The Visual Evolution Of Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy Games


StarCraft II‘s expansion pack, Heart of the Swarm, is already out in some parts of the world, and it’s launching tomorrow in North America. To celebrate, let’s take the opportunity to examine more than 20 years’ worth of real-time strategy history and see how much the genre has evolved visually. Since the StarCraft games are set in Earth’s 25th century, we’re focusing only on RTS games in sci-fi settings.

Herzog Zwei (1990)

Dune 2: The Building of a Dynasty (1992)

Command & Conquer (1995)

KKnD (1997)

Total Annihilation (1997)

StarCraft: Brood War (1998)

Machines (1999)

Earth 2150 (2000)

Dark Reign 2 (2000)

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War (2004)

Star Wars: Empire at War (2006)

Halo Wars (2009)

Supreme Commander 2 (2010)

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (2013)



Were there any real-time strategy games that blew your mind when they came out? Any great-looking unreleased ones you’re really looking forward to? Tell us in the comments below.

Sources: Avtoandlevan’s LP, RTSGuru, Renegade Forums, Acantophis3rd’s LP, Total Annihilation Wiki, TeamLiquid.net, NostalgicGames, DawnOfWarGame.com, LucasArts, HaloWars.com, SupremeCommander2.com, StarCraft Facebook


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


28 responses to “The Visual Evolution Of Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy Games”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *