy to the deadly stealth of Feudal Japan. Small in scale but grand in ambition, Shadow Tactics sumptuously marries stealth with strategy, as you leverage the disparate abilities and skills of your team to knock out guards and run around sentries.

But be careful not to draw too much attention. Paced stealth is the key here, encouraging well-thought battleplans rather than rushed violence. It's challenging, bite-sized, and dynamic.

As you unlock new types of mechs and mech upgrades you gain inventive new ways to toy with your enemies. The game cleverly uses scarcity of opportunity to force you into difficult dilemmas. At any one time you might have only six possible scan sites, while combat encounters are largely meted out by the game, but what you choose to do with this narrow range of options matters enormously. You need to recruit new rookies; you need an engineer to build a comms facility that will let you contact more territories; you need alien alloys to upgrade your weapons.

You can probably only have one. In Sid Meier described games as "a series of interesting decisions. The War of the Chosen expansion brings even more welcome if frantic changes, like the endlessly chatty titular enemies, memorable nemeses who pop up at different intervals during the campaign with random strengths and weaknesses.

Sneaky tactics doesn't come in a slicker package than Invisible Inc. It's a sexy cyberpunk espionage romp blessed with so much tension that you'll be sweating buckets as you slink through corporate strongholds and try very hard to not get caught. It's tricky, sometimes dauntingly so, but there's a chance you can fix your terrible mistakes by rewinding time, adding some welcome accessibility to the proceedings.

First, you manage stockpiles, and position missile sites, nuclear submarines and countermeasures in preparation for armageddon. This organisation phase is an interesting strategic challenge in itself, but DEFCON is at its most effective when the missiles fly. Blooming blast sites are matched with casualty numbers as city after city experiences obliteration.

Once the dust has settled, victory is a mere technicality. Unity of Command was already the perfect entry point into the complex world of wargames, but Unity of Command 2 manages to maintain this while throwing in a host of new features.

It's a tactical puzzle, but a reactive one where you have the freedom to try lots of different solutions to its military conundrums. Not just a great place to start, it's simply a brilliant wargame. Hearts of Iron 4 is a grand strategy wargame hybrid, as comfortable with logistics and precise battle plans as it is with diplomacy and sandboxy weirdness.

Ostensibly game about World War 2, it lets you throw out history as soon as you want. Want to conquer the world as a communist UK? Go for it. Maybe Germany will be knocked out of the war early, leaving Italy to run things. You can even keep things going for as long as you want, leading to a WW2 that continues into the '50s or '60s. With expansions, it's fleshed out naval battles, espionage and other features so you have control over nearly every aspect of the war.

Normandy 44 takes the action back to World War 2 and tears France apart with its gargantuan battles. It's got explosive real-time fights, but with mind-boggling scale and additional complexities ranging from suppression mechanics to morale and shock tactics. The sequel, Steel Division 2 , brings with it some improvements, but unfortunately the singleplayer experience isn't really up to snuff. In multiplayer, though, it's pretty great. And if the World War 2 setting isn't your cup of tea, the older Wargame series still represents some of the best of both RTS and wargaming, so they're absolutely worth taking for a spin.

We're always updating this list, and below are a few upcoming games that we're hoping we'll eventually be able to include. These are the strategy games we're most looking forward to, so check out what you should be keeping an eye on. There's also a dynamic turn-based campaign, where you can pretty much do everything that's possible in the RTS layer, whether that's dropping artillery strikes on enemy or sending engineers in to deactivate mines.

There's also an expanded destruction system that gives objects, whether they are buildings or foliage, different damage states, so you'll see buildings being slowly eroded and chipped away at before the finally collapse. Other new headline attractions include extremely customisable companies and detachments—you can add a medical detachment to a company and then summon a medical truck mid-battle—and full tactical pause.

It's not coming until , but you can take it for a spin earlier by signing up to Games2Gether, which will let you try out alpha and beta builds. The conclusion to Creative Assembly's Warhammer trilogy is coming this year, and it looks like it's going to be massive. The series has been gearing up for a big confrontation with the forces of Chaos, so Total War: Warhammer 3 will give us a quartet of daemonic armies to fight with, and a pretty different battlefield: the Realm of Chaos.

Kislev, Cathay and the Lands of the East will also be thrown into the mix, and Creative Assembly boasts that it will have an "unprecedented scale". Expect big monsters, and a campaign that's twice the size of Warhammer 2's Eye of the Vortex campaign.

Deserts of Kharak was fantastic, which is why you'll find it above, but who hasn't yearned for a true Homeworld sequel? Blackbird Interactive's Homeworld 3 will have 3D combat with massive scale battles that let you control everything from tiny interceptors to massive motherships, just like you'd expect, as well as moving Homeworld's saga forward. The studio still hasn't revealed much about the sequel, though its broad vision is to capture how the original games looked and played—something it even managed to do with Deserts of Kharak, despite being a ground-based RTS—but with "meaningful improvements.

It's still a long way off, though, with launch not expected until After years of working on its Endless series of games, the best of which you'll find on the list above, Amplitude has now turned its attention to a historical-themed 4X game.

Humankind is Amplitude's take on Civilization, featuring dynamic civilisations that are born from culture combos. You might start out playing as the Hittites in the first era, and then pick Romans later on, and then throw the Germans into the mix down the line.

With new eras come new cultures that you can add to the melting pot, unlocking new culture-specific benefits. It also expresses this through its cities, which grow throughout history, swallowing up the land around them.

Some places will retain their historic attributes, like the older quarters of modern cities, while others areas will adapt as the eras progress. You'll be able to start building your civilisation later this year. Some of our favourite strategy games have spawned enduring modding communities, keeping decade-old game alive with dramatic overhauls that continue to be updated long after the devs have moved on.

As well as celebrating the best strategy games, then, we also want to celebrate a few of our favourite strategy mods. Until Total War: Warhammer, we had to rely on mods to get our fantasy Total War kicks, but with mods as good as Third Age , that wasn't too much of a sacrifice. It's a Medieval 2 overhaul that recreates the third age of Middle-earth, including cities, landmarks and all the ents and orcs you could hope you fight or befriend.

Lord of the Rings has inspired countless mods, but this remains one of the best. It throws in so much and tweaks pretty much everything, but it never compromises the game it's built on. Long War merged them, giving fans of the older games something trickier and meatier to play with, but it still felt modern and polished. Firaxis developers even got involved, and for XCOM 2 the team created some official add-ons, before following up the mod with Long War 2.

Crusader Kings 2 is pretty much the perfect platform for a Game of Thrones strategy game. It's fat with intrigue, warring nobles and mad monarchs tearing kingdoms apart.

It's a substantial overhaul that goes beyond changing the map and giving people lore-approriate names. Most of the focus is on one throne that everyone's fighting over, for instance, so the structure of the game has been changed to fit the setting. It also introduced a few systems before Paradox did, including characters being able to duel each other. No official game has been able to capture the books or show quite like the mod.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. The RTS genre offers a unique experience unlike any other as it gives you full control of your bases and armies while having you manage resources, land, and the movements of your army. Use the terrain to your advantage in order to mask the advance of your tanks and catch the enemy off guard.

For those wanting a more stealth oriented, real time strategy with RPG elements ninja game then Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun checks out all of those and even more. Choosing a more stealth oriented approach would be best for the ninja but if you require power then the samurai would happily cut down his enemies while the geisha would give you opening as she distracts guards and helps in keeping you hidden.

For situations that require a more forceful hand, the samurai specialist will happily cut them down with one swing. A samurai, a geisha, a ninja, a street child, and a sniper all at your arsenal in order to help you fulfill your assassination mission. Will you be able to handle the pressure of dealing with terrorists who hijacked and set afire to a cruise ship and crashed it into port?

Always be sure to have your firemen put out fire while taking care of casualties as you go. Fans of the Warhammer 40K series hold Dawn of War II close their hearts as you command a squad of Space Marines sent out to conquer a planet contested by the different factions in the Warhammer 40K universe. You can choose from a number of iconic Space Marine units from the Devastator Marines, to the hulking Dreadnought.

It incorporates cover based mechanics similar to those of Company of Heroes where tactical movement and cover is encouraged if your men are going to survive.

Tag along through its great visuals, compelling story, and a robust level system for your men in this installment of the Dawn of War series.

Tear through lines of Orc with your Dreadnought and teach them a lesson for getting in your way. The Warhammer series not only features giant hulking space marines in huge cladded armor but a fantasy series that has been merged with beautiful graphics, turn based empire management, and real time strategy combat that only the Total War series can give.

Command 8 Legendary Lords across 4 races, each with their own unique playstyle, narrative, legendary heroes, and campaign mechanics. Fans of the Total War series and Warhammer will be in for a treat in this epic campaign to heal the vast arcane vortex, or play a part in its inevitable downfall.

Which side will you choose? Give your men the best chance of defeating their enemies with proper positioning and timing. We all have that inner 8 year old who wishes he could pilot his own giant robot and destroy other robots with it.

Supreme Commander 2 puts the steering wheel unto the 8 year old but instead of controlling one giant robot, you control hundreds of other mechanized units and get to battle it out with large scale warfare either by land, sea, or air.

Be sure out to zoom out of the battlefield from time to time as your troop count can reach the hundreds in no time. Whatever your style, Supreme Commander 2 will satisfy. They are Billions puts you into its post-apocalyptic zombie steampunk world where you handle the last remaining survivors of the Earth. Beware the zombies though as with its custom engine, thousands and upon thousands of zombies can come swarming into your units. Plan your every move and help humanity rebuild its world!

Controlling the hordes of zombies is crucial to the survival of your colony but will your men and defenses be enough? Asia e. China, Japan, and North Korea joins this time around with a total of 17 nations involved and all of its military resources at your fingertips.

The Wargame series feature deep and complex RTS mechanics where you have to manage not only your main resources but the amount of ammo, fuel, and armor your units have. For fans of modern military combat or even looking for a fun, deep, and learning experience with an RTS, then this is the game for you.

With the location now set in parts of Asia, your ability to adapt to the terrain will mean victory or defeat. This time around you have units to choose enabling you to customize your army that tailors to your style. Set in the American Civil War of to , you can relive historic battles and experience what it was like to be a commander of the Civil War. The developers paid close attention when recreating the experience as important details like positioning and extensive scouting can make the difference between defending the hill it having it overrun.

The set pieces have been carefully designed and crafted that adds to the authenticity of the experience. Careful use of terrain and proper troop positioning will dictate your chances of winning when facing an enemy that has the superior position. The remaster enhances the graphics and resolution while retaining the challenging gameplay that differentiated Stronghold HD from other RTS games.

The goal has always been to establish your own castle, build your own army, and conquer other castles in your land! Men of War: Assault Squad 2 takes in the top on our list as it gives you the best mechanics when it comes to infantry and tank combat and as well as offering you great rewards and dire consequences for the position that your troops are currently in.

Choose between vehicles and soldiers that have been tailored to fit your playstyle. Managing your troops will not be your only concern too as your infantry men only have limited ammo while your tanks can run out of fuel. Men of War: Assault Squad 2 factors in historical accuracy into its gameplay that makes it such a fun and rewarding game that in fact this makes it one of the best RTS game that you can play right now on Steam.

Set up your front line with your main battle tanks and troop carriers at the ready. Be sure to scout before charging as Anti-Tank guns can be hidden within the environment.

Weapon placements can help you turn the tide of battle especially when you lack mechanized reinforcements. The 10 Best E3 Strategy Games. Skip to main content. Level up. Earn rewards. Your XP: 0. Updated: 30 Jun pm. Sometimes all the pretty lights can distract you from the big ass robot coming down your way.

BY: John Linden Sia. These Are The Best Steam RTS Games The RTS genre offers a unique experience unlike any other as it gives you full control of your bases and armies while having you manage resources, land, and the movements of your army. Here are 11 of the best RTS games on Steam. Wargame: Airland Battle. More on this topic: rts strategy.