5 – D.O.R.F.
As a Red Alert 2 fan, I cannot overlook D.O.R.F., and I already know that I’m going to love this one just on the merits of its art style alone. And what a time we’re living in for strategy games, eh? Where things like D.O.R.F. are not only possible to be done independently, but they’re also picking up wishlist right, left, and center, with players praising the game at each update they release. I’m a sucker for all of the games that embrace the silliness of gaming, are way over the top with their unit designs, and would much rather have super crazy, memorable units instead of perfectly balanced, but boring factions. This is what D.O.R.F. looks like; it’s shaping up to be. While there’s no extensive gameplay footage of it, I have high hopes for it.
4 – Game of Thrones: War For Westeros
To this day, it still makes no sense that it took a gaming company 7 years after the season 8 finale of Game of Thrones to come up with an RTS set during the war for the Seven Kingdoms. If you’re like me and have never lost hope, you can smile knowing that Game of Thrones: War For Westeros is set to come out this year, and is going to have a single-player dynamic campaign with grand strategy elements as you fight your way to sit at the Iron Throne. While there’s no set release date, I’m expecting to see a lot more of the game unveiled as we approach the busy gaming season of September, October, and November. As a side note, the game is being built by the same team that worked on Age of Darkness: Final Stand, a solid 7/10 strategy game that had a very nice campaign. Fingers crossed for this one.
3 – Dawn of War 4
Dawn of War 4 has locked in a release date recently, and it’s finally coming out on September 17th, 2026. Being developed by the team that did a pretty neat job with Iron Harvest, DoW4 set its sights on taking the beloved franchise back to its roots, and it’s aiming to be a traditional RTS with base-building and squad-based combat. There’s a massive focus on single-player, with a narrative campaign spanning over 70 missions, and during the Warhammer Festival, it was announced that the game is going to feature a dynamic Crusade mode, the fan-favorite one that originated with the Dark Crusader expansion for the first game of the series. It’s essentially an endless mode that mixes the traditional RTS battles with an overarching dynamic campaign focused on conquest, resource management, and all that good stuff that is more similar to Total War than anything else.
2 – Star Wars: Zero Company
I have two favorite franchises in the media. The first one is Star Wars, which is my favorite movie franchise of all time, and the second one is XCOM, which ranks amongst my favorite experiences in gaming. Well, put those two together to get Star Wars: Zero Company, and it’s no wonder that it’s so high up on the list. Being developed by some of the core team that was involved in creating XCOM, I have a ton of expectations for it. Giving me the capability to create my own galactic covert operation squad with Mandalorians, Jedis, and specialist Clone Troopers is exactly the kind of game I need to finish 2026 on a gaming high note. I’m hoping that we start seeing more of it in the following weeks, as the game starts building up for its release.
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