Strategy Games

The Major Subgenres and Their Benchmarks

Real-time strategy (RTS) demands simultaneous management of economics, unit production, base layout, and combat against an opponent doing the same — in real time. StarCraft II remains the gold standard for competitive RTS, with a design balance refined over decades of professional play. Age of Empires IV brought historical RTS to a modern engine while preserving the series' emphasis on asymmetric civilisation design. Company of Heroes 3 added Mediterranean and Italian theatre scenarios to Relic's acclaimed WWII tactical RTS framework.

Turn-based tactics remove the time pressure. XCOM 2 remains the definitive squad tactical game: permadeath soldiers with names and histories create genuine emotional investment in a genre that might otherwise feel abstract. Into the Breach from Subset Games is smaller in scope but arguably tighter in design — every puzzle-combat scenario has a correct solution if you can find it, with no randomness obscuring the reasoning.

4X and Grand Strategy: The Deep End

Civilization VII launched in early 2025 to mixed critical reviews but strong sales, with many reviewers noting it was the most beginner-accessible entry in the series despite some design changes that alienated long-time players. The three-era structure — Antiquity, Exploration, Modern — changes how leader selection and civilisation progression works in ways that require adjustment from Civilization VI habits but potentially create more varied games.

Europa Universalis V arrived in late 2025 as what many strategy enthusiasts consider the best 4X addition in years — a deeply researched historical grand strategy simulation that extends Paradox's established formula with revised economy and diplomacy systems. For players who've exhausted EU4 (still played actively more than a decade after its 2013 launch), EU5 represents a fresh canvas with familiar foundations.

Crusader Kings III remains one of the most accessible entry points to Paradox's grand strategy ecosystem — its character-driven focus on dynastic drama and personal ambition gives it a narrative dimension that pure map-painting games like EU often lack.

Stronghold Crusader Definitive Edition: The Surprise Hit

One of 2025's most discussed strategy releases wasn't a new IP but Stronghold Crusader Definitive Edition — a remaster of the 2002 medieval castle-building/RTS hybrid that surprised many with its warm reception. The Stronghold series never quite broke into strategy's mainstream during its original run, but the definitive edition demonstrated both that the original design was underrated and that appetite for classic-era real-time strategy with resource management depth remains strong.

2026: Strategos, Task Force Admiral, and Warhammer 40K

The 2026 strategy calendar includes Strategos (a historical wargame targeting the gap between accessible 4X and full grand strategy), Task Force Admiral (naval strategy with a focus on WWII Pacific operations), and Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus 2 (the turn-based tactics sequel to one of the most acclaimed Warhammer games of the previous decade).

The Warhammer licence has been unusually productive for strategy games: Warhammer: Vermintide, Total War: Warhammer, Mechanicus, Battlefleet Gothic, and Necromunda titles have collectively covered most of the game's enormous lore across different strategic formats. The quality variance is significant, but the highest-rated entries in the Warhammer strategy catalogue stand with the best genre examples from any IP.

Crusader Kings III and Emergent Narrative

Paradox's Crusader Kings III (2020) is the best entry point into grand strategy and one of the best examples of emergent narrative in any genre. Rather than simulating geopolitics through abstract resource flows alone, CK3 simulates dynasties of individual characters with traits, relationships, ambitions, and secrets. The result is that a campaign generates stories — a succession crisis triggered by an unexpected death, a dynasty built on a pious founder's legacy gradually corrupted by scheming heirs — that feel authored but weren't scripted.

CK3 sold over 2 million copies in its first week and has maintained active playerbase through DLC expansions covering different regions and time periods. Its approachability compared to CK2 made grand strategy accessible to a generation of players who'd been intimidated by Paradox games previously — and many of those players subsequently moved into the deeper complexity of Europa Universalis IV and, now, V.

Deck-Building Strategy: Slay the Spire's Legacy

Slay the Spire (2019) created a subgenre. The roguelike deck-builder — build a card deck across a run, fight encounters using it, die and try again with different card choices — has been replicated in dozens of subsequent games. Monster Train, Inscryption (which won multiple GOTY awards for its meta-narrative layer on top of deck-builder mechanics), Roguebook, and many others built on the template Slay the Spire established.

The format's appeal is that each run generates a different strategic puzzle: what kind of deck am I building? How do I synergise these cards? When should I spend resources on upgrades vs new cards? These questions have enough depth to sustain hundreds of hours across runs without feeling repetitive, which is why Slay the Spire maintains an active playerbase years after its full release.

Finding Your Entry Point

Strategy games have the widest skill and complexity range of any genre. Introductory titles like Mini Metro, Bad North, or Northgard offer strategic depth without overwhelming systems. Mid-weight games like Slay the Spire (deck-building roguelike strategy), Into the Breach (grid tactics), or Civilization VII (most accessible Civ entry despite mixed reviews) provide meaningful decision-making without 20+ hour learning curves. Full grand strategy — Europa Universalis V, Hearts of Iron IV, Victoria 3 — is a substantial investment, but one that rewards serious engagement more than almost any other format.

Our strategy games collection on pcforest.net is sorted by critic rating by default, surfacing titles that achieved critical recognition regardless of subgenre. Filter by year to see which strategy games were considered essential in a specific period — the genre's output from 2019 to 2026 has been particularly strong.