10 – Dungeons 3
Released in 2017, Dungeons 3 is one of the most unique strategy games ever made, and one that I don’t see being talked about enough, so I hope this will shine some light on this modern cult classic. A mix between Dungeon Keeper and Age of Empires, players act as evil Dungeon Lords that create dungeons to keep away those pesky adventurers, while amassing a dark army of the most hideous and profane creatures to destroy the beautiful overworld. While this sounds dark and edgy, the game is everything but that. It’s silly, quirky, and even downright hilarious at times, with the game’s campaign being accompanied by the sardonic delivery of Kevan Brightin, better known for its work as the narrator of The Stanley Parable. On top of all that, the dungeon-building aspect is excellent, and juggling between keeping your fortress of darkness safe from wannabe heroes and when to strike above is a gameplay loop that never gets old.
9 – Empires: Dawn of the Modern World
Considered to be a cult classic by many, yours truly included, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World was helmed by Rick Goodman, the co-founder of Ensemble Studios and lead designer of the original Age of Empires. Just for clarification, that’s the same Rick Goodman who led the design of Empire Earth. In fact, Empires was created as an effort to improve upon the foundation of Empire Earth. It stripped the game’s 14 eras down to just 5, and made each era matter a lot more, and made each nation’s playstyle fundamentally different from one another. I personally enjoyed Empire Earth’s wider scope a lot more than this, but I had plenty of fun with the World War 2 campaign!
8 – Age of Empires: Definitive Edition
Yeah, I know, putting the first Age of Empires here might be a bit of a cheeky move on my part, but here’s the thing: A lot of you have played AoE 2, but never gave the original title the time of your day. While I could see the case for that until the release of the 2019 Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, there’s no excuse for you to not experience the game that kickstarted the whole franchise, especially when this edition only goes for 20 dollars, and improved every aspect of the original, packaing the whole content together in a nice, beauutifully rentered 4K package that will have yoiu experience the early moments of Human History.
7 – Starcraft 2
If there’s a game on this list that can rival the popularity of Age of Empires 2, it’s got to be StarCraft 2. Since its release, SC2 became known as the gold standard for the RTS genre as a whole, and its multiplayer scene alone catapulted Esports and Twitch to new heights. It still ranks as one of the most played strategy games, especially if we’re talking about competitive play. With unmatched mechanical polish, some of the best asymmetric faction design in RTS history, and a masterclass of a singleplayer experience, all contributed to turn SC2 into the phenomenon it became, and a game that’s considered by many to be the best the RTS genre has ever seen, and it’s hard to argue against that. Now a free-to-play game, you have complete access to its competitive scene, and even the entire Wings of Liberty single-player campaign, which consists of 26 missions. You read that right, it’s free.
6 – Red Alert 2
Red Alert 2 came out just a year after Age of Empires 2, and it’s incredible that these two games, developed by two different teams (RA2 was put together by Westwood), were so similar and high-quality. We were eating well back then, and we knew it! In fact, I’ll let you know in a personal story of mine: Red Alert 2 was the second strategy game I have ever played, with the first one being the titular AoE 2. That’s right, the first two games installed on my first PC, a powerful Pentium 4, were these two classics. Red Alert 2 is such a gem, it’s hard to fault it: the art style is gorgeous, the campaign is crazy in the best possible way, the unit design is wild, and the B-movie feel of its FMV cutscenes is so iconic; gamers got upset at Tempest Rising for not having those! I know that somewhere out there, an alternative reality exists where the Red Alert franchise is still being released to this very day.
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