Tempest Is Rising, and So Is My Blood Pressure – Tempest Rising
Broken Arrow might be the strategy game that keeps you on your toes the most, but Tempest Rising isn’t far behind and, in fact, few games released in 2025 can make your blood pressure spike quite like it. In the middle of a massive real-time strategy battle, you’re juggling the 50 units you spent the last ten minutes carefully gathering resources for, only to watch everything unravel at once: units dying faster than you can react, defenses collapsing, micro slipping through your fingers, and no clear way to recover. One bad engagement snowballs into total disaster, the mission fails, and suddenly you’re staring at the restart screen, knowing you have to do it all over again. Tempest Rising thrives on controlled chaos, delivering a brutally stressful RTS experience where pressure, pacing, and punishment are always just a second away—and yes, it’s absolutely infuriating in the best possible way.
The “One More Turn at 3AM” – Endless Legend 2
This award only had two contenders this year: It would either go to Civilization 7 or Endless Legend 2, and given the fact that the former could be featured in a list of the most disappointing games of all time, Endless Legend 2 wins by default. Perhaps next year we will have more competition, with Heroes of Might and Magic: Old School Edition looking promising.
“Chainsword First, Questions Never” Award – Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition
One of the things I miss most in today’s gaming is the silliness and over-the-top design decisions that early RTS games used to embrace, and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was the epitome of that. Its base-building and combat design remain unmatched among early-2000s strategy games, the battles are meaty and vicious, and the single-player campaign is downright excellent. Set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Dawn of War is exactly the kind of RTS that lets players rocket-jump straight into a fight, clash with Orks and Chaos, and worry very little about intellectual matters—or morals. It’s either victory at the end of a chainsaw or death for the Emperor. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition is one of the best remasters ever made.
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