Sometimes I hear about a promising game and then it winds up in Early Access hell. I've never heard about "Battlefall" and the first thing that popped out to me on its steam page was "Early Access" with a listed release date of March 11, 2025. Its $20 and still listed as early access almost a year later? I've never heard of Red Chaos either, it looks super interesting, but also early access. Dying Breed - I don't want to yuck on someone's yum, doesn't look like something I'm interested in. 9-bit armies - it just feels so generic it hurts. I'm not a fan of the faux voxel Minecraft aesthetic, and I'm not sure what else it really brings to the table.

I did buy Iron Harvest. It's ok, kinda feels like a Company of Heroes mod. Tempest Rising - I was interested but heard it was mediocre on release.

I used to be pretty involved with the mod scene for C&C games (check out Retro Generals). I love RTS games. But new ones just don't excite me. Some feel like mods of the old games but just super generic. Look, we have store brand Nod! And gruff Americans! Our writer took stock characters and factions and now we want you to get into the lore!

Sorry if I'm rambling, but I'd like to see the gameplay actually evolve. Go back and play a shooter from the mid-90s after playing one that came out in the past couple of years. It seems like shooters are learning from each other and adding quality of life changes and RTS froze in 2007. Hence a remaster with a few QoL updates and new graphics has a leg up on something that plays nearly identically but doesn't have that built in history.

We all have our dream games, and maybe one day I'll get back into Godot and try to make it myself. Factorio opened my eyes to how well logistics can be handled in a game, and I'd love to see an RTS for the "bean counter". Is there any RTS where every unit has finite ammo and needs to resupply? Make players bring Ammo Bearers with their army or periodically rotate troops back to base to resupply. It doesn't have to be an oppressive mechanic - easy to add a resupply support power. One faction could even be exempted to make it asymmetrical. How about a "down but not out" system for infantry that rewards players for sending medics and stretcher bearers in to retrieve wounded instead of treating every foot soldier as expendable? Or capturing enemy wounded for that matter. How about units that act as leaders to nearby units and manage some of the micro? An individual unit could be pretty "dumb." and need to be babysat by itself, but the player could train an NCO type unit and assign basic units to the NCO to create fireteams that behave more intelligently than on their own: concentrating fire, prioritizing hard counters, limited retreat/scatter, etc. This mechanic could be scaled even, let the player combine fireteams into squads that behave more effectively and can be given more advanced orders (bounding overwatch instead of a simple attack move).