Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to play. The term "real-time strategy" was coined by Brett Sperry to market Dune II in the early 1990s.
Command & Conquer (C&C) is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game franchise, first developed by Westwood Studios. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' influential strategy game Dune II and introducing trademarks followed in the rest of the series. This includes full-motion video cutscenes with an ensemble cast to progress the story, as opposed to digitally in-game rendered cutscenes. Westwood Studios was taken over by Electronic Arts in 1998 and closed down in 2003. The studio and some of its members were absorbed into EA Los Angeles, which continued development on the series.
Total Annihilation is a science fiction real-time strategy video game released in September 1997 for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS by Cavedog Entertainment and distributed internationally by GT Interactive. Two expansion packs were released in 1998, The Core Contingency on April 29 and Battle Tactics on July 20, while a medieval-themed spin-off called Total Annihilation: Kingdoms was released on June 25, 1999.
Cavedog Entertainment was a PC game developer and publisher based in Bothell, Washington. Founded in 1995 as a division of edutainment game developer Humongous Entertainment, Cavedog was known for the 1997 release of Total Annihilation—which won several accolades, such as multiple Game of the Year honors—considered one of the "greatest games of all time" in 2004 by GameSpot.
StarCraft: Ghost was a military science fiction stealth-action video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It was intended to be part of Blizzard's StarCraft series and was announced in September 20, 2002. It was to be developed by Nihilistic Software for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 video game consoles. Several delays in development caused Blizzard to move back the release date and the game has not materialized. Nihilistic Software ceded development to Swingin' Ape Studios in 2004 before Blizzard bought the company, and plans for the GameCube version were canceled in 2005.
Chris Taylor is a Canadian video game designer best known for Total Annihilation and the Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander series and co-founding the now-defunct studio Gas Powered Games. In 2002, GameSpy named him the "30th most influential person in gaming." In 2019, he revealed he has been working on Kanoogi, a cloud-based gaming platform, and developing his next game, Intergalactic Space Empire.
Dungeon Siege is an action role-playing game developed by Gas Powered Games and published by Microsoft in April 2002, for Microsoft Windows, and the following year by Destineer for Mac OS X. Set in the pseudo-medieval kingdom of Ehb, the high fantasy game follows a young farmer and her companions as they journey to defeat an invading force. Initially only seeking to warn the nearby town of the invasion of a race of creatures named the Krug, the farmer and the companions that join her along the way are soon swept up in finding a way to defeat another race called the Seck, resurgent after being trapped for 300 years. Unlike other role-playing video games of the time, the world of Dungeon Siege does not have levels but is a single, continuous area without loading screens that the player journeys through, fighting hordes of enemies. Also, rather than setting character classes and manually controlling all of the characters in the group, the player controls their overall tactics and weapons and magic usage, which direct their character growth.
Petroglyph Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Las Vegas. It was founded in 2003 by Joe Bostic, Michael Legg and Steve Tall, programmers formerly of Westwood Studios, after that company was closed down earlier that year.
Wargaming Seattle, formerly known as Gas Powered Games, was a video game developer located in Redmond, Washington. The development studio was started in May 1998 by Chris Taylor and several other ex-Cavedog Entertainment employees. In 2013 they became the Seattle studio of Wargaming. Wargaming Seattle was closed down in July 2018.
Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment before being spun out into an independent company in 2004. Through a combination of expanding internal studios, founding new studios and purchasing independent developers, the company has grown to comprise nine first-party development studios, including their flagship Paradox Development Studio, and acts as publisher for games from other developers.
The Spring Engine is a game engine for real-time strategy (RTS) video games. The game engine is free and open-source software, subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.
Sam & Max: Freelance Police was a graphic adventure video game developed by LucasArts from 2002 until its cancellation in 2004, and the final game in the company's adventure game era. Freelance Police was originally intended for release for Windows in early 2004 as a sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road. The game was based on the characters Sam & Max: an anthropomorphic dog and "hyperkinetic rabbity thing" who debuted in a 1987 comic book series created by Steve Purcell. Freelance Police was announced in August 2002, and showcased at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2003. Like its predecessor, Freelance Police was designed as a point-and-click adventure game, but used a 3D game engine in place of the SCUMM and GrimE engines used in older LucasArts adventure games. The project's development was led by Michael Stemmle, one of the original designers for Sam & Max Hit the Road, while Steve Purcell assisted in developing the game's plot and providing artistic direction.
Kingdom Under Fire II was a video game set in a high fantasy setting developed by Blueside which merged real-time strategy (RTS), role-playing game (RPG) and massively multiplayer online game (MMO) genres. The game had a single-player and an online multiplayer mode. The game followed on chronologically from Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, and was the first RTS game set in the Kingdom Under Fire universe to be released since the 2005 Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes. Due to its mass cancellation, most of the 4 platforms were scrapped, and it was Windows-exclusive.
Supreme Commander 2 is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game developed by Gas Powered Games and published by Square Enix as the sequel to Supreme Commander. A Windows-only demo was initially released via Steam on February 24, 2010, with the full game released on March 2, 2010.
Supreme Commander is a 2007 real-time strategy video game designed by Chris Taylor and developed by his company, Gas Powered Games. The game is considered to be a spiritual successor, not a direct sequel, to Taylor's 1997 game Total Annihilation, and also the Spring remake. First announced in the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer magazine, the game was released in Europe on February 16, 2007, and in North America on February 20.
Mega Man Legends 3 is a cancelled video game set to be the sequel to Mega Man Legends 2 and the fourth game in the Mega Man Legends series. It was announced for the Nintendo 3DS on September 29, 2010, during a Nintendo press conference for the 3DS.
Supercell Ltd is a Finnish mobile game development company based in Helsinki. Founded on 14 May 2010, the company's debut game was the browser game Gunshine.net, and after its release in 2011, Supercell started developing games for mobile devices. Since then, the company has fully released six mobile games: Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars and Squad Busters, which are freemium fast-paced games and have been very successful for the company, the first two generating revenue of €2 million per day in 2013.
Amazon Games is an American video game company and division of the online retailing company Amazon that primarily focuses on publishing video games developed within the company's development divisions.
Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age or Sea Power is a video game under development by Triassic Games and slated to be published by MicroProse. One of the developers was also the former head developer of the Killerfish Games game Cold Waters in 2017. It is seen by many to be the spiritual successor to Jane's Fleet Command (1999).
