I’ve spent thousands of hours in the fog of war, from my early days as a kid, through my teen years, and now as a full-grown adult. All my life, I’ve played RTS games. They were my introduction to PC gaming, and still are one of the main reasons why I love strategy games so much. I have played hundreds of games between 1999 and 2026, and to call a game one of the “best of all time” requires more than just nostalgia for crunched-bit audio files or old-school LAN parties like we used to.

That title demands an appreciation for balance, scale, and the delicate dance between base-building economy and military execution that only the best in the business could master. I have decided to do a definitive and well-informed list of the best strategy games of all time, and why each one of these is a must-have and must-play for all strategy fans.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

There’s no other way any self-respecting list about the best strategy games of all time could start. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition isn’t just a basic visual remaster that took the classic and gave it a new face. Oh no. This title set the standard for how you modernize a decades-old RTS without losing any of its magic or altering its gameplay, while still improving on what made it so special.

Built on top of Age of Empires II: Age of Kings, an exceptional and personal favorite RTS of mine, the Definitive Edition kept things intact while also adding native 4K and better sprites (no clunky 3D models here!) for units and buildings. The developers also toned down some of the most outdated aspects from 1999 and added the ability to auto-reseed farms (if you never played the original, you don’t know the pain of having to manually rebuild an entire farm every couple of minutes), shift queuing orders, and easier ways to control what each one of your villagers is working on.

On top of all of that, and with that, I would have been a very happy Age of Empires player; the game has been in constant development since, and hundreds of new hours of campaigns have been added with new DLC, dedicated tutorials for new players, and new civilizations.

Company of Heroes

When Relic Entertainment released Company of Heroes in 2006, it radically shifted the real-time strategy paradigm in a major way, and in a way the genre desperately needed. Similarly, the RTS genre now needs a change in 2026. Back then, traditional RTS games emphasized a lot of base management, APM-heavy worker production, and massive armies clashing in mostly open areas, with terrain playing a very small part in the outcome of a fight.

Company of Heroes turned the genre on its head by grounding its mechanics in historical realism and real World War 2 tactics. Unit position now wasn’t just a matter of lining up correctly, but one of the most decisive factors in combat. Place a unit out of cover, and chances are it won’t last more than a couple of seconds. No more could tanks and vehicles be whittled down by rifle fire. Players had to take into account armor thickness and weak spots to deal with the battlefield’s biggest threats. Artillery also played a massive role, as it did in real life. Buildings and cover could be destroyed, and the battlefield was always changing.

I have recently played through it, and the game still holds up as well as it did 20 years ago. It hasn’t aged a bit. There’s also a fantastic piece of news here. If you enjoy Company of Heroes, you’ll be happy to hear that Company of Heroes: Definitive Edition will be coming out in 2027!

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

It’s hard to believe that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty could be a teenager by now! I could have sworn the game just came out a couple of years ago, and not in 2010! Like Age of Empires II and Company of Heroes, SC2 was another major landmark for the genre, because it single-handedly carried esports from being a minor quest for a couple of hardcore gamers to an international affair that brought together millions of people.

Before its release, there was a lot of anticipation and fear that the game might not live up to the success of its predecessor, but the game not only managed to do so, but to surpass it.

SC2 redefined real-time strategy by launching with the most responsive gaming engine players had ever seen. Units register commands instantly without lag or missed turn rates, turning micromanaging and battles into an art of precision, APM levels, and skill. The game’s asymmetrical faction design led to the creation of a healthy competitive community, with gaming celebrities emerging because of their picks and playstyles. The game’s single-player campaign was equally iconic, with 26 missions that went over the Terran story, introducing the players to the mechanics and units gradually, and it also just so happened to be an amazing story in its own right.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty multiplayer and main campaign are free to pick and play right now, so if you want to play one of the best strategy games of all time, you can do so without paying a penny!

Total War: Shogun 2

I have played all but one Total War game (Britannia, but does that one even count?), so I can consider myself quite an expert to dish out judgement when it comes to this series. My judgement is to tell you all that the best, without even a shadow of a doubt (okay, just a slight doubt because I also love Total War: Warhammer 2), is Total War: Shogun 2!

By the late 2000s, strategy games were trying to be bigger and bigger, and Empire: Total War suffered from trying to model the entire globe by plaguing the game with buggy mechanics, a lackluster AI, and an overall feeling of shallowness to the whole campaign. Shogun 2 went the opposite route and zoomed in strictly on 16th-century feudal Japan, with this new geographical focus allowing Creative Assembly to better polish every mechanic, make the terrain map as detailed as possible, and make the artificial intelligence behave as humanely as possible.

The campaign has players fighting during the Sengoku Jidai and working to establish the everlasting Shogunate and rule over Japan as its military ruler. The game’s campaign-divided mechanic also solved the problem that other games in the series had of making the mid-to-late game a map-painting exercise once the players get enough steam, by making sure that the ruling Shogun orders all other clans to fight you, making the last break for Kyoto a real struggle.

There are an endless number of other reasons why the game is so amazing, so to briefly go over them, let me highlight its elegant rock-paper-scissors combat design, the flawless art direction, and siege battles that are multi-tiered affairs that make those battles a lot more exciting than Rome or Medieval ever did.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Like all other titles on this list, I have amazing memories of playing Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and I can precisely point out the first time I ever played it and how distinct it was compared to other RTS titles, mainly because it had a strange focus on a smaller number of units, but they were powerful. Here’s why.

You see, Warcraft III didn’t just land like yet another RTS game that was just sort of decent. Warcraft III landed and changed gaming history forever in more ways than anybody could have possibly imagined. First of all, Reign of Chaos introduced high-impact Hero units that gained experience and leveled-up abilities, making it nearly as much an RPG as a strategy game. These units forced players to learn and master them, focusing on small-scale combat, but with a ton of depth and a lot of micro-management at a smaller scale than normal.

The game also featured asymmetric factions, a staple of Blizzard design, with Humans, Orcs, Undead, and Elves all behaving differently from one another, as the factions from SC2 do as well. Then we have the fantastic campaign and storytelling tracing the tragic fall of Prince Arthas.

The game’s World Editor was so powerful that it birthed a whole new genre, with Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a map that went on to be responsible for the creation of the MOBA genre. We cannot forget the fact that the game’s story and lore were so interesting that they also went on to be used as a basis for the most successful MMO in history, World of Warcraft. If you want to play Warcraft III today, the best option is to go with Reforged, which just got a new expansion called Forsaken Kingdom!

Which Game Is The Best For You?

All of the games in this article are a reflection of my life, my experiences, and it’s inevitably extremely subjective. I grew up surrounded by history books, a father who loved video games and encouraged me to play whatever I felt like. I was also fortunate enough to grow up during a time when the games I could play were rather limited, and I ended up spending years and years getting to know them intimately, and that shows in my selection.

I think that every game in this list will be good for a majority of readers, and that you won’t regret picking any of these up. I’m curious to know about you, dear visitor. Do you agree with my selection of the best strategy games of all time? What else would you add if this list were yours?

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