10 – The Last General
For a game that’s being developed by a single guy, The Last General is an impressive undertaking, and it’s set to come out this year, still. So, what is it? It’s supposed to be a large-scale RTS where the player can command thousands of units across massive battlefields, establish economic systems, manage logistics, and build their forces. In my head, I’m imagining something like WARNO or Broken Arrow, but with the scale of something like ARMA. From the screenshots and trailers, the game is going to feature aircraft, helicopters, tanks, and infantry, with every branch of the armed forces being represented here. What makes me hopeful that the game will be rather good is the fact that the game’s trailer is remarkably smooth, something we don’t see very often, especially in indie projects. I’m putting it at number 10 because I love the idea, and the game’s development looks like it’s moving at a relatively fast pace, but I need to see a full mission to make my final decisions if this is something I really want to play.
9 – Mars Tactics
Mars Tactics was delayed in April until the end of 2026, and while that’s kind of a bummer, it’s best for a game to come out late and be good, than to be released way to early and being trash, and the developer was transparent, on a Steam devlog, to tell us that the playtesters found a lot of friction while interacting with the whole plethora of system on display in the game, with things like logistics, production, research, and even diplomacy between Earth and Mars being simulated here. While the core systems won’t change, the developer is currently polishing, doing balancing, and bug fixing. I’m actually happy that Hooded Horse is the kind of publisher behind Mars Tactics, because having played it, there’s some real potential in its turn-based combat with fully destructible environments, and the strategic layer also sounds very promising, but I cannot attest to that, having not played it before.
8 – Total War: Medieval 3
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Total War: Medieval 3 will only see the light of day in late 2027, if that, but I’m keeping it here, manifesting it into existence. And that’s all there is to it. We have very little information available on what the final features are going to be, but Creative Assembly has been doing a phenomenal job of showcasing the game’s evolution on their regular catch-ups with the community, and the reception of that format has been widely praised by players, yours truly included. Here’s what we know: The game is going to be set between 1140 and 1440, the campaign will have over 300 turns, unique faction design, and the game is going to be a tad more detailed when it comes to its military side, with discipline, cohesion and moral being factors in the fight, and a modular unit design for the early-game armies, representing the local levies, and a transition towards professionalism, with unique traits transitioning. The recruitment system is set to resemble Total War: Three Kingdoms.
7 – Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Deathwatch
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Deathwatch’s announcement really came out of nowhere, but I’m glad it did, because the first game was an amazing XCOM spinoff wearing a 40K skin, and it was all the better off because of it. My hopes for the Deathwatch are that the team doesn’t mess around too much with what they had going on, and just add more units and equipment, more maps, new challenges, and more enemies. To their credit, it looks like they’re doing just that. At least, their announcement and screenshots mention seven district enemy factions, including but not limited to the T’au, Orks, and the Genestealer Cults.
6 – Kriegsfront Tactics
Of all the games I have played in this list, no other title impressed me as much as Kriegsfront Tactics, a game that looked cool, yes, with its PS1-style graphics, but nothing in it aside from the art really stood out to me. One faithful Sunday afternoon, being bored, I decided to give its prologue a go, and what I found was one of the best turn-based strategy games I had played, period. It somehow manages to make mechs not an overly complicated mess of excessive controls and micromanaging, and focuses only on what’s interesting: customization and module damage. Build your mechs as you want, and you can mix and mash plenty of different parts together, and then take them to combat. During combat, you’ll not only be doing the regular turn-based shtick of moving and finding good firing positions, but also choosing which limbs to target, to either incapacitate or drastically reduce the enemy’s fighting ability. It just works so damn well. Don’t believe me? Go play it for yourself!
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