The 10 Best RTS Games of All Time

If you ask any group of gamers what the best games of all time are, one of them is likely to be an RTS game. The combination of fast-paced tactical battles, slow base-building, and competing against fiendish opponents makes for an incredible experience, no matter how it’s presented. And when you look at the consensus best RTS games — Warcraft, Starcraft, Total War, Age of Empires — the genre has as fine a pedigree as you could wish for. It’s impossible to list every great RTS here; if you’re interested in the genre, you’ll have no end of wonderful games to play… especially because most of these games are part of a series.

Here are ten of the best RTS games of all times, as determined by Metacritic’s critic scores:

Command and Conquer (1995)

Westwood Studios arguably invented the RTS when they released Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty. But for their follow-up, they wanted to do something new and creative. They wanted to work on an original IP… and their programmers were “getting sick of sand”. Their next game was going to be the wishlist of everything they’d wanted to do with Dune II — including online multiplayer — without any of the constraints that developing IP for someone else can bring.

Enter Command and Conquer: a futuristic RTS in which the Earth is contaminated by a dangerous substance called Tiberium. The United Nations’ Global Defense Initiative must contend with a terrorist group called the Brotherhood of Nod to control Tiberium — and, ultimately, the planet. The setting’s inspired by the Gulf War, but set in an alternate universe to avoid real-world issues. The series is one of the longer-running in gaming, with many spin-offs, sequels, and reboots — including a complete alternate universe set during a fictional (and comedic) version of the Cold War.

This game’s fast-paced and asymmetric. Like all RTS games, you build up a base, construct units, explore the fog of war, and gather resources (in this case, Tiberium). You use those resources to build more units and upgrade your base. Ultimately, you’ll encounter the other player’s forces; your goal is to destroy their units and their base. The GDI and the Brotherhood have directly opposed strengths and weaknesses; playing to those strengths lets you control the board, build your unique units, and ultimately construct a super weapon to wipe the other player off the map.

The original Command and Conquer feels a bit dated these days, but it’s still a fantastic game. The series is still the gold standard for RTSes in a modern setting. If you’re interested in RTS games at all, this is a must-play.

Company of Heroes (2006)

The World Wars are fertile ground for strategy games for many reasons. The two clear factions, each with a distinct aesthetic, the mix of modern and historical technology, and the wide variety of battlefields on the Western and Eastern front all make for an immersive and varied gameplay experience. And Company of Heroes plants some seeds in that fertile ground that few other series can match.

Company of Heroes has three things that make it stand out. First: the game uses Havok’s physics engine, so its physics are a good bit more realistic than any RTS before it. Explosions send your units flying; smoke genuinely makes it harder to see; and, of course, most terrain is destructible and will break into pieces if you shoot it long enough. Second, it allows multiplayer matches with up to 8 players. The game’s original servers let you play over LAN or the internet, but if you want to play multiplayer now, you’re going to need to pick up the Steam version of the game… which regrettably means no LAN parties.

If you haven’t tried Company of Heroes out yet, it was recently ported to Android and IOS. The ports scored comparably to the PC original — a metascore of 86 isn’t shabby.

_{Editors note: Company of Heroes 3 also released in February 2023, and despite being rough around the edges on launch, has what looks set to become the series’ best multiplayer yet. Sadly, Relic has yet to top the original CoH campaign.}

Starcraft II

It’s hard to believe it, but Starcraft II is old enough to be in middle school. This game is somehow both the follow-up to one of the most beloved strategy games of all time, and the successor it deserved. To this day, it’s a staple of the esports circuit, a touchstone of gamer culture, and an important part of modern AI research (really).

If you’re reading articles on a site like this, you probably don’t need me to tell you what Starcraft is about or how it plays. It’s a three-way asymmetrical RTS where you play as one of three factions: the human Terrans, the alien Protoss, and the insectoid Zerg. Each faction excels at a specific strategy — the Terrans are classic micro-heavy RTS gameplay, the Protoss have expensive but sneaky units, and the Zerg have cheap units that can swarm and overrun other players. Playing to your strengths lets you basebuild and control the map. The game’s been free-to-play since 2017, including all the expansions.

But the true testament to the staying power of Starcraft is that you probably didn’t need me to tell you any of that. If you tell a gamer something is a “zerg rush”, even if they’ve never played Starcraft, they’ll likely know what you mean. Its language and iconography have penetrated gamer culture to the point where you can’t avoid it. In the words of the Telegraph: “Starcraft isn’t just an amazing game; it’s required reading.”

_{Editor’s Note: The Starcraft and the Starcraft: Brood War campaigns are still two of the best RTS campaigns — and together make one of the best Sci-Fi stories — of all time}

Homeworld

If you’re not into RTS games, you might not have heard of Homeworld; if you are, you almost certainly have, and you know that Homeworld gets hyped to the heavens. People call it a “game that changed the world”, a masterpiece beyond compare. With a game that gets this hyped, it can be difficult to go into it for the first time — there’s always the threat of a massive letdown. Thankfully, Homeworld is exactly as good as everyone says it is.

Homeworld has two things going for it: its presentation, and its 3D space combat. Homeworld’s story isn’t told through bombastic CGI cutscenes or laughably corny FMV. Instead, it’s told through sparse, black-and-white motion graphics. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed, with just enough motion to feel alive. The voiceover is somber, understated, and subtle. And the music is… holy smokes, the music in Homeworld is some of the best in gaming, it’s up there with Silent Hill. Homeworld’s soundtrack is mostly ambient tracks, ranging from ethereal and wistful to crunchy and menacing. But the game also features some genuinely gorgeous choral tracks (including a version of Agnus Dei that will knock your socks off) and an original song recorded by the prog rock group Yes. The game uses every tool at its disposal to tell a story about the desperate hope of an alien race trying to find its original homeworld. They know just which stops to pull out to make you feel things, and they can pull them out with some subtlety and grace. That’s rare in video game storytelling.

As for the 3D combat: Homeworld was one of the first games to attempt fully three-dimensional space combat. The devs didn’t set out to create an RTS game — they wanted to create something that looked like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. They were inspired by popular Star Wars games at the time, like X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, looked to craft something that could transcend those games’ limitations. They chose to make Homeworld an RTS because that was the genre that let them make the game they wanted. The battles are gorgeous, cinematic, with some gameplay focus placed on flashy maneuvers and pulling the camera in close just so you can see the lovingly animated spaceships. They require quick thinking, clever use of resources, and careful planning to get through, and it takes some time to learn how to think in 3D.

Homeworld’s a feast for the eyes and the mind. It’s aged incredibly well for a game that came out in 1999. With a sequel coming out later this year, it’s well worth a second look.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

This is another game that needs very little introduction. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is the immediate predecessor to World of Warcraft and the original source of DOTA (if you don’t count the Starcraft custom map Aeon of Strife, that is). If you’re interested enough in gaming to read this site, you’ve absolutely heard of WOW. Even if you’ve never played this game, you’re likely aware of at least some of the characters– characters like Thrall, Jaina Proudmoore, and Arthas– because they play a huge role in the rest of the Warcraft series.

Warcraft III has so much content that it’s difficult to overstate how packed this game is. There are four playable factions — the familiar Alliance and Horde, as well as the Undead Scourge and the Night Elves — three different resources to manage, computer controlled “creep” enemies that attack both factions, and a day-night cycle. The game contains RPG elements, in the form of ‘hero’ units with experience points and spell trees. And the story, which spans four campaigns, each with multiple chapters, is rich, deep, and well-structured. Every campaign starts with simple missions designed to get you accustomed to the faction’s quirks, progresses to missions where you build bases and deal with larger threats, and then tests you on what you’ve learnt. Once you’ve completed the game, there’s a large multiplayer community and an even larger modding scene. DOTA was originally a Warcraft III map made by the community, and there are many more high-quality custom maps out there that will keep the game new for hundreds more hours.

Just do yourself a favour: get the CDs, play this game as close to the original format as you can, and skip Reforged. You won’t be able to play multiplayer unless you can set up a LAN connection, but the original game is an experience you don’t want to miss.

Sid Meier’s Gettysburg!

Game design is a collaborative discipline. Calling any one person the father or mother of a given genre is often a misnomer; any game is the product of a driven team of passionate people. But if you had to call one person the father of the computer strategy game, it’d be Sid Meier. He invented the modern 4X game with Civilization, and perfected it over the years with games like Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. So when he tackled the RTS, it’s no surprise that he did so with the same quality and attention to detail that characterized his earlier games.

Sid Meier’s Gettysburg! is a historical RTS about the American Civil War battle of Gettysburg. There are a number of scenarios you can play, individually or as a linked campaign. You can attack from trees, rally around a general, entrench troops, and plan out numerous different strategies. And the Civil War setting means that combat is simple and brutal: you’re not constructing death lasers, you’re leading humans with cannons. It’s simple to play, but hard to master. It’s an engrossing experience and was both a commercial and critical success. After Gettysburg!, the engine was used for several Napoleonic War-themed games by a different studio, and Firaxis made a followup game about the Battle of Antietam a few years later.

The multiplayer mode and modding community of Gettysburg! are some of its standout features. Civil War buffs are some of the most dedicated (dare we say obsessed?) people on Earth, and the game’s modding community has stepped up to make the game as accurate as possible. There are mods that improve the soldiers’ uniforms, the artillery, and the flags; there are mods that change the battlefield so you’re playing through different battles, and even entire modded campaigns that let you play through the Seven Days’ Battles or the Battle of Valverde. And despite the games’ original multiplayer servers shutting down years ago, the fanbase has made it so that you can continue to play the game with friends nearly 30 years after release. It’s a classic that’s gone under the radar, and it’s worth giving it a look if you haven’t already.

Rome: Total War

If you’re remotely interested in strategy gaming, you’ve probably heard of the Total War series. There is a Total War game for just about every battlefield, from Warring States Japan to Warhammer Fantasy. The series’ mix of turn-based grand strategy and intense real-time strategy is compelling and addictive. Your success in battle directly impacts how well you can play on the world stage, and your success on the world stage determines what you have to work with in battle.

Total War: Rome is one of the best-regarded games in the series. But that’s with good reason: the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire lend themselves beautifully to a game like this. You play as a Roman family jockeying for influence as “the ancient world’s only superpower turn[s] on itself”, fighting for control of settlements, controlling armies as a general, and engaging in diplomacy with other families. (And, as this is Rome, ‘diplomacy’ is often a euphemism for ‘assassination’). Your ultimate goal is to take control of Rome and become the Imperator, or Emperor, but you’ll face many challenges along the way. Generals die or go crazy, family members die, and cities revolt. You’ve got to hold onto what you have, while snapping up more power and territory. It’s a knife-edge that’s difficult to balance, and the cost of every mistake in one game mode affects the other.

The DLC and modding scene for Total War: Rome give you even more options. The two DLC put you in different historical eras: one campaign lets you play as Alexander the Great, conquering your way through Persia, while the other lets you take control of the barbarian nations of Europe during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. When you combine all this with the modding scene, which heavily focuses on making the game more historically accurate and fleshing out more scenarios to explore… you can play real-time strategy battles that cover most of the ancient world. You can play as any faction from the Kingdom of Israel to the Spartans, and you can conquer the world to India. Or just construct a stargate, if that’s more your speed.

The Total War series is a pillar of RTS gaming for a reason, and this is the one that critics like best. Check it out any way you can.

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings

Yet another game that routinely makes the list of “the best games of all time”, and once again, it’s for good reason.

Age of Empires II is a historical RTS set in the Middle Ages, starting in the Dark Ages and ending somewhere around the Renaissance. The game shipped with 5 different campaigns, each covering a different historical period– everything from William Wallace and Joan of Arc to Saladin and Barbarossa. You could also play a match in a randomly generated world, or play a number of special game modes like Deathmatch and Regicide. You’ve got the usual trappings of the RTS: managing your resources, managing your population, managing your units. But in AoE2, everything in the genre’s been polished. The original game lets you control one of thirteen playable civilizations, and future expansion packs added even more. You can reach one of three goals: control the map by wiping out your opponents, control all relics placed on the map, or build a grand structure known as a Wonder. Each of these goals requires a different playstyle… and of course, your opponents might go for any of them.

The thing that impressed reviewers upon the game’s original release — and the thing that continues to impress players, to the point where the game is getting expansion packs and DLC content to this day — is its scale and the care with which each civilization is rendered. There’s a plethora of civilizations, and all of them feel unique and interesting, especially when you take into account the game’s expansion packs. Their units, buildings, Wonders, and music are all distinct. Some of the buildings, according to Alex Costantides of Computer and Video Games, are “so grand you’ll even feel guilty about burning them to the ground”.

If you like RTS gaming at all, and you haven’t checked out Age of Empires II, you should add it to your list. It’s one of those games that’s shaped the genre, and it’s been remastered so modern players can enjoy it, no matter what hardware they’re using.

Myth: The Fallen Lords

The further down we get onto this list, the murkier it becomes whether a game is an “RTS” or not. Metacritic likes to put any unpausable game that has strategy elements into its “real-time strategy” category, regardless of whether it’s an RTS. Sometimes it unquestionably screws up. So where does a real-time tactics game like Myth belong? Well, we think it belongs on this list, both because it helped push the RTS genre forward and because it’s one of Bungie’s non-Halo titles that could use a little extra love.

Myth is a real-time tactics game. In story mode, you play as forces of the Light taking on the evil Darkness; in multiplayer, you can play as either Light or Dark. You don’t have to worry about economic macro-strategy or unit-construction micro; instead, you start each battle with a predetermined number of units, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Gameplay mostly consists of marshalling your units and having them attack the enemy in clever ways. But that’s not the only thing you need to worry about. For one thing, Myth was one of the first RTS games to feature a 3D battlefield; you have to pay attention to the curvature of the terrain, and the physics of your movement and attacks. You have to contend with friendly fire, weather conditions, and missed projectiles. It’s a detailed simulation, especially for the time. It’s hard as nails with computer opponents. Against a skilled player in King of the Hill or Steal the Bacon mode? You’re going to have an interesting time.

Unless you’re only here for the base-building, if you like RTSes, you’ll probably enjoy Myth: The Fallen Lords. The game’s been imitated many times, but rarely surpassed. And a dedicated fan community has kept the game alive with ports to modern hardware, bugfixes, and mods, so you can still play it today.

Pikmin 2

It says something about the quality of all the games we’ve mentioned so far that it took us this long to get to Pikmin. Nintendo’s family-friendly, quirky take on the RTS regularly makes lists of the best games of all time, and for good reason. In aesthetic, gameplay, and general vibe, it’s different from anything else on the market. An RTS focused more on cooperative play than competitive play is a hard sell, but it’s definitely part of the genre.

Shigeru Miyamoto, the game’s lead designer, was famously inspired by ants when creating Pikmin. He wanted to create a game where players worked cooperatively to reach a goal instead of destroying each other. And in the Pikmin games, you do just that. As the rotund Captain Olimar, you command an army of adorable plant creatures called Pikmin. Your company’s in danger of bankruptcy; you must save the day by collecting bottle caps, rubber ducks, and other debris from a distant Earth-like planet.

You plant different kinds of Pikmin, let them grow, and explore the level. Pikmin come in different colours, and different-coloured Pikmin are better at different things: red Pikmin are fire-resistant, blue Pikmin don’t drown as easily, and so on. Along the way, you’ll fight enemies, including several large bosses that require you to strategically marshal your Pikmin to defeat them. But while the bosses are exciting, the main goal of the game isn’t to kill them — instead, you’re trying to collect objects and bring them back to your ship. You need to keep your Pikmin safe, because different objects require different amounts of Pikmin to carry them. A lot of the strategy of the game is trying to figure out how to keep your Pikmin alive and working together while carrying the object back home. At the end of the day, you need to race to get your Pikmin back to your ship — any Pikmin left behind will get eaten by predators in the night! It’s an engaging gameplay loop that will last you through the story, and several other modes (including a competitive multiplayer mode) keep things fresh long after the story’s over.

Pikmin is not your typical RTS, but it’s a game that fans of the genre will enjoy. If you like the micro side of RTSes and want to play something that’s a little more laid-back? Pikmin’s the game for you.

RTS games require skill, speed, and strategy; the combination of all three makes the genre incredibly rewarding. Whether you like slow, deliberate macromanagement, or fast-paced micromanagement, tactics without base building or base building without tactics, there’s an RTS out there you’ll enjoy — and we’ve listed some of the best for you to try.

Did we miss an RTS that you care about? Do you agree with Metacritic that Black and White should count as an RTS? Let us know down in the comments.