4 – Total War: ROME REMASTERED
If my cousins and I were spending days amassing troops and planning sieges in Stronghold Crusader, it was Rome: Total War that had me daydreaming during classes, excitedly waiting for my Friday nights. I would be allowed to jump onto my computer as soon as I got home and start playing, a cycle that would often go on for the entire weekend. What sets Rome apart for me, and what convincingly earns its spot on this list, is that it was the first time a video game ever managed to convey the scale of a real battle. No longer were we limited to the 200-unit limit of Age of Empires II or the smaller maps of Empire Earth; we now had thousands of units on screen, huge open maps, big cities to siege, and a variety of biomes and weather conditions to deal with. Battles were complex affairs, units would gain veterancy and change the way they behaved, tactics were realistic, and the gameplay loop of building your empire and fighting battles was so addicting. To this day, I still think that Rome hasn’t aged a day, and it remains as good a video game right now as it did when it first came out, especially if you play the Total War: ROME REMASTERED version.
3 – Company of Heroes
What more can I say about Company of Heroes that hasn’t been said before? This was the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game that changed the world for me. No longer was I limited to units fighting in a line where, more often than not, the tactics employed were essentially just to doom-stack the maximum number of units possible and avoid any area-of-effect damage. In Company of Heroes, cover had a massive impact on your tactics. Units would run and take cover behind walls, buildings, and vehicles, exchanging fire in a realistic way to fix each other in place while flanking maneuvers were taking place to overcome said defenses. For the first time, a World War 2 video game felt right. Units were fighting as they were supposed to, instead of just playing glorified line battles with World War 2 uniforms. The series was so successful that it went on to birth two major expansions (Tales of Valor and Opposing Fronts) and two more games in the series, with Company of Heroes 2 becoming the most played title in the franchise, and Company of Heroes 3 still active and quite a good game in 2025. Still, I would like to give a shoutout to Men of War series as well, because those games are as amazing as Company of Heroes, but just didn’t had the same level of impact on me.
2 – XCOM: Enemy Unknown
I had a very hard time placing XCOM: Enemy Unknown on this list. On one hand, it’s quite possibly one of my favorite games of all time—if not my absolute favorite—but it’s also hard to deny the first game on this list had a lot more impact on me personally than XCOM. For that reason alone, it’s going to be in second place, though they could very well be interchangeable. XCOM is the best turn-based strategy game ever made, and not even the second entry in the franchise truly matches the iconic remake of the 90s original. This game single-handedly revived the turn-based strategy genre (and arguably, the whole strategy genre), turning it into a mainstream genre beloved by millions around the world. The gameplay loop of fighting an alien invasion on a grand scale, with all the necessary management involved to keep things running smoothly, all the while engaging in the best turn-based fights you can find, is simply unmatched by any other game. The percentage hit memes, the senseless and unfortunate deaths of beloved squad members, and the difficulty of playing this game in Iron Man mode all contribute to making it so special and unforgettable. I don’t think any game will ever match the impact XCOM had any time soon.”
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